The Slacker's Guide to U.S. History: The Bare Minimum on Discovering America, the Boston Tea Party, the California Gold Rush, and Lots of Other Stuff Dead White Guys Did (26 page)

By the mid 1920s, people all around the United States were looking for someone to blame. With millions of alcohol-loving humans suffering through the difficulties of prohibition, questions were being asked about who was ultimately responsible for the severely flawed and newly sober human race living within the borders of the continental United States. The question was kindly answered by a Tennessee court when an attention-seeking high school teacher ignored a state law that forbade the teaching of any other theory of human creation than the one that states that God created man.

In 1925, Tennessee passed the Butler Act, which prohibited teachers in the Tennessee school system from teaching any theory of man's creation other than the one put forth in the Bible. The American Civil Liberties Union decided to get involved and set up a test case in which they would handle the defense for the guinea pig.

John “Darwin” Scopes, friend of the ape, politely raised his hand and volunteered for the job. At the behest of the ACLU, Scopes ignored the Butler Act and lectured his students that man was not created in the image of the glorious one but rather developed over time through genetic upgrades, culminating in the monkey-to-man transition.

Following a Rolling Stones concert on May 5, 1925, Scopes was taken into police custody for talking too much monkey in the classroom. With his freedom on the line and fearing that the state penitentiary was full of angry, sexually suppressed men, Scopes declined to be represented by the inadequately trained and incompetent Public Defender's Office, instead electing to put his freedom in the hands of Clarence Darrow. Darrow was a noted legal scholar with a Matlock-esque flare for the dramatic. Using the moniker of the “trial of the century” as a tease, the media covered the trial gavel-to-gavel.
TO COVER THE COURTROOM CIRCUS, FOX NEWS SENT A PRE-FACELIFT GRETA VAN SUSTEREN, THE DAILY SHOW SENT JOHN OLIVER, AND NANCY GRACE OF CNN JUST SCREAMED INCESSANTLY ABOUT SCOPES'S GUILT.
The prosecution set out to prove that Scopes hated God, God's only son, the Holy Spirit, and even the Victoria Secret Angels. On the other hand, Darrow argued that a strict interpretation of the Bible was impossible, as much of what the Bible contains is someone's interpretation.

The judge in the case, a forefather of Lance Ito, had a constant fire in his eyes and brimstone-scented cologne on his neck. He did everything short of a change of venue to the nearest church to aid the prosecution. He chose to neglect defense arguments in favor of evolution and limited their witnesses, making it nearly impossible for the defense to convert the already guilty-leaning jury.

With strict jury instructions handed down from the judge, the jury inconvenienced themselves for an additional nine minutes to reach a decision that Scopes was guilty. Once the verdict was announced the judge quickly ordered Scopes to pay an exorbitant fine of $100.
THE VERDICT WAS LATER APPEALED, AND THE BUTLER ACT REMOVED, ALLOWING SCHOOL TEACHERS TO TALK AS MUCH MONKEY IN THE CLASSROOM AS THEY WANT.

The Roaring Twenties was a period of fun and excess rivaled only by the shenanigans of an AIG executive retreat. The federal government dictated an easy-money policy, whoring out cash to nearly anyone at obnoxiously low interest rates. This expansion of debt for the average American and the popularity of installment loans led Americans on a Sarah Palin-at-Neiman-Marcus-like spending spree. Also fueling the engine of economic disaster was the stock market's rapid progression, causing irrational exuberance. In fact, it was even popular to take the equity out of your home to invest in the can't-miss investment opportunities in the stock market.
BUT LIKE NEW COKE, PARACHUTE PANTS, AND ROCKY 5, WHAT SEEMED LIKE A GOOD IDEA AT THE TIME HAD UNEXPECTED CONSEQUENCES.

By the end of these high times, the country had produced greater than its capacity to consume, and it was like Kobayashi versus Oscar Mayer. The consumers who had driven the economy sky high in the 1920s were out of credit, and restrictive overseas tariffs left the U.S. with nowhere to sell its goods. With stadiums full of goods that nobody could afford to buy, everything went on sale. Noted economist and madam to the stars Heidi Fleiss pointed out that prostitution does not have the carrying costs associated with tangible goods and therefore is a business model that more entrepreneurial woman should entertain.

With corporate profits falling like John Kerry's popularity following the airing of the Swift boat ads, companies were left with no choice but to lower their costs by politely informing many of their workers that their attendance was no longer required.

The unemployment rate went from the 3 percent who found working too inconvenient before the Depression to over 25 percent in 1933. Further complicating matters was that as unemployment climbed like a Tibetan sherpa, consumers could no longer meet their installment-payment obligations. Banks were forced to foreclose on loans. With prices falling, the repossessed goods were worth much less than the amount borrowed against them. Those who did have money realized that banks were in a precarious position with the high number of defaulting loans, so they started withdrawing their deposits. With bad loans and no deposits, banks began to fail. The federal government and the recently created Federal Reserve allowed banks to go under.

In 1930, 1,400 banks went out of business. This number continued to increase until 1933, when an amazing 4,000 more banks failed. Burned by bank closings and the loss of jobs, Americans became penny pinchers and began to save what little they could. This new commitment to savings only compounded the dire situation further. Realizing that prices were continuing to fall, Americans would wait as long as possible before making new purchases. The party that was enjoyed during the Roaring Twenties was officially over, and the hangover had begun.

In 1932, Franklin D. Roosevelt ran on a promise of a New Deal for the American people.
WITH THE OLD DEAL CONSISTING OF HIGH UNEMPLOYMENT, A STRUGGLING ECONOMY, AND A SWIFT KICK IN THE BALLS, FDR EASILY WON THE WHITE HOUSE.
In 1932 and 1933, he used up the entire alphabet in creating government agencies to increase spending and right the economy. The agencies helped reinforce business through government spending. Roosevelt knew that enormous federal expenditures were needed to pull America out of the Depression. Fortunately for Roosevelt, there was an Austrian-born politician named Adolf Hitler who became chancellor of Germany and was intent on taking over the world.

Realizing that nothing cures a struggling economy better than a global war, Roosevelt authorized excessive government spending on the war. Along with the spending, production doubled, and unemployment fell from 1933's 25 percent to 1.2 percent in 1944. The federal government had finally brought itself out of the Depression and emerged from the Second World War as an economic powerhouse.