By BONNIE LEE STRUNK

Special to The Press

Having a solid Plan B is crucial, as Lehigh Valley Heritage Museum’s executive director, Dr. James Higgins, demonstrated in mid-March.

When a widely-publicized speaker canceled her lecture the night before the event at the museum, Higgins stepped right up and presented a timely program on what was to become known as “the trial of the century,” the Scopes “Monkey” Trial.

The trial will mark its 100-year anniversary in July.

The 70-plus individuals who showed up at the Heritage Museum in Allentown were not disappointed.

Higgins, who has a Ph.D. in history, has taught the famous trial at universities in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Texas, so he was comfortable and confident with the last-minute switch.

He was quick to point out the real trial in Tennessee was quite different from the dramatic, fictionalized 1960 movie version, “Inherit the Wind,” which many people had seen.

According to Higgins, the trial “was born of the 19th century.”

He provided several examples, including scientific changes in biology, Charles Darwin’s book, “On the Origin of Species,” a general increase in education across all classes, a rural/urban divide (more people in 1920 lived in cities), and the decreased voice of Protestant religion in public life after World War I.

In a nutshell, the American Civil Liberties Union wanted a test case to challenge the Butler Act, a state law passed in Tennessee in March 1925.

The law prohibited the teaching of human evolution in any state-funded schools.

That meant Darwin’s book could not be part of biology classes, even though the book does not discuss origins of life, only origins of species, Higgins explained.

The Butler Act, written by state Rep. John Washington Butler, a farmer and head of the World Christian Fundamentals Association, was put to the test in Dayton, Tenn.

The trial had the support of the town’s businessmen, who thought the publicity would put Dayton on the map and draw a crowd.

That it did, but not in the way the town had hoped or expected.

The trial, officially called The State of Tennessee vs. John Thomas Scopes, was front-page news all over the U.S.

It was also the first trial in American history to be broadcast on radio.

The national press came down hard on Dayton, calling it a “backwater town,” and mocking its citizens as “yokels.”

Part of the draw was the protagonists.

William Jennings Bryan, who ran unsuccessfully for president of the U.S. three times and who served as secretary of state under President Woodrow Wilson, prosecuted the case.

By the 1890s he had emerged as the leader of small-town, God-fearing America.

Defending Scopes, a high school football coach and teacher accused of violating the state’s Butler Act — and who incriminated himself deliberately so the case could have a defendant — was Clarence Darrow.

Darrow was a famous, eloquent criminal defense attorney, as well as a champion of urban unions.

The judge, who began the trial by quoting from Genesis in the Bible, was widely considered biased against the defense.

He disallowed Darrow from calling experts on evolution and allowed only one defense witness.

So, Darrow cleverly called prosecutor Bryan as a witness, referring to him as a “Bible expert.”

Bryan’s responses to Darrow’s questions revealed his doubt about literal interpretations of the Bible, especially when Darrow asked him about the Biblical story of Jonah being swallowed by a whale.

The case was viewed as a theological contest and as a trial on whether evolution should be taught in schools.

Darrow argued that the Bible should be used for theology and morality, not put into a science course.

Initially, Scopes was found guilty of violating the Butler Act and was fined $100, but on appeal, the verdict was overturned.

The trial publicized the fundamentalist-modernist controversy.

Fundamentalists believed the Bible takes priority over human knowledge.

Modernists believed evolution could be consistent with religion.

And courts ruled “intelligent design” is actually a cover for religious instruction.

Just one week after the famous trial ended, Bryan died.

But he, and Darrow, will be forever linked to two widely different approaches to finding “the truth” — Biblical and Evolutionist.

The presentation by Higgins provoked thought and enlightened the audience, fulfilling the museum’s mission of educating its visitors about American history.

Its collections of historical Americana include more than 35,000 three-dimensional objects, 3 million documents and more than 200,000 vintage photographs.

Lehigh Valley Heritage Museum, 432 W. Walnut St., Allentown, is part of Lehigh County Historical Society and is open Tuesdays through Saturdays.