Darrow, Clarence (1857–1938)

Clarence Darrow has been called the Attorney for the Damned. In his long legal career as a courtroom [Page 422]lawyer, he defended African Americans, murderers, communists, anarchists, labor radicals, socialists, and iconoclastic classroom teachers. Darrow was a long-time opponent of the death penalty, and his celebrated cross-examination of William Jennings Bryan in the infamous Tennessee “monkey trial”of biology teacher John T. Scopes set back the anti-evolution forces for many decades in the public schools.

Darrow was born in Kinsman, Ohio, the fifth child of Amirus and Emily Eddy Darrow. His father had been prepared in theology, but somewhere in his education he lost his faith and never preached. Growing up, Darrow recognized that his father was considered the village infidel, a sobriquet he accepted rather proudly.

Darrow never liked school and even through law school he devalued formal education, believing it produced narrow minds and not true learning. He was particularly critical of the morality embedded in the school books of the day. The young Darrow deeply resented the forced attendance at Sunday school, which later became the source of a lifelong irreverence for organized religion.

Although Clarence briefly attended Allegheny College, he did not graduate. He became a school teacher in a nearby town. As a teacher he abolished corporal punishment in the school and expanded the lunch break. He also had time to study law. Later he attended the University of Michigan's law school but again did not graduate. He apprenticed to an attorney and passed the Ohio bar at age 21. A short time later he began the practice of law, first in Andover and later in Ashtabula. He learned that he could not be a dispassionate advocate. He had to believe in his client and in the cause. He moved to Chicago in 1887. Almost immediately he became involved with John P. Altgeld, the leading Democratic radical of his time, who later became governor of Illinois. During this period, Altgeld gave Darrow many lessons on power politics.

From his Chicago law office, Clarence Darrow was at the heart of many celebrated cases in the turbulence of the early 19th century. He became the attorney for the United Mine Workers. In 1906 he went to Idaho to defend Big Bill Haywood, secretary-treasurer of the Western Federation of Miners, who was accused of murdering ex-Governor Frank Steunenberg. Darrow gave a long and impassioned plea to the jury. Bill Haywood was acquitted.

Darrow went to Los Angeles, where he defended three union men accused of being involved in the bombing of the Los Angeles Times. What Darrow faced in California was bleak. One of the men arrested with the bombers had turned state's evidence and confessed to the plot. It was soon revealed that his clients were actually guilty. Darrow did not want a trial and he did not want certain documents made public implicating the union. He tried for a negotiated sentence. The bombers changed their plea to guilty. The unions backing them were aghast, and Darrow's days as a union attorney ended. A short while later, he had to defend himself against charges that he had tried to bribe prospective jurors. While Darrow pled innocence and spent 8 months defending himself, a careful review of his case by Geoffrey Cowan, a public interest lawyer and a faculty member at UCLA, concluded that he indeed had tried to bribe two jurors in this case. However, after a long and tearful plea by Darrow at his trial, he obtained a not guilty verdict. Darrow then restarted his legal career with a public pledge to continue to help the poor. With few exceptions he stuck to his word.

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