Inherit the wind - Spencer Tracy speech

*For all those who can't watch the movie here is the speech in text*

Heavenly Hillsboro! Does it have a hole in its head or its head in a hole?

Tell them if they let my body out of jail, I’d lock up my mind?

Martyrs always have a point to prove and so do you, but you haven’t won your halo yet.

I came to tell boy Socrates here that the Baltimore Herald is opposed to hemlock, and we will provide a lawyer.

Wake up, Copernicus. The law is still on the side of the lawmakers and everything revolves around their terra firma.

Don’t worry. I may be rancid butter, but I’m on your side of the bread.

Why don’t you give your ulcers a break and go home?

Just plain folks, second generation.

It’s the duty of a newspaper to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.

I do not think the dignity of this court will suffer if we remove a few superfluous outer garments.

I’m pretty busy down at the feed store. My wife tends to the religion for both of us.

Oh, conform, conform! What do you want to do? Run the jury through a meat grinder and have them all come out the same?

As long as the prerequisite for that shining paradise is ignorance, bigotry and hate, I say the hell with it.

With all due respect to the court, Sir, I think the right to think is very much on trial here, and it is fearfully in danger in the proceedings of this courtroom.

Your pa is a farmer?... Do you think there’s anything sinful about a tractor because it isn’t mentioned in the Bible?

Moses never made a phone call. Do you figure that makes the telephone an instrument of the devil?

I am simply trying to prevent the clock stoppers from dumping a lot of medieval nonsense into the United States Constitution!

Why do we need experts to question the validity of a law that is already on the books?

A wicked law destroys everything it touches, its upholders as well as its defiers. Soon you may ban books and newspapers and soon you may turn Catholic against Protestant.

Fanaticism and ignorance is forever busy, and needs feeding. Soon we’ll be marching backward to the 16th century, where bigots burned the man who dared bring enlightenment and intelligence to the human mind. Hooligans of the world, unite! You have nothing to burn but your intellectuals. You’ll be setting man against man, creed against creed, ad nauseum. Darwin was wrong. Man is still an ape, his creed still a totem pole.

When he couldn’t reach them, he decided they were groceries belonging to a bigger creature, and that’s how Jehovah was born.

You think man still has a noble destiny. Well, I tell you he’s already started on the backward march to the salt-filled and stupid sea from which he came.

How can you be so cocksure that the body of scientific knowledge... is any way irreconcilable with the book of Genesis?

And Cain knew his wife? Where the hell did she come from? You figure somebody else pulled another creation in the next country somewhere?

In the individual human mind and in a child’s power to master the multiplication table, there is more sanctity than all your holy holies and hosannas! An idea is a greater monument than a cathedral, and the advance of human knowledge is a greater miracle... than the parting of the waters.

reviews.wikinut.com...

Quite possibly one of the greatest speeches in American history, on television of course.

"That remark is an insult to this community."
"And this community is an insult to the world!"

BUMP

Love it!
The text doesn't do the video justice.

This is a good movie, one of those that I enjoy. It is that speech and the one on progress, that was very enjoyable and makes one think. The rather interesting reading is the actual court documents, along with all of the comments that were made during the trial. My understanding, is that when the screen play and book was written, the authors tried to get it as close to what acutally happened during the trial, and who said what.

Originally posted by Misoir
Quite possibly one of the greatest speeches in American history, on television of course.

And based on a true story. I think the US, in some parts, has regressed to a point in time before that film was made or that trial took place.

Great film, but name a film with Spencer Tracy that wasn't incredibly good! I fell in love with him in Captain Courageous, and from then on, pretty much wished I was Katherine Hepburn. Amazing actor, they really don't make them like that anymore.

reply to post by Misoir


Bump!

I can't watch the video, but the text is amazing!

The purpose of the newspaper? "To comfort the afflicted, and afflict the comfortable!" PRICELESS!! Nowhere in there did it mention, "report the facts." We know for certain the papers and news outlets have no desire in facts, only in drama.

Great Thread.

reply to post by getreadyalready


The text doesn't do the video any justice it is 100% better on video. Whenever you can get around to watching it I strongly encourage you to do so.

reply to post by Misoir


Great movie, thanks for posting it, I own this movie on VHS, I collect Classic black and white movies, the last time I watched it was maybe a year ago.

This speech is a great lesson for all of us.

S&F