The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1928-11-17

law is the recent anti-evolution act passed by
the legislature and ratified by the vote of
the sovereign people" The law not only for
bids the teaching that man descended from
ape-like ancestors, from lower animal forms,
but prohibits teachers from so much as de-
filming the meaning of evolution.
Here is the frightful manner in which
Websters dictionary, for instance, mocks the
jay-bird lawyers, the corner store grocers, the
doctors, the well-to-do farmers, the preachers
and middle-class yokelry that make up the
legislature of that benighted state:
''The theory (of evolution) which involves
also the descent of man from the lower animals,
is based on facts abundantly disclosed by every
branch of biological study
What do these defenders of the faith care
about facts disclosed by biological study?
Does not the holy bible say that man was
made as the center of the universe in the
image of god and that everything else, in
Guiding the sun, the MOON the stars, the
planets were of secondary consideration and
solely for the benefit of biped created in
the image of god? 1t would, of course, be
blasphemy to inquire as to which particular
member of the state legislature is the
replica of god.
One thing is certain, the prohibition of the
dictionary in Arkansas will not affect those
engaged in publishing such books. The die
tionary was never used there, anyway if the
utterances of Senator Robinson or the
columns of Arkansas newspapers are any in
dication of the cultural poverty of that state.
In Arkansas and many other southern
states there are vast sections of the popula-
ton that vegetate in the most frightful feudal
conditions For them the night of the dark
ages, when superstition ruled supreme, has
never been dispelled. Though their bodies
are catapulted into the twentieth century
their minds dwell in the thirteenth This de-
plorable condition is reflex of class condi-
lions existing in that part of the country.
The masses of Negroes and poor whites are
slaves chained to miserable strip of land
veritabe serfs. In only few centers of
population is there any indication of break
in the system that has prevailed for a half
century or more.
But in spite of the depravity of the ruling
class in spite of the legalized ignorance that
pervades that country, there are few people
who challenge all attempts to keep a whole
state in the densest ignorance To be sure
most of those who protest are incapable of
effective leadership in fight against such
laws.
Now that the Workers (Communist) Party
has invaded and made its impress upon the
South it is also essential that special atten-
ton be paid to such places as Arkansas.
Within a reasonably short time schools will
be established in such states that will not
merely teach organic evolution, but also So
cial evolution or social science, which can be
nothing other than the science of social re-
volution, or Marxism-L ennism- a word,
Communism.
The prerequisite for the abolition of such
laws is the overthrow of the ruling class
responsible for them. That can be achieved
only through the workers of such places
as Arkansas becoming part of the general
revolutionary labor movement-not by flu
tile individual protest and pleas based upon
so-called freedom of thought.