Thursday, November 10, 2016

Turning the Table: Mike Royko & Herman Kogan Interview Studs on Division Street America



 
Studs Terkel interviewed people on his WFMT radio show for forty-five years. Occasionally, though, the tables were turned and guests interviewed Studs. This happened on January, 16, 1967 when Studs’ friends, journalists Mike Royko and Herman Kogan, quizzed Studs about his new book, Division Street America. The book was the first of eighteen books that Studs wrote with the guidance of Andre Schiffrin. All were published between Studs’ fifty-fifth birthday and his death at ninety-six. Known as the world’s best listener, Studs was revered for both his radio and book interviews. He nurtured people so that they talked with great depth about their lives—personally, politically, and culturally. Royko and Kogan cultivated the same from Studs.

The friendship of Studs Terkel and Mike Royko is well documented. They had each others’ backs and were equally critical of the first Mayor Daley. Royko visited The Studs Terkel Show many times and also understood the depth of Studs’ work. “He might not know what year someone was born, maybe not what decade even—but he knows where their heart is, he knows where their soul is, and where to find the things in them they care about.” Herman Kogan’s friendship with Studs was also well known in Chicago and he too understood Terkel: “Asking questions of everyone and of himself. Evoking revealing answers, rarely lingering over woes that may have befallen him but ardent in his ire about injustices heaped on others.”

These friendships were evident throughout the hour interview. The men gently teased each other beginning with Royko questioning Studs’ alibi for the previous night when McCormick Place, named for one of Studs’ 1940’s enemies, right-wing Chicago Tribune publisher Colonol Robert McCormick, burned to the ground. Royko was thoughtful talking to Studs, but he was also irreverent telling the listeners that there were “a lot of pages in the book for the money and it’s sturdy.” Kogan kept guiding the discussion back to the book.

Studs began by telling the story of being approached by Schiffrin to write a book on Chicago as a village to which he had asked the publisher if he was crazy. Kogan cited Martin Marty’s review of the book which says Division Street is a metaphor for the human condition. Then he says to Studs: “Its very true. It’s not Division Street literally—Division Street Chicago nor is it Division Street America necessarily. It’s Division Street the World.”

But Studs lengthened the conversation comparing the city to Rome and Johannesburg: “Chicago is a metaphor itself. Just as Division Street is, so is Chicago. It’s probably the ideal city for it because it is in what Chamber of Commerce says is in the heartland of our country. The industrial city.”

Both men asked Studs questions and Royko nurtured Studs talking about conversation when he asked him if he had trouble getting people to talk. Studs was clear in his response:

No, I think if you’re not an interviewer. This sounds like a cliché, if it’s conversation Mike, if they feel you ask them a question and you’re really interested. I think you have to be interested. I don’t know—I have no technique that I can explain. It’s just talking. Everyone of them was good. I myself was astonished. I was so surprised so often

Remember, Studs Terkel lived to be amazed. He talked about Dennis Mitchell’s film, “Morning in the Streets,” airing the hurts of people, those Studs often referred to as the “uncelebrated.” Then Kogan said, “You are able to get people who are inarticulate to talk almost as if they are on a psychoanalytical couch. They expressed to you things they’ve probably not expressed to anyone. Maybe not even to themselves.”

In the years to come, Studs would speak to this topic numerous times when asked about both his radio and book conversations. Although he didn’t disagree with Herman Kogan on the air, Studs was later on record as saying that the people who appeared in his books were actually very articulate. They spoke for themselves individually but also for many others in their communities and in the World. On the air with Kogan and Royko, he said:

This is exactly what some of them said. They didn’t realize what they really were thinking. When it was all over people saying, “Wow, is that the way I feel?” Astonishment I think describes my own feelings after the interviews. There’s a key I think and it’s not the same key but there’s a common attribute and that is to be recognized as somebody. And the fears, each one has some fears, not the same fears, but fear in common.

Both Kogan and Royko ask Studs about people reflecting on “The Bomb,” but Studs expands the issue and comes back to fears and people wanting to be someone, to be recognized, for Studs, to be respected. “They’re all crying out for something – everyone. No matter what their politics.” And then both Royko and Studs remember that one of the people in the book had a slight laugh when she explained that she never thought about “The Bomb.” Studs had previous experiences with his friend Big Bill Broonzy and later Nobel Prize winner and African National Congress leader Albert Luthuli softly laughing at examples of white supremacy and apartheid. “The laugh comes at a certain moment. Not at a joke, the laugh comes at a bitter moment, you see. So the laugh itself is a protection from going altogether mad, you know. So the laugh very often is the opposite of joy,” said Studs.

While Studs fought white supremacy his entire life, he also yearned to understand white racism—people’s fear, people needing to be somebody. On air he reflects on those people who threw rocks at Martin Luther King telling Kogan and Royko:

The value of the things and the valuelessness of the man by comparison. So the things become more important and this in a way to me helps to explain Gage Park and Marquette Park too. These are not basically evil people who threw the rocks at King. Who offered those obscenities. They are people who have become terrified by something outside the house, the colored TV set, the well-kept lawn. The status, that itself becomes the important thing. And because his life is joyless—the kids I saw in Montgomery, Alabama. I mean the white kids, the National Guardsman with the confederate emblems. They were bewildered by that march because the myth is shattered. The myth of someone less than they. So, for in order for the people at Gage Park or Marquette Park or the kids on the sidewalks of Montgomery or the furious car dealers in Montgomery or the guys that join the Klan—in order for them to survive a life without joy, a life that is rather bleak and retched, they must be told there is someone less than they. But if someone less than they says I’m not less than you then the myth is shattered and they must explode. So it’s the question of shattering of a myth.

Tribute to things rather than humanity. But because he’s Studs Terkel, he has to speak of hope long before his book Hope Dies Last. Studs begins with a caveat saying that Mike might disagree with his admiration of “the protesting kids.” He speaks about Jessie Binford, the 90-year old social activist who closes out Division Street, and her belief in youth and his intrigue with middle class kids voluntarily joining poor people who don’t volunteer to be poor. Herman Kogan agrees as he steers Studs and Mike back to the book saying that Studs is a man of joy and sorrow and the book is joy and sorrow.” To which Studs cites Sean O’casey: “Life is a song in one ear and a lament in the other.”

As the show comes to an end Studs tells Kogan that there isn’t really a favorite person in Division Street. Kogan calls it “The People’s Book, but for Royko and Kogan, the favorite person in the book is Studs Terkel.

Alan Wieder is the author of the recently released book, Studs Terkel: Politics, Culture, but Mostly Conversation. Many of Studs’ WFMT radio interviews can be accessed at studsterkel.org.

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