New York World
Let us examine the Bryan fundamentalist theory, which comes to a head in the Scopes case in Tennessee.
Mr. Bryan asserts in the first place that the Bible, as interpreted by himself, is the supreme law of mankind. No one has the right to differ with him as to what the Bible means. No one has the right to listen to any doubt as to the absolute literal truth of any interpretation of the Bible which Mr. Bryan may choose to give forth.
Having this established himself as the unquestionable and infallible mouthpiece of the Lord, Mr. Bryan then calls upon the police to enforce the dogma which he may see fit to proclaim. Therefore, as the second item in the Bryan theory, we find it has become the duty of the American Government to enforce the doctrine of a religious sect. Wherever, says Mr. Bryan, a majority can be mustered which has some particular religious doctrine, there that majority has the right by law to make that doctrine the official creed of the State.
In other words, Bryan fundamentalism is a movement to set up an established church in America.
The language in which Mr. Bryan sets forth this amazing and revolutionary doctrine is as follows:
The hand which writes the paychecks should rule the schools. A majority of the people of the Nation believe in the Bible. . . . The teachers are the employees of the tax-payers and should no more be allowed to teach what they personally wish than a clerk should be allowed to dictate the policy of a bank.
Thus, if a majority of the people of a state are fundamentalists the schools of that state much teach what they believe. Liberal Protestants, Catholics, Jews, and free thinkers have no rights which that majority is compelled to respect. The teachers of that State must make science and history conform to the religious opinions of the dominant majority. The children of that state must never, if it can be prevented, be allowed to hear any theory which conflicts with the opinions of the dominant sect. And if the principle laid down in the Oregon School Law prevails, no child in the State may attend any school except those which teach fundamentalism. Since the foundation of this Republic no more menacing attack has ever been made upon freedom of religion.
The issue the Tennessee case is not merely the issue of academic freedom. I tis the much greater issue of whether after a century and a quarter under the American principle that three shall be no State religion, we shall take the first decisive step which leads to an established church. In this Tennessee case years there is revealed at last the full significance of the movement which in these last years has as its spear-point the Ku Klux Klan. That lawless and un-American and unchristian brotherhood has loudly insisted that it was fighting for the preservation of American institutions from religious control. It has instead, as the Origonand Tennessee laws clearly show, been aiming to subject American institutions to control by the fundamentalist sect. Mr. Bryan may protest as much as he likes that he is not a member of the Ku Klux Klan. He is fighting with all the powers he possesses for the fundamental object of the Ku Klux Klan/ He is fighting with all the powers he possesses for the fundamental object of the Ku Klux Klan.
It would be almost healing to the intelligence of the readers of The World to point out how alien toi the American tradition this religious aggression is. It was because the American people di not believe that majorities should dictate in matters of conscience that the Bill of Rights was incorporated in the Federal Constitution and in every State Constitution. It was because the American people rejected the idea of an established religion that the most definite prohibitions were written into the organic law of the land. The fundamentalists under Mr. Bryan’s leadership have decided to strike at this American liberty.
From page 6 of the Concord Daily Tribune, Saturday, June 6, 1925
newspapers.digitalnc.org/lccn/sn92073201/1925-06-06/ed-1/seq-6/#words=JUNE+6%2C+1925
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