William Jennings Bryan was Secretary of State under President Truman.
Harry S. Truman ( May 8 , 1884December 26 , 1972 ) was an American politician who served as the 33rd President of the United States ( 1945 -- 53 ) , assuming that office upon the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt during the waning months of World War II . The Scopes Trial , formally known as The State of Tennessee v. John Thomas Scopes and commonly referred to as the Scopes Monkey Trial , was an American legal case in July 1925 in which a substitute high school teacher , John T. Scopes , was accused of violating Tennessee 's Butler Act , which had made it unlawful to teach human evolution in any state-funded school . William Jennings Bryan . After 1920 , he turned to Christian fundamentalism ; he supported Prohibition and attacked Darwinism and evolution , most famously at the Scopes Trial in 1925 in Tennessee . Five days after the conclusion of the Scopes case , Bryan died in his sleep .