Poole Bills

The Poole Bills, also called "Poole Monkey Bills," were a series of attempts in the 1920s by General Assembly member D. Scott Poole to outlaw the teaching of evolution in state-supported schools. If the Poole Bill were passed, it would have required that all teachers in the state sign a pledge stating that they believed "in the being of Almighty God" and ensured a prison sentence for any teacher convicted of teaching evolution in a state school. 

Inspired by actions of the Tennessee legislature that precipitated the infamous Scopes Trial of 1920, and backed by fundamentalist forces centered around a committee of 100 churchmen of the North Carolina Presbyterian Synod, Poole introduced his first bill in 1925 and saw it defeated by a narrow margin. In February 1927 Poole's bill was reintroduced and defeated in committee by a margin of 25 to 11 after a rousing speech by Paul J. Ranson, a law student at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. Victory for the bill's opponents was widely attributed to some presentations and debates in Charlotte sponsored by former students of Horace Williams (1858-1940), the controversial philosophy professor at UNC-Chapel Hill.