Seward daily gateway., 1925-07-13
EVOLUTION TO THE FRONT.

We presume there is about as much interest in the trial of John T. Scopes the Tennessee school teacher, which started last Friday, as ill any case be- fore the public or courts for many years. But as we stated heretofore, it does not seem possible that the ends aimed at by both the prosecutor and the defenders-the determination of whether it is right to teach evolution in the public schools-can be reached
 Possibly those lawyers who are bent on gaining immense publicity as oppo- nents or proponents of evolution can so shape the issues as to cause the court to proceed as far as they wish in the matter. Evidently the case will be an extended one and will cost the State of Tennessee hundreds of thou sands of dollars. The courthouse was remodeled and enlarged. Sleeping and eating quarters multiplied, and an unusual number of prominent men are visiting the sleepy little Tennes- see town, the county seat of Rhea county, with a normal population of 1900. Newspapers of national promi- hence have sent their best men to cover the event, and moving picture concerns have their men on hand to portray the events pictorially. One would think that a question of inter- national importance was to be settled instead of the prosecution of a little, dried-up pedagog in a small mountain town in Tennessee for violation of state law. Of course one cannot think of the trial without wondering what issues will develop. What passions and heart-burnings will be released? Already the one preacher of the Meth odlst denomination has thrown up his pastorate because his congregation protested against allowing a preacher or national fame, visiting the town, to occupy the pulpit. The objection to the noted divine was that he was a "modernist" Tn other words that his Ideas were more advanced, or more radical, as you look at them, than those of the congregation. Neighbor IS against neighbor in the town, and the county is split asunder with dog ma and schism.
 All of which leads us to ask. What does 1t all mean"" Of course, one cannot think of the theory of evolu. tlon without thinking of the great English scientist, Darwin, who first propounded the theory.
 Darwin's theory of the origin of man is that all existing forms of life descended one from the other, from a very low form of life, such as the amoeba, small organism living in water, fossil remains of which are to be found in chalk and limestone for nation; that plants and animals. in- stead of being specially created and oAoAohSOdUlc, are constantly chang ing thru the process of adaptation and environment, and that those better fitted for the conditions of life survice and multiply at the expense of oth- CTS; that man is a scion of a stock common to him and the higher man. like apes, but that apes did not lead on to man. His theory is that both are rom the parent stem, but that it split into two branches, one going back or retrograding into the ape, the other ascending into intellectual man, with imagination and a soul.
 Tn other words the Darwin theory which IS accepted by more or less variation by all modern scientists. is that practically all of the forms of life at this day evoluted or evolved from lower forms going back to the period when 1t was difficult to distinguish