Fighting Darwinism as a Social Movement – Remembering William Jennings Bryan

I’ve always looked at the ideas of William Jennings Bryan and his part in the Scopes Monkey Trial as a showcase for ignorance and religious intolerance.  It never occurred to me that he might have been fighting a larger battle by taking on the smaller one.

One of the strange offshoots, in my judgment, of the Darwinian idea of Evolution has been its use to justify amoral behavior in human interactions.  Terms like Social Darwinism and Economic Darwinism describe the fundamental idea that we should not have empathy or compassion for those who are tread upon and that it’s natural and correct to have losers in the battle for dominance in everything we do.

Now read a few works from Bryan’s “Cross of Gold Speech” at the Democratic National Convention in 1896, his first run for Presidential office.  This was written in the wake of a Silver depression that he felt was caused by gold magnets in the East at the expense of working folk like Midwest farmers.

“You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns, you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold."

But this paragraph is a direct attack on the idea that the wealthy (winners) are better in some way than the average worker. 

But we stand here representing people who are the equals before the law of the largest cities in the state of Massachusetts. When you come before us and tell us that we shall disturb your business interests, we reply that you have disturbed our business interests by your action. We say to you that you have made too limited in its application the definition of a businessman. The man who is employed for wages is as much a businessman as his employer. The attorney in a country town is as much a businessman as the corporation counsel in a great metropolis. The merchant at the crossroads store is as much a businessman as the merchant of New York. The farmer who goes forth in the morning and toils all day, begins in the spring and toils all summer, and by the application of brain and muscle to the natural resources of this country creates wealth, is as much a businessman as the man who goes upon the Board of Trade and bets upon the price of grain. The miners who go 1,000 feet into the earth or climb 2,000 feet upon the cliffs and bring forth from their hiding places the precious metals to be poured in the channels of trade are as much businessmen as the few financial magnates who, in a backroom, corner the money of the world.

The full text can be found here including a recording made later in his life.

http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5354/

Bryan ran for President twice more and was a driving force in politics through 1912 and began his fight against “Darwinian Theory” around 1905.  But listen to his criticism.

…the Darwinian Theory represents man reaching his present perfection by the operation of the law of hate and the merciless law by which the strong crowd out and kill off the weak. If this is the law of our development then, if there is any logic that can bind the human mind, we shall turn backward to the beast in proportion as we substitute the law of love. I choose to believe that love rather than hatred is the law of development."

In reading this, rather than dispute Darwinian Theory, it’s a cry to fight this impulse within ourselves.  As the years rolled by and Bryan’s eloquence became the voice against evolution, this other battle was hidden and eventually forgotten.

I wish I could have sat with Mr. Bryan.  I would have told him that the Theory of Evolution only described the world around us and it is unscrupulous men who took that framework and used it for their own gains; it allowed them a good night’s sleep because to win at another’s expense was natural law (evolution).  In many ways the idea of Christian Charity embraces natural selection by saying “We are no longer beasts that survive by the tooth and the claw.  We are Christians and our covenant is to protect the weak and the helpless.”  The Christian fight against the evils of the world is the fight to throw off the power of evolution and to proclaim that a new law governs our actions.  Evolution is temptation to do wrong and to treat others without consideration.  I’m sure Mr. Bryan would not deny the existence of temptation and Darwin would not deny the desire to fight temptation in order to do better to our fellow man.

Science and Education are the great equalizers of this world.  They are power on the side of mankind and separate us from the beasts.  Evil works with whatever tool is at hand and history has shown it can work through science or religion.  Morality and Goodness also work best when held by many hands.  Is it Evolution or Christian morality that best describes a Russian Professor (agnostic we guess) who in 1958 convinced the World Health Assembly to tackle global eradication of smallpox?  20,000 doctors, 64,000 public employees and 220,000 volunteers helped a Russian Jew from a working class family in New York develop the Polio vaccine.  When Jonas Salk was asked on television about who owned the patent to the vaccine, Salk replied “There is no patent.  Could you patent the sun?” 

So with my new found wisdom, I hereby forgive William Jennings Bryan for his role in defending Creationism, fighting the teaching of Evolution and his part in the Scopes Monkey Trial.  I see now that he was fighting for Christian ideals over the law of the Jungle.