The Labor Question - William Jennings Bryan (1908)

"The Labor Question"

William Jennings Bryan

Victor 5540

1908

I don't think highly of Bryan. I am glad he was not elected when he ran for president three times. I refer to more than the silver vs. gold question (Bryan was a pro-silver man).

William Jennings Bryan made a fool of himself and of religion during the Scopes trial in the 1920s.

I refer to the so-called Scopes “monkey trial” in Tennessee. A high school teacher named John T. Scopes was charged with a crime for teaching what Darwin had discovered and carefully documented.

In other words, Scopes violated the state's Butler Act, which prohibited the teaching of evolution in public schools.

Evolution is a fact, but Bryan in court took the opposite position. He said Darwin was wrong. Bryan thought God created the world around 5000 B. C. (or whenever) since the Old Testament implies that Earth has not been around for a long time, give or take a few thousand years. Instead, God created a lot in 7 days around 5,000 B. C. Don't ask about dinosaurs since the Bible knows noting about them.

It turns out that our planet is much older. It seems we should not take the Old Testament literally.

If William Jennings Bryan had argued that the Old Testament conveyed symbolic truths, then I could respect the man a little, but he was a fundamentalist. He argued that the Bible must be taken literally and said Scopes was wrong to present any kind of Darwinian viewpoint to students.

Sorry if I offend you, but the Bible should NOT be taken literally, and Darwin was onto something worthwhile. Evolution is one key to understanding humans and the world.