Evening star., 1948-07-04
Town Where Scopes
Was Tried Still Profits
From Famous Case
By Stephen TrumbuII

Speeiol Correspondent for The Stor ond th'
Chicago Daily News.
DAYTON, Tenn. July 3.-1t has
been % years since this little noun
tain town had its brief and strange
date with history-but the memory
still is fresh and sweet.
Twisting into the town over the
up and down road from Chattanooga
81 miles to the southwest, tourists
come to an ornate stone entrance
gate which carries the legend:
welcome to Dayton. scene Of the
famous Scopes trial and home OF
William Jennings Bryan University
The line regarding the seat OF
fundamentalist learning is down at
the bottom and almost obScured by
the high grass. The mention OF the
trial is at the top, in larger letters
and there for all to see.
Two of the close links to the
UNIQUE contribution to Americans
still are around the place, and they
would leave to see it happen al
over again. For one of these, the
trial was a matter of religious con-
victions which still hold. For the
other the trial was good business
Drugstore Prospered.
The former is Walter White, ther
and now superintendent of educa.
ton here in Rhea County. He wa:
the one who ordered that John T
Scopes. high school teacher, bt
brought to trial for teaching that
modern man is a product of evolu-
tion-a hereto theory banned by
the laws of Tennessee.
The second is Doc" F. E. Robin
osn in whose then-small drugstore
the plan was hatched to make MI
Scopes the goat of the experiment
in theology and the law.
Mr.. Robinson has made the table
at which this plot was hatched into
memorial, suitably marked with
plaque Few visitors pass without
enjoying the royalty of sitting there
for soft drink or soda. Business
has grown and prospered. The store
has been remodeled and there is an
other nice one at nearby Spring
City, Tenn.
MI. White, now IS, occupies the
same Office in the dingy old Court
house where the trial was held. A
modernistic wood and coal burner
has replaced the old pot-bellieo
stove, but otherwise the scene is
pretty much unchanged.
So is Supt. White unchanged. His
views on evolution and the law have
not been dimmed by % years, ano
he says that if any one else started
teaching that heathern creed today
there would be another trial. There
Is a hopeful bleam in his eyes
as he says it.
Robinson on University Board.
His fondest memory probably is
not the trial itself, but the day he
was privileged to introduce Mr.
BRYAN to his school board.
In addition to his f1ouriShlng drug
trade, Mr.. Robinson is on the board
of BRYAN University The school,
now with an enrolment of 202
stands on a hill just outside town.
It is a direct-and a most welcome
outcome of the trial. Mr.. Robinson
and others Of the civic and financial
minded set here put the bite on
fundamentalist groups all over the
country for the memorial.
The divinity students and their
visitors mean considerable to COM
munity of less than 5000 persons.
A graduation had just passed when
I visited the town and the roomlng
houses and tourist homes were filled
with visiting relatives.
Judge John T. Raulston, who tried
the case. still lives at South Pitts
burgh, Tenn, SO miles away, but in
this judicial circuit Mr.. Scopes, the
principal figure all but lost in the
personalities of Bryan and Defense
Attorney Clarence Darrow, has long
since left the scene and last was
reported to be a geologist with the
Humble Oil Co. in Shreveport, La.
Howard Morgan, the schoqlboy
whose mind Mr.. Scopes was charged
specifically with defling, also has
left the scene. He now is working
in AmerlCuS, Ga, and has two sons.