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A Religious Orgy in Tennessee: A Reporter's Account of the Scopes Monkey Trial
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Item Description...
"The native American Voltaire, the enemy of all puritans, the heretic in the Sunday school, the one-man demolition crew of the genteel tradition." -Alistair Cooke on H.L. Mencken
Fiercely intelligent, scathingly honest, and hysterically funny, H.L. Mencken's coverage of the Scopes Monkey Trial so galvanized the nation that it eventually inspired a Broadway play and the classic Hollywood movie Inherit the Wind.
Mencken's no-nonsense sensibility is still exciting: his perceptive rendering of the courtroom drama; his piercing portrayals of key figures Scopes, Clarence Darrow, and William Jennings Bryan; his ferocious take on the fundamentalist culture surrounding it all—including a raucous midnight trip into the woods to witness a secret “holy roller” service.
Shockingly, these reports have never been gathered together into a book of their own—until now.
A Religious Orgy In Tennessee includes all of Mencken's reports for The Baltimore Sun, The Nation, and The American Mercury. It even includes his coverage of Bryan's death just days after the trial—an obituary so withering Mencken was forced by his editors to rewrite it, angering him and leading him to rewrite it yet again in a third version even less forgiving than the first. All three versions are included, as is a complete transcript of the trial's most legendary exchange: Darrow's blistering cross-examination of Bryan.
With the rise of “intelligent design,” H.L. Mencken's work has never seemed more unnervingly timely—or timeless.
H.L. Mencken is one of American history's foremost journalists. Writing from the turn of the century until the late 1940's for the Baltimore Sun newspaper, he was known for a savage wit, an erudite if salty language, and an iconoclastic outlook that saw through politicians and fads with fearless abandon. He died in 1956.
Editor Art Winslow writes frequently for the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, and Bookforum, and was, for many years, Literary Editor and Executive Editor of The Nation. |
Item Specifications...
Pages 232
Dimensions: Length: 0.75" Width: 5.75" Height: 7.75"
Weight: 0.65 lbs.
Binding Softcover
Release Date Sep 1, 2006
Publisher Melville House
ISBN 1933633174
EAN 9781933633176
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Availability 8 units.
Availability accurate as of May 22, 2012 09:31.
Usually ships within one to two business days from La Vergne, TN.
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Reviews - What do our customers think?
 | On the other hand....There's nothing about the trial Feb 11, 2008 |
The Scope trial would fit into today's world so easily. Each side was absolutely 100% correct and the other side was 100% wrong. Now compromise was even thinkable.
H.L. Mencken was sent to cover the trial and report on it. I always like first hand accounts of historic events, and find them to be best place to get the true atmosphere of what was going on at a specific time or place.
H.L. Mencken's reporting tells almost NOTHING of the trial, and is page after page of blistering indictment against anyone who has the slightest glimmer of faith in their life. He came across to me as a very sad individual.
And to previous reviewers who states: "We need to stop being polite to superstition and H.L. Mencken is a good example to emulate in our endeavors to bring rationality back to our reason-starved nation and planet.", In this case, 83 years later, the roles are now 100 reversed. Any whisper of "intelligent design" or faith be even mentioned in schools is immediately attacked and squashed as fanatically as the evolutionists were in Dayton in 1925.
If you want an indictment of religion from the media circus that was the Scopes trial, this would be an excellent book. If you want to learn anything ABOUT the Scope's trial, this isn't it. | | |  | A Religious Orgy in Tennessee--Then, Today and Tomorrow Feb 4, 2008 |
It's 1925 in Dayton, Tennessee. The state has recently enacted legislation requiring that creationism (known now as intelligent design) be taught in all publicly financed schools. John Scopes, a highly principled teacher and "infidel" refuses to comply with this edict. His defiance becomes the catalyst for one of the most anticipated trials in US history, the Scopes Monkey Trial. Attorney for the defense is Clarence Darrow. State attorney A. T. Stewart is the prosecutor, aided by erstwhile presidential candidate, William Jennings Bryan. Covering the trial for the Baltimore Sun and for posterity, is that acerbic scribe, H. L. Mencken.
In a packed 90 degree courtroom, litigants and audience alike endure 11 days of sweltering heat and blistering condemnation from both sides of the most volatile issue since the issue itself.
Mencken's daily reports from July 10 to July 21 are replete with critism and witticism. His, at times, withering commentary is clearly slanted agnostic. He makes no affectation whatsoever toward unbiased reporting. With his amazing command of the english language, he's more an elegant verbal assassin than news reporter. Mencken leaves no earth unscorched, from the "local yokels" to the "ignoramuses" who purport to govern them. His most potent venom is reserved for William Jennings Bryan. Bryan is seated as a bible expert and witness for the prosecution as he faces off against Clarence Darrow. Darrow presents compelling scientific facts refuting creationism, while Bryan defers to meaningless scripture and ridiculous superstition, advancing neither his cause nor his standing amoung the country's thinking elite.
A Religious Orgy in Tennessee is a compilation of newspaper articles. One should probably be an agnostic and Mencken fan to enjoy it. Also, have a dictionary close at hand. You'll need it. | | |  | Inspirational! Jan 18, 2008 |
| Religious Orgy in Tennessee was like filet mignon for my brain. To think that in 1925 the voice of reason was so strong yet now all we hear are whispers. Chris Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris are all very good, but they don't have the flare and finesse of H.L. Mencken. Yes, he's blunt, but he's right about religion. We need to stop being polite to superstition and H.L. Mencken is a good example to emulate in our endeavors to bring rationality back to our reason-starved nation and planet. | | | | Brilliant...Classic Mencken Jan 16, 2007 |
I am a huge fan of H. L. Mencken and this addition to the library doesn't disappoint. Mencken was one of America's most respected, despised, and feared journalists. As the number one literary enemy of the fundamentalist most of his career, Mencken was in his element at the John Scopes trial that pitted the science of evolution against the mythology of fundamentalist Christianity.
In 1925, Mencken drew the nation's attentions to a trial taking place in Dayton, Tennessee that would test the boundaries of a new law (the Butler Act) that prohibited the teaching of: "any theory that denies the story of the Divine Creation of man as taught in the Bible, and to teach instead that man has descended from a lower order of animals." One enterprising individual set about testing the law by asking a local teacher (a friend sympathetic with the cause) to teach Darwin's theory of evolution. That teacher was 24-year-old John T. Scopes. Lasting eight days in the courtroom and eleven days in total, the weather was painfully hot probably irritating Mencken even more.
Writing for the Baltimore Evening Sun, Mencken's verbal energy and acute wit are stunning (no journalist, pundit, or commentator today even comes close). And much of his sarcastic eloquence comes, of course, at the expense of the key figure at the trial William Jennings Bryan. As the billing promises, these reports are by the most famous newspaperman in American history are vivid, highly intelligent, scathingly honest, and hysterically funny.
Mencken saw the transparent attempt at keeping evolution from being taught in schools contemptible, and the Scopes trial as ample opportunity to ridicule the "yokels," "half-wits," and "buffoons" who believe that man is not a mammal and the earth is less then 6,000 years old. But Mencken left his most venomous criticisms for those representing the prosecution, especially Democratic presidential candidate and fundamentalist Christian William Jennings Bryan. Five days after the end of the trial, Bryan died. In writing one of three scathing Bryan obituaries, Mencken opines:
"The meaning of religious freedom, I fear, is sometimes greatly misapprehended. It is taken to be some sort of immunity, not merely from governmental control but also from public opinion. A dunderhead gets himself a long-tailed coat, rises behind the sacred desk, and emits such bilge as would gag a Hottentot. Is it to pass unchallenged? If so, then what we have is not religious freedom at all, but the most intolerable and outrageous variety of religious despotism. Any fool, once he is admitted to the wholly orders, becomes infallible. Any half-wit, by the simple device of ascribing his delusions to revelation, takes on an authority that is denied to all the rest of us."
"I do not know how many Americans entertain the ideas defended so ineptly by poor Bryan, but probably the number is very large...though they are thus held to be sound by millions, these ideas remain mere rubbish. Not only are they not supported by the known facts; they are in direct contravention of the known facts. No man whose information is sound and whose mind functions normally can conceivable credit them. They are the products of ignorance and stupidity, either or both."
"What should be a civilized man's attitude to such superstition? It seems to me that the only attitude possible to him is one of contempt. If he admits that they have any intellectual integrity whatever, he admits that he himself has none. If he pretends to a respect for those who believe in them, he pretends falsely, and sinks almost to their level. When he is challenged he must answer honestly, regardless of tender feelings. That is what Darrow did at Dayton, and the issue plainly justified the act. Bryan went there in a hero's shinning armor, bent deliberately upon a gross crime against sense. He came out a wrecked and preposterous charlatan, his tail between his legs. Few Americans have ever done so much for their country in a whole lifetime as Darrow did in two hours."
This volume includes all of Mencken's daily reports for The Baltimore Sun, as well as additional stories filed for The Nation and The American Mercury. It also includes his coverage of Bryan's death just days after the trial, plus numerous rare photos, and the full transcript of Darrow's historic cross-examination of Bryan. Oh wouldn't Mencken have a field day with with our fearless fundamentalist leader were he alive today! Alas, journalists like Mencken just don't exist anymore. Highly recommended reading and very contemporary as it seems little has changed in the "bible belt." | | | Write your own review about A Religious Orgy in Tennessee: A Reporter's Account of the Scopes Monkey Trial
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