“But even more important was probably H.L. Mencken’s daily accounts, which put a very negative spin on Bryan. Mencken made it look like Bryan was losing faith by conceding a point about the 24 hour days.”
Exactly, Mencken was a militant atheist and reported the trial with a serious bias. If you read the transcript and know the background of the trial, the impression is completely different. Bryan doesn’t start off holding of literal days and then backs down, he maintained the non-literal position from the beginning. It is worth reading Alan Dershowitz’s take on the trial in his book “America on Trial: Inside the Legal Battles That Transformed Our Nation.”
“It is ironic is that most of the spiritual descendants of Bryan have now allied politically with the spiritual descendants of those same robber barons.”
Agreed. It is very strange the way the laissez-faire party became the party of religion.