One On One; Studs Terkel

Oh. No. Good evening we're pleased to have as a special guest here on the campus of Southern Illinois University in Carbondale Studs Terkel. Pulitzer Prize winning author a champion of civil liberties a person of great ability and equally important from my viewpoint a person of great heart. And it is great to have you on the campus here. Senator Simon part of I would describe you in that manner just that way as you describe me but thank you very much. Well you're generous let me let me go back. Studs Terkel is 87 years old today.

Hard to believe I was born the year the Titanic went down. I'm sure I know it's about the Titanic 1912 Titanic went down and I came up. So who said life was fair. But there it is. But how do you emerge as a champion of civil liberties how did Were your parents interested in Israel how did you you know happy and I think a matter of us MOSIS it didn't happen overnight. Whatever I believe I have one of them a champion of civil liberties and not I don't know I'm going to I'm a chaplain to people to be free to say what they feel like saying no matter how unfashionable it might be. And many have suffered as a result of that. I came about I think mostly. My father was a hard working man a tailor became Alleluia came to Chicago and run a rooming house and then the men's hotel. My father died my mother ran up my brother and I was there and in that man's hotel even though I attended the University of Chicago I learned more from that hotel and did from the

college because in the lobby of that hotel guys argued men who live there were retired some were working they were retired firemen or our own engineers tool and die makers all kinds of guys. The nigger works some more pro-union some are anti labor and they fought each other very badly you know and they argued mostly There was argument there was de bait. I think that's what got me what gets me now that's over a little argument so little D bate so much acceptance of what is called official wisdom. And those that place and they learn something else. And you were 10 or 12 years old and you were sitting there listening or are you sort of a hybrid always listening and sometimes the guys were drunk I'd take him up to the room you know. But what happened during the Great Depression you see we had don't tell before the Depression and but after the Depression. One people. I'm sure the people young people don't know this that some of them been told that by their grandparents perhaps. But the Great Depression of the 30s when millions

unemployed the crash occurred in Wall Street the big shot didn't know what hit them when in the lobby in the days before the Depression the lobby was empty Mondays and Fridays was full of people on Saturday after four people work five and a half days with people guys Saturday and Sundays. But then the Depression hit instead of paychecks given a Saturday afternoon to pay for the rent. We give them back change relief checks relief it was called in those days. And now the lobby is full of men and the foot of no self-esteem haven't worked for me for years want to work and become drunk and angry and hit each other or fight each other and I saw that too. And that's what joblessness does to people too. So all this played a role you might say. And when you see joblessness does to people what are the implications for 1999 in the year 2000 of all I think about now.

Let's talk of something called street crime which is euphemism for young black males we know that. We see that the criminally inclined aren't they Some say they don't want a job they don't want to work. Of course the horror of that lie of that deception is of course they want to work. Remember you know the the Sheraton Hotel on Outer Drive and Chicago built about 15 years ago Chicago Sheraton Hotel when that hotel was finished. Word got around that 1000 jobs were available the next day 5000 people showed up at that Windy City against that lake and the code 5000 showed up for the job 1000 overwhelmingly black mail 4000 didn't get the job. You tell me they don't want to work at 5:30 in the morning for that. So there is but you have so they go to the street corner what they're going to go in these as I recall these were barely a minimum wage jobs or hardly. Yeah that happened also in county building that there were jobs. The corrections department

prisons 20000 a year and it was there for 500 jobs. About 4000 people showed black men and women. So you tell me of those thirty five hundred. I didn't get the job don't want to work cause that's what joblessness does. You live through something called the WPA. We have a small live audience here these students don't know what we're talking about. Yes you are right about WWII. Well first we have talk about government and the WPA Work Projects Administration during the administrations of Franklin Delano Roosevelt whom Paul Simon I admire. Now Franklin down earlier became president during the Great Depression. And he was advised he was not brilliant a man but he was bright enough to surround himself with men and women who knew the great need for people to work. There was hunger in the land there was a rebellion in the land and so the government stepped in. And provided jobs that free enterprise could not. Your people are talking about

big government big big government Ronnie Reagan said that his father worked in the WPA in Dixon Illinois his father's self-esteem was saved by the government running a light like a rug I'm sorry to tell you but he did he didn't know what he's talking about not he alone. All those that say big government we need less big government want to his daddy's and granddaddy's but we're saved by big government than WPA was. People who work on roads and schools on modest housing and also on the arts I was on the Writers Project So when I was on the theater project and that's how I became a writer. As a result of being on the government WPA So this played a role. And now when they have to call on government to play a role. The only time those who are against big government a foreign if want to invade privacy is something but not when it comes to health or education or welfare. And among the people who also develop their abilities as writers under the WPA Writers Project were Arthur Miller and Richard Wright and John

Steinbeck Grapes of Wrath with the help of the WPA. Saul Bellow worked in the Illinois WPA. So what you're saying when when Bill Clinton in his State of the Union Address this is the end of the era of big government. What you're saying is the real key is not whether the government is big or small but whether it's good weather is responding to the needs you bad. What does he mean by the end of big government belt and that is playing ball with the most right wing of Republicans let's face it when the end of big government we need government we need government regulations. It was government regulation that saved these guys who jumped out of windows save their sons when the great crash occurred and the big Wall Street wise man and we still call upon today didn't know what hit them hadn't the vaguest idea what hit them. And it was a big government that stepped in. Now is the big government that invades our privacy and the days when John Edgar Hoover was considered a site because he's terrified the whole country. That's that's why that I don't mind that. Now

that's a big government becomes the enemy to people who believe in freedom. But big government won't help poor people. All those up again are just average everyday working people. As is necessary of course it is part of our lives. You know Gary Wills just wrote a book a brilliant book called A necessary evil and spot the feeling with the anti-government feeling down for the years and explains it in a very good way. And the young people who are here are young people who may be viewing all of this. What kind of protections do they have today. There were not there during the Great Depression. I'm just wondering. Think about it now. We're taught it right. Our economy is going great every one of us isn't really that great. Well you know the lot of people are making big money but also to many people to temporaries you know what that means you know attempt is attempt as a day laborer attempt but someone who goes into a place ya know Of Mice and Men John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men your money do remember George and Lenny.

They were temps. They worked on a ranch. What's an eight camps work and banks and insurance companies on Wall Street that have no benefits none whatsoever to many young people today. A good decent guy I worried. That's what they do next right. I'm sure there are no question about of course the has to be this that it is matter of jobs the most essential thing in the world and we need work. Work is part of the very lives I wrote this book called working. I did it for certain reason because. Freud Sigmund Freud. Psychiatrist wrote a book called civilization of discontent she's the two prime impulses of man our love and work sex and work. I've done a lot of books about sex to money more than we need to know right. But hardly anything about work. And that's what it's about. And of course the younger kids know the role government plays or should play. And I think the big protection for the young is knowledge. And what happened in the past that we can learn from the past and not be taken by some phony slogan.

And you use a phrase talking about knowledge of the past. You describe us as a people who are forgetting or have a national I say we have a national house Simers disease that sounds like a joke but it isn't. You know Alzheimer's disease that unfortunate has unfortunate victims that you forget forget but it's what happened yesterday what happened a moment ago. So what happened 10 years ago where society is suffering from that the very fact that people get away with condemning government when it's good. We have learned nothing from the past we've forgotten how it helped our challenging it when it's bad should do that too. We know we had these during the witch hunt I don't think young people know about the 50s and the scare of hearty days and that was the case with the big government it's out when they were scared John Edgar Hoover was the head of the FBI. He was a saint. People are so scared of him because he had a file on everybody. Presidents and. And

he ran crazy and so did Joe McCarthy. But they weren't the only ones at the time of the you know the fear of the Soviets fear of the Russians and it got so that anybody was expressed an opinion. That challenged. The official wisdom was considered subversive. That was that's a case where government was had to be challenged of course. You mentioned John's son because you know John's son and know about his widow is the one who had me write the introduction to the 50th anniversary edition of grapes or I never met John Steinbeck's I think of that novel The Great American Novel rites of Wrath. I met him once. He Stephen Zunes funeral. The little Unitarian Church in Bloomington. He showed up with Johnson and Arthur Goldberg a very unusual walk in to that funeral but you have met a host of fascinating people who are who are the fascinating people you've met in your life. And then second question is why are they fascinated. Well most people

I met are not celebrated people I did meet Bertrand Russell and certain. Writers and celebrated but most of the people I celebrate the non-South aberrated they are not if you don't not know make the wheels go around I say that nobody called an ordinary person. Everybody is capable of at least I discovered that my books had bodies capable of doing extraordinary things. Certain moments one of the most extraordinary and one of time and tell a star is going to throw you for a loop. Was the farm a Grand Cyclops of the Ku Klux Klan of Durham North Carolina. His name was S. P.. Alice I don't know which time we have on this program to tell you the story. Let me get to you we have enough of this story of hope a story of redemption started revelation is Biblical think P.L. us was a poor white of the South. All of life was taught that. And his father's a Klansman and they were poor. He had four kids one retarded and he loved this kid and he failed in everything he fairly had a milk route failed

grocery store failed gas station failed. And it's the fault of the black he used the N word. Negra is the word he used. They're getting everything and he became so someone who wanted to join the Klan. So he says Studds was a poor white talk and they put a hold on me put the robe on me an effort of people in this hall and I'm going to have that illuminated cross and IMO nobody. So I feel like somebody that watches me. He's you know is that the same phrase I am somebody you are Jesse Jackson and that ironic Jesse said it to make the people feel good and he did it because it helps him put somebody else down. So now it becomes it's not the 60s and he's breaking up all kinds of picket lines. But he had somebody in town more than her name is Ann Atwater a black woman and she's leading the picketers So to have the department stores hire black clerks and he's breaking up those picket lines these two people hate each other with a purple passion and one day their ministration of Jimmy

Carter a couple of million bucks comes to Durham for the school system. And so a black man was head of the coalition of educations as I invite all the parents. Of all the kids going to the schools to attend this meeting he invites an end of NAACP and the White Citizens Council. Martin Luther King's Southern Conference human welfare and the Ku Klux Klan It's a crazy idea. And so some want to say to CPS you're not going to go there I'm going to go there because I got a boy going to school this and I was a girl going to school I don't want her to get the money for her. I want my boy to get he attends a meeting and it's a wild meeting. Each one they all accuse him of being a racist. He accused them tells a story of his life and then a black man as the chairman says I like CPRS and he's an honest man. And so CPS telling me the story and I think it's kind of funny is what's this guy doing to me turning my life upside down his black eye saying I'm an honest man. And next thing you know someone is we got to have a standing committee and I nominate an Atwater's chair of the committee and someone says I

nominate CPI Alice as co-chair when I imagine these two people together. They find me agrees a truce they hate each other but now they're going to get together and now are CPS telling me the story. Now we're starting to choke up. He sat on one hand. Now he calls for an end you know. One day she comes and cry on what he's crying about and why because the kids at the school are segregated going to black school and the kids are laughing at her little girl. Teachers must know he's going around with a Klansman naysay and suddenly he starts crying. No my boy at a white school. The white teacher kids are you going to kick anyone throwing rocks at him to go home with a black woman actually and but to hold on to each other now down the same boat then he says I love that woman. What she stands for. This way now he's going to run. He's a janitor at Duke University which is in Durham North Carolina. Custody him and he's a union guy. He's had he likes unions and he's organizing the Union. It's 80 percent black women. Now you want to run for a full time job and organize

you found what he wants to be a labor organizer. But he says I got a chance 80 percent black women and me a former Klansman white guy. So I talk to these women I say you know ma'am I'm running for the job a business agent. You know I am they say sit down. We don't want to hear you or sit down because I'm going to lose. Guess what they did. They voted for me for one. And that's when he starts to cry and those women they knew my heart they knew how I changed how I discovered things. And this story is and me and those women we're the ones who declared Martin Luther King's birthday a holiday here. And when the big shots come with their lawyers to break our union we hold our own with them. And now I feel like I'm somebody. Well to me that story. As we're going to the story of redemption and Revelation and transcendence. He's the most interesting guy I've met and what is the significance of that for our society that if someone finds out how he's being had how he's being you know how he must think things through. That's our hope I think. We must be a thinking when we when the

society was founded by Washington and Jefferson and Tom Paine Of course they were talking about a thinking society always this is that those people read books back in those days if you didn't you know common sense sold a couple hundred thousand copies be about 10 million a day you know. And so I think it's sinking and that's why so students it's so important. The students should always be the one who questions official wisdom and people can change. People can change you hit I'm sorry how you got it that the possibility of change. Think of Claiborne Alice and think of the possibilities of change. I lectured a week ago as we're taping this at the Truman Library. You read those early Truman letters you know Truman was in and white in person in terms of race relations grew up in the Little Dixie area there in Missouri. And yet he ordered the integration of the armed forces stood up for civil rights. People do change.

It did that to me is important at least by my discovery at least in these books. The possibilities of change but change comes through that awareness and that awareness has to come through experience but also thinking things through and running into people now and then you're under certain people of change I run into a good number of people over the years who without my realizing it altered my. Life I think. But part of what makes Studs Terkel so successful I sense is you're open to everyone. Oh absolutely as a CPA Alice I got to meet a Klansman right. You bet. I once interviewed Gerald Alcaeus Smith. Now you know he has but the young don't. He was a famous South proclaimed fascist and I semi-fascist in the 30s but very colorful. I wonder what made this guy tick. He like me for some phrases are either afraid to say. But but I want to meet the guy he reveals himself as his own hypocrisy in the interview without my doing it.

He touts a star AC so I can view all I want to what makes somebody why is that person hurting. He may be very much to the right to that person I interview something that what is it you find out. And one of the things I've observed you I'm sure you have. When I go through the cafeteria here or at any State University one of the things that bothers me just a little is I'll see African-American students by themselves white students of Asian Americans do that by themselves internationals again by themselves. One of the things we have to take advantage of these opportunities to learn from everyone. I think that's a matter of being with people like you is good. Has to be a question of identity by all means. However there's somebody else on the other side who is also a human who may have things that are very much in common with yourself. That's a long long battle I think that has to be fought all the way. Even now we have it's natural to lean toward someone close to you at

least to begin but to be open at the same time and to be open and not walls develop afraid. Yeah I mean that's where to go when you're subject to demagoguery of one sort or another. Now what makes Studs Terkel such a successful author when so many other people. Who have your ability. Candidly I don't know if I'm successful or not I know what it is. Where you are you reach the bestseller list. Every successful you know what. So as Danielle Steel. Well but you want to hold surprise. But. I'm curious. I suppose that hotel I come back to that hotel again my raise as a kid plays a big role. I'm curious I wonder what makes people take a curiosity I suppose. If I have a dime epitaphs should be curiosity did not kill this cat or something like that. Now what about you. You indicated earlier you're 87 years

old now. Yeah. Or were these when I'm a sixteen thousand nine hundred twelve. See you and I we have two young but someone about 90 and I can do a rock and roll act. You know we get rock n roll calm and we called ourselves the D crap and be a smash. We think I'm forever blowing bubbles and Sweet Adeline. And what about people who are. Our age are approaching our age who are out there watching this. What kind of advice you have for people who are sitting there or watching this television program who are 65 years old 60 years old. I think when some big shot says Do you or someone you admire or some rain on a person says says something. The question one word the key word is why. Why. I think the word WHAT WHY WHY IS THAT SO. Why is it what you said a fact. Why to question. You know Rich Bob HUTCHENS President Robert may know how much as a young Chancellor Chicago and what all his

inaugural all his speeches his commencement speeches. That was the theme of students must always question official dictum addict must always question. I think that's the key to almost everything not to be a cynic not cynical at Caesar's know that sketch. Healthy skepticism to what. What are we on about this war that I as you know I want to ask you what made you the progressive public servant you are. Before we I not been I've been on this particular program. The fact you are you are you are one of the best public servants this Illinois has had. For decades. And I'd like to see your stead as far as I'm concerned you are still in public life. Well I guess the answer is by osmosis as you said. My parents were concerned about problems that poor people face and concern about issues of race relations. But we have to we have to grow for example.

While I grew up in a family it was very sensitive on black white issues and particular Japanese issues. I grew up on the state of Oregon where we ran into a lot of. Could you tell that story about your ministry and story about what happened with Japanese-Americans during World War Two and trying to your father. All of it I was supposed to interview you know that and I don't care. Well I did grow up in the state of Oregon My father took a stand in February of 1900 to when one hundred fifteen thousand Japanese-Americans were told You have one to three days to sell all your property. Put everything you own into one suitcase and you're going to be taken off to camps. And my father stood up and said this is wrong and we get the hate phone calls and mail and I may exaggerate it some even as I look back I'm not sure what all is accurate. My mother doesn't remember it too accurately but

I was 13 at the time. And what happened and you were you were embarrassed by you. I was embarrassed. My friends made fun of me at school. I wish my father hadn't done it. But as I look back on my father's life how you're proud and very proud of him and it was a great lesson if you believe something stand up. This started about it's about. You see I know many of the young don't know about this shameful period in American history during times when we sent. All the Japanese-Americans on the west coast into concentration camps on internment camps some were stables horse horse horse racing just because they were that we didn't get the German Americans or two Italian Americans were part of the axis but we could use race obviously all the way. It was a shameful period. You all five of the very few who stood up who did it and for a moment you had a terrible time. Well that's what it's all about. Well I hate to say it we're getting a signal and a little your peace of mind that our

program is over. It's been a great honor to have you on this program and great to have you on this camp. Honored to be with you you're Senator Simon you are enriched our country immensely. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. A VHS copy of today's program is available by sending a check or money order from 1995 to WS are you TV Please include the date of broadcast. We need government. We need government regulations. It was government regulation

that saved these guys who jumped out of windows save their sons when the great crash occurred and the big Wall Street wise man and we still call upon the day didn't know what hit them. A lively conversation with Studs Terkel and Paul Simon on the next one on one. I think that that for protection for the young is knowledge. Of what happened in the past that we can learn from the past and not be taken by some phony slogan.