Page Ten 



EVOLUTION 



July, 1929 



I suppose that most of you have had your attention 

 called lately to what Professor Austin Clark said a 

 little while ago. Professor Austin Clark is a graduate 

 of Harvard University. He was sent on that zoological 

 Venezuela research expedition in 1901. In 1903 he 

 went to the Lesser Antilles on a kindred expedition. 

 He is a member of the Royal Geographical Society, 

 and since 1908 of the Smithsonian Institute staff. 



Now, listen to what he has to say (reading) ; "So 

 far as concerns the major group of animals, the crea- 

 tionists seem to have the better of the argument. There 

 is not the slightest evidence that anyone of the major 

 groups arose from any other. Each is a special animal 

 — complex— closely related to the rest, but appearing 

 as a special and distinct creation." 



Professor La Conte of the Pacific Coast, one of the 

 finest scientists we have had in America, said years 

 ago (reading) : "The evidence is now that these species 

 appear, exist for a certain time, and pass away, to be 

 succeeded by other of a wholly difTerent character and 

 never by transmutation." And when you take trans- 

 mution out of this doctrine, it collapses of its own 

 weakness, as Spencer and others said of it. 



I have never been parading the virtues of Henry 

 Fairfield Osborn. I cannot forgive him the Hall of 

 the Age of Man. It is a hoax, as I am able to prove. 



But, I am going to quote from Professor Osborn 

 and from your Herald Tribune of recent date. Just 

 listen to this (reading) : "The causes of evolution will 

 probable never be known to us any more than the 

 causes of gravitation. 



"Science is coming up agamst a blank wall in biolog- 

 ical sciences and when we do, our studies will be 

 restricted to modes and processes of evolution which 

 we know to exist. If the bones of a man that existed 

 15,000,000 years ago are ever dug up, they will be 

 of a man which has as fine potentialities, fine hands 

 and limbs, not different from ours. Man has his own 

 ancestry." 



Now, listen to this (reading) : "We are rapidly 

 coming up against a blank wall in biological science." 

 How can it be otherwise when they have followed a 

 false trail? 



Mark again. "If the bones of a man that existed 

 15,000,000 years ago are ever dug up," etc., what a 

 combination of sense and non-sense ! Sensible in deny- 

 ing monkey ancestry and so repudiating the hoax, 

 "The Hall of the Age of Man!" Nonsensical in sup- 

 posing man existed 15,000,000 years ago, "if he isn't 

 dug up." Yes, if he ever is ! These gentlemen simply 

 deal in pure suppositions. 



Mr. Darwin, in two of his great works, uses sup- 

 positions over eight hundred times, and an unlimited 

 series of suppositions do not constitute a science. 

 "Science is knowledge gained and verified by exact 

 observation or experimentation and especially as re- 

 lated into a rational system," and with that definition 

 this doctrine of assertions has no kinship. 



Now, on that last sentence I agree with the gentle- 

 man, and as for the first, I will just wait until he digs 

 up the bones of fifteen million years ago, and then 

 I will agree with him on that. 



Don't impose upon my children a doctrine that has 

 nothing but supposition as a basis for it. (Applause.) 



I have no objection to teaching the truth. All truth 

 is in harmony, absolute harmony. No truth can clash 

 with another truth. That would dethrone God him- 

 self. But I object to the teaching of a false science, 

 a science falsely so called in the name of truth. 



And I particularly object to imposing that upon the 

 minds of the children of parents and taxpayers who 

 know it be false. 



It is quite the custom now to call anti-evolutionists 

 backwoodsmen, ignoramuses, and all the other nice 

 terms that they apply to us. But does that prove any- 

 thing ? I want to ask you whether that question is vital 

 to the subject at all or not. We believe in a free gov- 

 ernment in this country, do we not? 



I have visited in Tennessee since I was a lad, for 

 I was brought up fresh over on the Kentucky side. 

 I have not known a sweeter and more cultured people 

 in my somewhat extended travels than I have found 

 in Tennessee. I have spent some weeks in Arkansas 

 in the last year. The Arkansan is what these evolution- 

 ists are denouncing now as ignorant hill-billies ! 



Ignorance is now located in Boston and vicinity. 

 You Boston people will forgive me, for you are the 

 exceptions. 



But look what you have around you in all your 

 factory towns, and you will no longer parade the in- 

 tellectuals of the hub. No longer. Arkansans and Mis- 

 sisippians are not what they are being called.. They 

 are intelligent folk. 



And if they were as ignorant as the evolutionists 

 make them out to be, would you deprive them of the 

 right of ballot? They decided whether they wanted 

 imposed upon them a doctrine which they do not be- 

 lieve and a doctrine which they believe is absolutely 

 detrimental to all morality. Is not that the sovereign 

 right of any free people? 



You wipe out God of existence in the mind of man, 

 as this philosophy does it, for it is atheistic by nature 

 and character, and you wipe out the decalog — the basis 

 of all law ! 



There isn't a man that believes in the doctrine of 

 evolution thoroughly and at the same time holds to the 

 divinity of the law as recorded in the Old Testament 

 book, the basis of all law in all the world. 



When you wipe out God, you wipe out the law, 

 and when you have produced a lawless people, you 

 have produced a criminal people at the same time. 

 ( Applause. ) 



* * * 



THE CHAIRMAN: Professor McCabe will now 

 speak for twentv minutes. (Applause.) 



PROFESSOR JOSEPH McCABE : Your Honor, 

 ladies and gentlemen : You New Yorkers have heard 

 what it is that has moved Arkansas and Tennessee 

 and Kentucky. I say that you have now heard in New ^' 

 York and I will not say what arguments, but on what 

 kind of rhetoric Arkansas and Tennessee have been 

 moved to delete evolution from their textbooks. 



During the time that Dr. Riley was talking to you 

 he entirely ignored every argument that I used. (Ap- 



