The Scopes Trial

Precis

Clarence Darrow wrote a letter entitled: "Clarence Darrow to the Chicago Tribune" (July 4th, 1923), in which he asserts that in the court case in which he will be a lawyer, he will ask William Jennings Bryan certain questions about the bible and its interpretation. He gives the reader a list of questions he will potentially use against Mr. Bryan. Darrow is asking these semi-rhetorical questions in order to understand whether or not the bible can be understood literally. This letter is being aimed towards the Chicago Tribune since it is in a private letter from Darrow to the Tribune.

Rhetoric Analysis

Most of Darrow's argument consists of a long list of questions, presented in chronological order, that are meant to extract an answer to whether or not the Bible should be interpreted literally. Thus, it is safe to say that these questions are the main strategy that Darrow is using. Some of the questions are rhetorical, and others, whether Bryan were to answer them one way or another, would make Bryan seem like a fool either way.
The other strategy Darrow uses within his main strategy of questions is that of bringing in facts that seemingly contradict each other. For example, "under the biblical chronology, was not the earth created less than 6,000 years ago?" and "does not geology show [...] that the earth is much more than a million years and probably many million years old?" contradict, unless the Bible is to be taken non-literally in its sense of time. Thus, Darrow forces Bryan into answering a question which he may have answered differently if there was no fact to disprove it.

Summary of H.L. Mencken to Raymond Pearl Letter

Personally, I find the irony in this letter to be hilarious. Mencken states that everyone in the town is a Christian, evoking a moralistic, anti 7-deadly sins idea about what is to come. Yet we are told exactly the opposite. Russell Sage, a prohibitionist and orthodox Christian, is drunk half of the time. Not only is this one of the 7 deadly sins, but it also shows the hypocrisy of this town (a drunk prohibitionist). Additionally, Mencken's uncanny ability to notice this makes the situation even funnier because Mencken is mentioned in the introduction to the letter, as a renowned hypocrite. Even the trial is "superb-an obscenity..."! This letter shows the extreme oxymora in this town.

Summary of Edgar Lee Masters to Edwin Reese Letter

Edgar Lee Masters, seems to believe in his letter that he understands the type of person that Bryan was. He says that Bryan spoke rather than thought, and that he turned to religion when he lost to Wilson. In general, Masters has quite a caustic view of Bryan, although he does have a few good points about Bryan, such that "his moral nature was as shallow as his mind." It also somewhat seems like Masters pities Bryan. An example of this is when Masters says: "He was unwise as a liver too." This statement does not seem so much an attack as it does a point saying that it's too bad he didn't watch out for his health.

Why Summaries for the Previous Two Letters?

Although I might be wrong, I feel as though a precis is specifically for a persuasive, argumentative, personal motivation-based piece of writing, whereas a summary can be for anything, especially a story. Thus, when Mencken tells stories about the town, and when Masters speaks of Bryan's life, it seems more appropriate to explain what the story was, rather than what was its motivation, why does this author tell us this, what's the author's purpose. There may be no purpose, it could just be a description. Thus, I feel that precises are not universally applicable to all pieces of writing, contrary to summaries, and that I would have an extremely hard time writing precises for these previous two letters whereas writing summaries was a relatively easy task.