While men such as William Jennings Bryan and William Bell Riley were the national faces of anti-evolutionism, it was women who made up a majority of the movement’s rank-and-file membership. The following poem is a window into the thoughts and passions of one of these female activists.

Between Truth and Error, Right and Wrong,

The fight is on.

For country, God and mother’s song,

It must be won!

Go sound the alarm, go gather your forces,

Oh Tennessee!

Land of the pioneer, home of the volunteer,

The daring, the free

The hearthstone, the college, the temple, and even

Our God’s great throne,

The star-crowned heroes, both the quick and the dead

Are calling their own.

You heard the call down all the ages

When might found right.

With your hands, your blood, and your life

You’ve won the fight.

Now Error, the monster, calls forth her cohorts

From sea to sea,

They come from earth’s four corners down

To Tennessee.

They challenge your power to rule your own

Your rights deny.

They scoff at you, ridicule you,

Your laws defy.

Their forces are clad in garments great,

Of science and law.

With the camouflage cloak of knowledge

To hide their claw

Go look at the havoc and heartache of nations

Where they passed through.

Their blasting breath has meant instant death

To the noble and true.

God made this His battleground, for you’ve

Been wise and true.

Earth’s unborn, its children, mothers and nations

Are calling to you.

So Tennessee, light your candle of wisdom!

Your altar of prayer!

And the God of Truth fire and inspire you,

To do and to dare!

Source: Mrs. E. P. Blair, “The Battle Hymn of Tennessee,” Nashville Tennessean, June 29, 1925, 2.