Why I Am an Agnostic and Other Essays (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780879759407)

Darrow became the defense lawyer in several famous trials, including those of William D. "Big Bill" Haywood, accused of a plot to assassinate the former Idaho governor, Frank B. Steunenberg (1907); of the McNamara brothers, charged with trying to blow up the Los Angeles Times building (l 911); and of schoolteacher John Scopes, on trial in 1925 for defying the Tennessee state law forbidding the teaching of evolution. In what became known as the "Monkey" trial, Darrow's opposing counsel was William Jennings Bryan, thrice unsuccessful candidate for the presidency and, in Darrow's eyes, the champion of religious bigotry. Applying his remarkable oratorical powers, Darrow exposed Bryan as an ignoramus and a fanatic; nevertheless, Scopes was convicted and ordered to pay a nominal fine, although the conviction was later reversed.

Darrow's philosophy was deterministic: human beings are controlled by their feelings, emotions, and desires; this is the result of heredity and environment. Darrow rejected the con-cept of inherent sinfulness, arguing that people should be treated with compassion rather than with vindictiveness. A popular lecturer and writer, Darrow, in several works, in-cluding those in the Blue Book series, decried religious dog-matism and a fundamentalist interpretation of the scriptures, while upholding the values of individual liberty and social justice.

Clarence Darrow died in Chicago on March 13, 1938. Clarence Darrow's published works include the novel An Eye for an Eye (1905), Crime: Its Cause and Treatment (1922), and The Story of My Life (1932).