human dignity, all beauty, all fine and noble things. He was a peasant come home to the dung-pile. Imagine a gentleman, and you have imagined everything that he was not.
The job before democracy is to get rid of such canaille. If it fails, they will devour it.
XV
Round Two
From
The Baltimore Evening Sun
, August 10, 1925
I
The translation of Bryan to a higher sphere was a body blow to the imbecility called Fundamentalism, and its effects are already visible. Not only has the Georgia Legislature incontinently rejected the anti-evolution bill; there has been a marked improvement in the discussion of the whole subject throughout the South. While Bryan lived it was almost impossible, in most Southern States, to make any headway against him. His great talent for inflaming the mob, and his habit of doing it by lying about his opponents, made many Southern editors hesitate to tackle him. In a region where education is backward, and popular thinking is largely colored by disreputable politicians and evangelical pastors, such a fellow was dangerous.
But a dead man cannot bite, and so the Southern editors now show a new boldness. I speak, of course, of the general. A few daring spirits have been denouncing Bryan as a charlatan for a long while, and some of them have even carried their readers with them. I point, for example, to Julian Harris in Columbus, Ga, and to Charlton Wright in Columbia, S.C.âtwo highly civilized men, preaching sense and decency without fear. But the average Southern editor, it must be manifest, has been, in the past, of a different sort. What ails the South, primarily, is simply lack of courage. Its truculence is only protective coloration; it is really very timid. If there had been bolder editors in Tennessee there would have been no anti-evolution bill and no Scopes trial.
But, as I say, the removal of Bryan to Paradise gives heart to skittish spirits, for his heirs and assigns are all palpable fifth-raters, and hence not formidable. In South Carolina, for example, the cause falls to the Hon. Cole L. Blease, who is to Bryan what a wart is to the Great Smokey Mountains. In Tennessee itself he is succeeded by a junta of hedge lawyers, county school superintendents, snide politicians and rustic clergymenâin brief, by worms. It will be easy to make practice against them.
II
The circumstances of Bryantâs death, indeed, have probably done great damage to Fundamentalism, for it is nothing if it is not a superstition, and the rustic pastors will have a hard time explaining to the faithful why the agent of God was struck down in the midst of the first battle. How is it that Darrow escaped and Bryan fell? There is, no doubt, a sound theological reason, but I shouldnât like to have to expound it, even to a country Bible class. In the end, perhaps, the true believers will have to take refuge from the torment of doubt in the theory that the hero was murdered, say by the Jesuits. Even so, there will be the obvious and disquieting inference that, in the first battle, the devil really won.
The theory I mention is already launched. I find it in the current issue of the
American Standard
, a leading fundamentalist organ, edited by an eminent Baptist pastor. This journal, which is written in good English and attractively printed, voices the opinion of the more refined and thoughtful Fundamentalists. What it says today is said by scores of little denominational papers tomorrow. Its notion is that the Catholics, represented by Dudley Field Malone, and the Jews, represented by Darrow (!), concentrated such malicious animal magnetism upon poor Bryanthat he withered and perished. The late martyr Harding, it appears, was disposed of in the same way: his crime was that he was a Freemason. Thus Fundamentalism borrows the magic of Christian Science, and idiot kisses idiot.
But something remains for the rev. clergy to explain, and that is Bryanâs vulnerability. If he was actually divinely inspired, and
The job before democracy is to get rid of such canaille. If it fails, they will devour it.
XV
Round Two
From
The Baltimore Evening Sun
, August 10, 1925
I
The translation of Bryan to a higher sphere was a body blow to the imbecility called Fundamentalism, and its effects are already visible. Not only has the Georgia Legislature incontinently rejected the anti-evolution bill; there has been a marked improvement in the discussion of the whole subject throughout the South. While Bryan lived it was almost impossible, in most Southern States, to make any headway against him. His great talent for inflaming the mob, and his habit of doing it by lying about his opponents, made many Southern editors hesitate to tackle him. In a region where education is backward, and popular thinking is largely colored by disreputable politicians and evangelical pastors, such a fellow was dangerous.
But a dead man cannot bite, and so the Southern editors now show a new boldness. I speak, of course, of the general. A few daring spirits have been denouncing Bryan as a charlatan for a long while, and some of them have even carried their readers with them. I point, for example, to Julian Harris in Columbus, Ga, and to Charlton Wright in Columbia, S.C.âtwo highly civilized men, preaching sense and decency without fear. But the average Southern editor, it must be manifest, has been, in the past, of a different sort. What ails the South, primarily, is simply lack of courage. Its truculence is only protective coloration; it is really very timid. If there had been bolder editors in Tennessee there would have been no anti-evolution bill and no Scopes trial.
But, as I say, the removal of Bryan to Paradise gives heart to skittish spirits, for his heirs and assigns are all palpable fifth-raters, and hence not formidable. In South Carolina, for example, the cause falls to the Hon. Cole L. Blease, who is to Bryan what a wart is to the Great Smokey Mountains. In Tennessee itself he is succeeded by a junta of hedge lawyers, county school superintendents, snide politicians and rustic clergymenâin brief, by worms. It will be easy to make practice against them.
II
The circumstances of Bryantâs death, indeed, have probably done great damage to Fundamentalism, for it is nothing if it is not a superstition, and the rustic pastors will have a hard time explaining to the faithful why the agent of God was struck down in the midst of the first battle. How is it that Darrow escaped and Bryan fell? There is, no doubt, a sound theological reason, but I shouldnât like to have to expound it, even to a country Bible class. In the end, perhaps, the true believers will have to take refuge from the torment of doubt in the theory that the hero was murdered, say by the Jesuits. Even so, there will be the obvious and disquieting inference that, in the first battle, the devil really won.
The theory I mention is already launched. I find it in the current issue of the
American Standard
, a leading fundamentalist organ, edited by an eminent Baptist pastor. This journal, which is written in good English and attractively printed, voices the opinion of the more refined and thoughtful Fundamentalists. What it says today is said by scores of little denominational papers tomorrow. Its notion is that the Catholics, represented by Dudley Field Malone, and the Jews, represented by Darrow (!), concentrated such malicious animal magnetism upon poor Bryanthat he withered and perished. The late martyr Harding, it appears, was disposed of in the same way: his crime was that he was a Freemason. Thus Fundamentalism borrows the magic of Christian Science, and idiot kisses idiot.
But something remains for the rev. clergy to explain, and that is Bryanâs vulnerability. If he was actually divinely inspired, and
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