What Would Scoop Jackson Do?
“Probably the opposite of what Jesus would do,” says Jeff Taylor. Take a look at Bill Kauffman’s review of Taylor’s new book Where Did the Party Go? William Jennings Bryan, Hubert Humphrey, and the Jeffersonian Legacy.
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August 7, 2006 at 4:47 am
Kaufman’s discussion of Bryan and the Scopes Monkey trial is interesting. There is an interesting debunking of some of the Hollywood mythology that has arisen about the trial here.with some further discussion here.
Despite the brouhaha about ‘creationist’ censorship of Science, the textbook at the centre of the trial, Hunter’s “Civic Biology” would almost certainly be banned from school use today for reasons of political correctness not Biblical incorrectness. I suppose today’s Democrats would be in the lead demanding it’s censorship.
“Civic Biology” argued that “criminality, pauperism, alcoholism, prostitution and feeblemindedness were inherited. It continued that…”Hundreds of families such as those described above exist today, spreading disease, immorality, and crime to all parts of this country…. Just as certain animals or plants become parasitic on other plants or animals, these families have become parasitic on society” (Hunter 1914 p. 263). The text also stated that the Caucasian race is “the highest type of race” (Hunter 1914 p. 196).
(My references are drawn from here.)
Through most of the early part of the century it was mainly Christians, catholics (see for example Chesterton) and protestants who provided the main opposition to eugenics. And we all know where that progressive dream ended up. So it’s possible that Bryan might not of been quite the reactionary hayseed he is presented as today.