Jerry Summers
This article will be the first of several that will cover the individuals and events that are or are not part of the real or fictional history of the most famous court proceedings in Tennessee's Dayton and Rhea counties in July 1925, known by many as “The Monkey Trial” (no mention of a monkey in the statute).
In July 2024, the annual celebration of the State of Tennessee v. John Scopes trial will take place. In 1925 a celebration in March at Bryan College, the beginning of the 100th anniversary of the real trial of the century will begin.
George Rappleyea (GR) (1894-1966) was not a native of Rhea County. He was born in New York City and came to Dayton as a metallurgical engineer in the capacity as manager of the Cumberland Coal and Iron Company.
In early 1925, the Tennessee legislature passed the Butler Act that forbid the teaching of the theory of evolution in the public schools of Tennessee. This resulted in the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) placing an ad in the Chattanooga Times soliciting a party or group to challenge the constitutionality of said law that fundamentalists (against the law) and modernists (for the law) in several states were wanting to be interpreted.
Two primary theories will develop as the basis for the legal challenge:
1) Although GR was a Methodist he was in agreement with the idea of the evolution theory, and;
2) the most prominent reason for the defense of the statue was that GR recognized that such a trial could benefit the local economy that was having hard times during the pre-Depression years. The roaring 20s atmosphere had not reached the fundamentalist little village approximately 30 miles east of Chattanooga. An unsuccessful attempt to get the case moved to federal court in the early proceedings by Scope’s initial attorney, John R. Neal was made unsuccessfully.
Another version is that a Chattanooga news article on June 29, 1925, styled “How the Scopes Trial Really Started” reported that GR had sent a telegram to the ACLU requesting legal assistance for the proposed defendant, Scopes.
This version of how the case started also was reported in an account of its origin in the book, “Center of the Storm” (Holt, Rinehart and Winston, New York 1967), when it was reported that GR had conceived the idea after having read in the Chattanooga Times that the Chattanooga Superintendent of schools had refused to sponsor a test case on the anti evolution law, even though the ACLU had indicated its willingness to finance such a case should one arise.
In early 1925 a small group of citizens that included GR, Walter White (superintendent of the Rhea County school system), young lawyer Sue K Hicks (of Johnny Cash fame), and others, met at the Robinson drugstore with druggist and proprietor, Fred Robinson, and made the initial decision to contact the biology and athletic coach, John Scopes, to determine whether he would be the criminal defendant in a test case to determine the constitutionality of the recently enacted law. The Butler Statute will be discussed in the next article in the case that placed little Dayton on national and international pre television and worldwide media.
Another documented tale of how Dayton was the trial location instead of Chattanooga is also a historical story covered by the newspapers in 1925.
PS George Rappleyea would move to Baltimore, Maryland, in 1937 and then to New Orleans in 1939 and would lead a life with other interesting results:
1) He became a vice president of Higgins Boat Industries, a company that manufactured the famous Higgins landing crafts used in World War II amphibious boats used on D Day, on June 6 1944;
2) He would be arrested and pled guilty with others for conspiracy to violate the National Firearms Act by shipping weapons and ammunition to British Honduras and received a one year sentence;
3) He developed Plasmafault, a building material made from molasses, plastic, and sand that was hailed as a breakthrough for inexpensive building materials; and
4) He would die in Miami, Florida on August 29, 1966 and was buried at Arlington National Cemetery in Washington, DC.
(This “Trial of the Century” had many twists and turns, and still does in 2024.)
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You can reach Jerry Summers at jsummers@summersfirm.com