September 6, 2010

"Will the World Return To Religion?": Clarence Darrow debates G.K. Chesterton (video)



This is a dramatic recreation of a debate between the Catholic thinker and writer G.K. Chesterton and Clarence Darrow, who was the defense attorney at the Scopes Trial, which took place in New York City on January 18, 1931 on the topic "Will the World Return To Religion?".

"At the conclusion of the debate everybody was asked to express his opinion as to the victor and slips of paper were passed around for that purpose. The award went directly to Chesterton. Darrow in comparison, seemed heavy, uninspired, slow of mind, while G.K.C. was joyous, sparkling and witty ... quite the Chesterton one had come to expect from his books. The affair was like a race between a lumbering sailing vessel and a modern steamer." 

Quote from Chesterton As Seen by His Contemporaries, by Cyril Clemons, Webster Groves: International Mark Twain Society, 1939, pp. 66-68.