Frederick Jackson Turner's Frontier Thesis

Fighting to Death for the Bible, 1925
From William Jennings Bryan. Fighting to Death for the Bible [William Jennings Bryan's last message; an address prepared for the Scopes evolution trial] Dayton, Tennessee: Bryan Memorial University Association, 1925. Special Collections, Alderman Library, University of Virginia.
Let us now separate the issues from the misrepresentations, intentional or unintentional, that have obscured both the letter and the purpose of the law. This is not an interference with freedom of conscience. A teacher can think as he pleases and worship God as he likes, or refuse to worship God at all. He can believe in the Bible or discard it; he can accept Christ or reject Him. This law places no obligations or restraints upon him. And so with freedom of speech; he can, so long as he acts as an individual, say anything he likes on any subject. This law does not violate any right guaranteed by any constitution to any individual. It deals with the defendant, not as an individual, but as an employee, an official or public servant, paid by the state, and therefore under instructions from the state.
The right of the state to control the public schools is affirmed in the recent decision in the Oregon case, which declares that the state can direct what shall be taught and also forbid the teaching of anything " manifestly inimical to the public welfare." The above decision goes even farther and declares that the parent not only has the right to guard the religious welfare of the child, but is in duty bound to guard it. That decision fits this case exactly. The sate had a right to pass this law, and the law represents the determination of the parents to guard the religious welfare of their children.
It need hardly be added that this law did not have its origin in bigotry. It is not trying to force any form of religion on anybody. The majority is not trying to establish a religion or to teach it--it is trying to protect itself from the effort of an insolent minority to force irreligion upon the children under the guise of teaching science. What right has a little irresponsible oligarchy of self-styled "intellectuals" to demand control of the schools of the United States, in which 25,000,000 of children are being educated at an annual expense of nearly $2,000,000,000?
Christians must, in every state of the Union, build their own colleges in which to teach Christianity; it is only simple justice that atheists, agnostics and unbelievers should build their own colleges if they want to teach their own religious views or attach the religious views of others.
The statute is brief and free from ambiguity. It prohibits the teaching, in the public schools, of "any theory that denies the story of divine creation as taught in the Bible," and teaches, "instead, that man descended from a lower order of animals." The first sentence sets forth the purpose of those who passed the law. They forbid the teaching of any evolutionary theory that disputes the Bible record of man's creation and, to make sure that there shall be no misunderstanding, they place their own interpretations on their language and specifically forbid the teaching of any theory that makes man a descendant of any lower form of life.
The evidence shows that defendant taught, in his own language as well as from a book outlining the theory, that man descended from lower forms of life. Howard Morgan's testimony gives us a definition of evolution that will become known throughout the world as this case is discussed. Howard, a 14-year-old boy, has translated the words of the teacher and the textbook into language that even a child can understand. As he recollects it, the defendant said, "A little germ or one cell organism was formed in the sea; this kept evolving until it got to be a pretty good-sized animal, then came on to be a land animal, and it kept evolving, and from this was man." There is no room for difference of opinion here, and there is no need of expert testimony. . . .These are the facts; they are sufficient and undisputed. A verdict of guilty must follow.
But the importance of this case requires more. The facts and arguments presented to you must not only convince you of the justice of conviction in this case but, while not necessary to a verdict of guilty, they should convince you of the righteousness of the purpose of the people of the state in the enactment of this law. . . .
Religion is not hostile to learning. Christianity has been the greatest patron learning has ever had. But Christians know that "the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom" now just as it has been in the past, and they therefore oppose the teaching of guesses that encourage godlessness among the students. . . .
Christianity welcomes truth from whatever source it comes, and is not afraid that any real truth from any source can interfere with the divine truth that comes by inspiration from God Himself. It is not scientific truth to which Christians object, for true science is classified knowledge, and nothing therefore can be scientific unless it is true.
Evolution is not truth; it is merely an hypothesis--it is millions of guesses strung together. It had not been proven in the days of Darwin; he expressed astonishment that with two or three million species it had been impossible to trace any species to any other species. It had not been proven in the days of Huxley, and it has not been proven up to today. . . .While many scientists accept evolution as if it were a fact, they all admit, when questioned, that no explanation has been found as to how one species developed into another.
Darwin suggested two laws, sexual selection and natural selection. Sexual selection has been laughed out of the classroom, and natural selection is being abandoned, and no new explanation is satisfactory even to scientists. . . .
There is no more reason to believe that man descended from some inferior animal than there is to believe that a stately mansion has descended from a small cottage. Resemblances are not proof--they simply put us on inquiry. . . .

How I learned to Drive a Model-T
In August, 1924, I was seventeen years old. My uncle had bought a new Model T Ford and wanted to sell me his 1916 Model T for $40.00. I bought it, providing he would teach me how to drive it. He said "Pull back the emergency brake, push the first pedal in, feed the gas to it and then when you release-away you go. The middle pedal is to back up and the third pedal is the brake." I left Detroit, Michigan, heading for Mitchells Bay, Ontario, a distance of about 70 miles. His parting words were "Bon Voyage."
About 20 minutes after leaving Detroit, I arrived in the city of Mt. Clemens at Cass Avenue. The light was red, so I put the brake on and the car stalled. I got out and cranked and cranked and cranked and finally got it started. When I got to the next street, the light was red, I stepped on the brake and it stalled. I got out and started cranking and perspiring for some time. By then, the horns were all blowing behind me because back then, the main street was very narrow and they weren't able to pass me. I again got it going and I next came to Market Street. The light was also red. I said "the hell with it" and went right on through.
When I got to the outskirts of Mt. Clemens, there was a railroad track with a very slow moving train. I brought the throttle up as far as I could to slow it down, but no, the caboose was still in front of me and I had to put the breaks on. It stalled. I got out and started cranking and the brakeman who was standing there said "Why did you stall it?" I told him every time I put the brakes on, it stalls. He said "Lift up that emergency brake and then it won't stall." I said "Thank you!"
I headed out of town to 23 Mile Road, a country road, and after a short distance I had a flat tire. I looked and found that I didn't have a jack or a pump so I hailed a farmer coming by who stopped and loaned me a jack and a pump. He waited patiently while I repaired the tube. I went on to Algonac on the St. Clair River. I blew both the tire and the tube as I reached town. I didn't have a spare, so I drove on the rim up to Robert's Landing on the river, put the sign down signaling the car ferry to cross the river and pick me up. The ferry came over and the captain looked at the tireless front wheel and said, "You should have bought that tire in Michigan. They're more expensive in Canada." We crossed over the river and I said, "What do I owe you?" He said "75 cents." I pulled out a fifty cent piece and a Canadian 25 cent bill. The ferry captain looked at it and said, "No, you better keep that."
So, I started on my way to Wallaceburg, Ontario. I soon picked up a hitchhiker. When I arrived in Wallaceburg, I stopped, pulled up the emergency brake and put the brake on. The hitchhiker said, "What are you doing that for?" and I said I do that because I didn't want to stall it. He said, "You don't have to do that. Put your clutch in halfway, with your brake on, and you won't stall it. When you want to back up, you do the same thing, put your clutch in halfway and put your reverse in." I said, "Thank you!"
I went in to Wallaceburg and I pulled into a tire shop, told them that I needed a tire but I didn't have any money. He said "Do you know anyone around here?" and I said, "Yes, the farm right outside of town are relatives of mine." So he called them up and the kinfolk said, "Yes, that's o.k., give him a tire." So the dealer installed it and there I was, hell bent for Mitchells Bay, running on all four tires, with 75 cents in my pocket and the best part...I knew how to drive a Model T.
THE VOLSTEAD ACT
October 28, 1919
The temperance movement to restrict or abolish the use of alcoholic beverages began during the age of reform in the early 19th Century. By the mid 1830s the American Temperance Union, seeing in alcoholic consumption the root cause of many social ills, decided to push for the complete prohibition of consumption of all alcoholic beverages. The Temperance movement met with some success in the years leading up to the Civil War but then fell upon hard times. During the half century following the Civil War temperance was the cause of a small group of zealous advocates like Oklahoma's famous Carry Nation who literally broke up a couple of saloons with her hatchet and led the Anti-Saloon League's activities. During the Progressive Era temperance experienced a resurgence with the rise of the Women's Christian Temperance Union. During World War I, emergency restrictions on the use of grains prohibited the production of alcoholic beverages and provided the temperance movement with an additional boost resulting in the passage and ratification of the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution on January 29, 1919. This amendment required the passage of enabling legislation giving meaning to its phrase "intoxicating liquors." The National Prohibition (Volstead) Act, passed over President Woodrow Wilson's veto, provided that definition and established the enforcement mechanisms and penalties for violation of the federal laws.
Be it Enacted. . . . That the short title of this Act shall be the "National Prohibition Act."
TITLE I.
TO PROVIDE FOR THE ENFORCEMENT OF WAR PROHIBITION.
The term "War Prohibition Act" used in this Act shall mean the provisions of any Act or Acts prohibiting the sale and manufacture of intoxicating liquors until the conclusion of the present war and thereafter until the termination of demobilization, the date of which shall be determined and proclaimed by the President of the United States. The words "beer, wine, or other intoxicating malt or vinous liquors" in the War Prohibition Act shall be hereafter construed to mean any such beverages which contain one-half of 1 per centum or more of alcohol by volume.
SEC. 2. The Commissioner of, Internal Revenue, his assistants, agents, and inspectors, shall investigate and report violations of the War Prohibition Act to the United States attorney for the district in which committed, who shall be charged with the duty of prosecuting, subject to the direction of the Attorney General, the offenders as in the case of other offenses against laws of the United States; and such Commissioner of Internal Revenue, his assistants, agents, and inspectors may swear out warrants before United States commissioners or other officers or courts authorized to issue the same for the apprehension of such offenders, and may, subject to the control of the said United States attorney, conduct the prosecution at the committing trial for the purpose of having the offenders held for the action of a grand jury. . . .

TITLE II.

PROHIBITION OF INTOXICATING BEVERAGES.
SEC. 3. No person shall on or after the date when the eighteenth amendment to the Constitution of the United States goes into effect, manufacture, sell, barter, transport, import, export, deliver, furnish or possess any intoxicating liquor except as authorized in this Act, and all the provisions of this shall be liberally construed to the end that---the use of intoxicating liquor as a beverage may be prevented.
Liquor. . . . for nonbeverage purposes and wine for sacramental purposes may be manufactured, purchased. sold, bartered, transported, imported, exported, delivered furnished and possessed, but only as herein provided, and the commissioner may, upon application, issue permits therefor. . . . Provided, That nothing in this Act shall prohibit the purchase and sale of warehouse receipts covering distilled spirits on deposit in Government bonded warehouses, and no special tax liability shall attach to the business of purchasing and selling such warehouse receipts. . . .
SEC. 6. No one shall manufacture, sell, purchase, transport, or prescribe any liquor without first obtaining a permit from the commissioner so to do, except that a person may, without a permit, purchase and use liquor for medicinal purposes when prescribed by a physician as herein provided, and except that any person who in the opinion of the commissioner is conducting a bona fide hospital or sanatorium engaged in the treatment of persons suffering from alcoholism, may, under such rules, regulations, and conditions as the commissioner shall prescribe, purchase and use, in accordance with the methods in use in such institution, liquor, to be administered to the patients of such institution under the direction of a duly qualified physician employed by such institution.
All permits to manufacture, prescribe, sell, or transport liquor, may be issued for one year, and shall expire on the 31st day of December next succeeding the issuance thereof: . . . Permits to purchase liquor shall specify the quantity and kind to be purchased and the purpose for which it is to be used. No permit shall be issued to any person who within one year prior to the application therefor or issuance thereof shall have violated the terms of any permit issued under this Title or any law of the United States or of any State regulating traffic in liquor. No permit shall be issued to anyone to sell liquor at retail, unless the sale is to be made through a pharmacist designated in the permit and duly licensed under the laws of his State to compound and dispense medicine prescribed by a duly licensed physician. No one shall be given a permit to prescribe liquor unless he is a physician duly licensed to practice medicine and actively engaged in the practice of such profession. . . .
Nothing in this title shall be held to apply to the manufacture, sale, transportation, importation, possession, or distribution of wine for sacramental purposes, or like religious rites, except section 6 (save as the same requires a permit to purchase) and section 10 hereof, and the provisions of this Act prescribing penalties for the violation of either of said sections. No person to whom a permit may be issued to manufacture, transport, import, or sell wines for sacramental purposes or like religious rites shall sell, barter, exchange, or furnish any such to any person not a rabbi, minister of the gospel, priest, or an officer duly authorized for the purpose by any church or congregation, nor to any such except upon an application duly subscribed by him, which application, authenticated as regulations may prescribe, shall be filed and preserved by the seller. The head of any conference or diocese or other ecclesiastical jurisdiction may designate any rabbi, minister, or priest to supervise the manufacture of wine to be used for the purposes and rites in this section mentioned, and the person so designated may, in the discretion of the commissioner, be granted a permit to supervise such manufacture.
SEC. 7. No one but a physician holding a permit to prescribe liquor shall issue any prescription for liquor. And no physician shall prescribe liquor unless after careful physical examination of the person for whose use such prescription is sought, or if such examination is found impracticable, then upon the best information obtainable, he in good faith believes that the use of such liquor as a medicine by such person is necessary and will afford relief to him from some known ailment. Not more than a pint of spirituous liquor to be taken internally shall be prescribed for use by the same person within any period of ten days and no prescription shall be filled more than once. Any pharmacist filling a prescription shall at the time indorse upon it over his own signature the word "canceled," together with the date when the liquor was delivered, and then make the same a part of the record that he is required to keep as herein provide . . . .
SEC. 18. It shall be unlawful to advertise, manufacture, sell, or possess for sale any utensil, contrivance, machine, preparation, compound, tablet, substance, formula direction, recipe advertised, designed, or intended for use in the unlawful manufacture of intoxicating liquor. . . .
SEC. 21. Any room, house, building, boat, vehicle, structure, or place where intoxicating liquor is manufactured, sold, kept, or bartered in violation of this title, and all intoxicating liquor and property kept and used in maintaining the same, is hereby declared to be a common nuisance, and any person who maintains such a common nuisance shall be guilty of a misdemeanor and upon conviction thereof shall be fined not more than $1,000 or be imprisoned for not more than one year, or both. . . .
SEC. 25. It shall be unlawful to have or possess any liquor or property designed for the manufacture of liquor intended for use in violating this title or which has been so used, and no property rights shall exist in any such liquor or property. . . . No search warrant shall issue to search any private dwelling occupied as such unless it is being used for the unlawful sale of intoxicating liquor, or unless it is in part used f or some business purposes such as a store, shop, saloon, restaurant, hotel, or boarding house. . .
SEC. 29. Any person who manufactures or sells liquor in-violation of this title shall for a first offense be fined not more than $1,000, or imprisoned not exceeding six months, and for a second or subsequent offense shall be fined not less than $200 nor more than $2,000 and be imprisoned not less than one month nor more than five years.
Any person violating the provisions of any permit, or who makes any false record, report, or affidavit required by this title, or violates any of the provisions of this title, for which offense a special penalty is not prescribed, shall be fined for a first offense not more than $500; for a second offense not less than $100 nor more than $1,000, or be imprisoned not more than ninety days; for any subsequent offense he shall be fined not less than $500 and be imprisoned not less than three months nor more than two years. . . .
SEC. 33. After February 1, 1920, the possession of liquors by any person not legally permitted under this title to possess liquor shall be prima facie evidence that such liquor is kept for the purpose of being sold, bartered, exchanged, given away, furnished, or otherwise disposed of in violation of the Provisions of this title. . . . But it shall not be unlawful to possess liquors in one's private dwelling while the same is occupied and used by him as his dwelling only and such liquor need not be reported, provided such liquors are for use only for the personal consumption of the owner thereof and his family residing in such dwelling and of his bona fide guests when entertained by him therein; and the burden, of proof shall be upon the possessor in any action concerning the same to prove that such liquor was law fully acquired, possessed, and used. . . .

Freedom of Opinion?

CHICAGOANS CHEER TAR WHO SHOT MAN

Sailor Wounds Pageant Spectator Disrespectful to Flag.

Chicago, May 6 - Disrespect for the American flag and a show of resentment toward the thousands who participated in a victory loan pageant here tonight may cost George Goddard his life. He was shot down by a sailor of the United States navy when he did not stand and remove his hat while the band was playing the "Star-Spangled Banner."

Goddard had a seat of vantage in the open amphitheater. When he failed to stand he was the most conspicuous figure among the throng. When he fell at the report of the "sailor's" gun the crowd burst into cheers and hand-clapping. When Goddard failed to respond to the first strains of the national anthem Samuel Hagerman, sailor in the guard of honor asked him to get up.
"What for?" demanded Goddard.
"Hagerman touched him with his bayonet.
"Get up. Off with your hat."
Goddard muttered and drew a pistol.
With military precision Hagerman stepped back a pace and slipped a shell into his gun.
Goddard started away. As the last notes of the anthem sounded the sailor commanded him to halt. Then he fired into the air.
"Halt!"
Goddard paid no attention.
The sailor aimed and fired three times. Goddard fell wounded. Each shot found its mark.
When he [Goddard] was searched, an automatic pistol, in addition to the one he had drawn, was found. Another pistol and fifty cartridges were found in a bag he carried. He said he was a tinsmith, out of work. Papers showed he had been at Vancouver and Seattle and it was believed by the authorities he had come here for the I.W.W. convention.


Washington Post, May 7, 1919, p. 2.

Sacco and Vanzetti

Sacco's last words before his execution were:

(In Italian) Long live anarchy! (Then, quietly in English) Farewell my wife and child and all my friends. (Looking at the witnesses) Good evening, gentlemen.
Vanzetti's letter is to Sacco's fourteen-year-old son, Dante. It reads, in part:
".... remember always, Dante, in the play of happiness, don't use all for yourself only, but down yourself just one step, at your side and help the weak ones that cry for help, help for the prosecuted and the victim, because they are your better friends; they are all the comrades that fight and fall as your father and Bartolo fought and fell yesterday for the conquest of the joy and freedom for all and the poor workers...."
Vanzetti had a brief conversation with Thompson shortly before he was led to the death chamber. Thompson recalled it as:
In this closing scene the impression ... which had been gaining in my mind for three years, was deepened and confirmed --- that he was a man of powerful mind, and unselfish disposition, of seasoned character, and of devotion to high ideals. There was no sign of breaking down or of terror at approaching death. At parting he gave me a firm clasp of the hand, and a steady glance, which revealed unmistakably the depth of his feeling and the firmness of his self-control.
Vanzetti's last words were first to the warden:
I wish to say to you that I am innocent. I have never done a crime, some sins, but never any crime. I thank you for everything you have done for me. I am innocent of all crime, not only this one, but of all, of all. I am an innocent man.
Then, shaking hands with the warden and two of the four guards, he sat in the electric chair, and said:

Sacco and Vanzetti death masks

Sacco and Vanzetti death masks
I now wish to forgive some people for what they are doing to me.
During the days after Fuller's pronouncement leading up to the execution, demonstrations were held in a number of major cities.
A number of well known writers were arrested for demonstrating, including the poet Edna St. Vincent Millay, and the short story writers Katherine Anne Porter and Dorothy Parker.
The funeral possession was on August 29th, and thousands followed the hearses. Finally, Sacco and Vanzetti were cremated.
However, their story did not end there. At the funeral parlor, a floral arrangement was emblazoned with the banner Aspettando l'ora di vendetta (Awaiting the hour of vengeance), and anarchists were determined to retaliate for the deaths of their martyrs. Six months later, the executioner's house was bombed, though no one was injured. On September 27, 1932, Judge Thayer's home was bombed, but he was unhurt. He moved to his club in Boston, and seven months later died.
About the same time, the noted journalist and critic H.L. Mencken noted in his diary:
"Sedgwick (the editor of the Atlantic Monthly) told me that the Atlantic Monthly article on the Sacco and Vanzetti case, written by Felix Frankfurter, was really inspired by the Lord Chancellor of England. Sedgwick was at a dinner in London, and happened to be put beside the Lord Chancellor. As a good Bostonian, he had always assumed that Sacco and Vanzetti were clearly guilty, but the Lord Chancellor told him that he had doubts about it, and so when Sedgwick got back to Boston he began looking into the matter. He was informed that Frankfurter knew more about the case than anyone else, and so put him to work on the article ... He told me that the celebrated Lowell report was really the work of Stratton. Stratton pretends to be a ballistics expert, and he believes that he has evidence that Sacco actually fired the shot which killed the paymaster. His conviction communicated itself to Lowell and Grant, and so they were prejudiced from the beginning of the investigation ... At the time the Frankfurter article came out ... Harvard was carrying on a campaign to raise money for the Law School, in which Frankfurter is a professor. The rich Babbits immediately served notice that they would give nothing, and poor Lowell was in a quandary."
Diary of H.L. Mencken, February 19, 1932.
Books, poems, plays, paintings followed. Heywood Broun lost his job with the New York World as a result of his vicious attacks on Lowell and Harvard. Sacco and Vanzetti supporters persisted in their grief.
Sacco's wife, Rosina, remarried in 1943, and was still living in 1991. Dante died in 1972. Rosina would not attend her son's religious funeral, or her daughter's church wedding, adhering to her husband's opposition to religion. Spencer Sacco (Nicola’s grandson), a music teacher at a Catholic college, delivered Governor Dukakis's proclamation (below) to Rosina, and to Luigia, Vanzetti's sister. Only a niece of Vanzetti's still lives.
On August 23, 1977, fifty years to the day of the executions of Sacco and Vanzetti, Michael S. Dukakis, Governor of Massachusetts, issued a proclamation that concluded with the words:
Therefore, I, Michael S. Dukakis, Governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts ... hereby proclaim Tuesday, August 23, 1977, "NICOLA SACCO AND BARTOLOMEO VANZETTI MEMORIAL DAY"; and declare, further, that any stigma and disgrace should be forever removed from the names of Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, from the names of their families and descendants, and so ... call upon all the people of Massachusetts to pause in their daily endeavors to reflect upon these tragic events, and draw from their historic lessons the resolve to prevent the forces of intolerance, fear, and hatred from ever again uniting to overcome the rationality, wisdom, and fairness to which our legal system aspires.
They weren't pardoned. That would have been a declaration that they had been guilty. They were --- in a manner of speaking --- apologized to.