Posted on 05/24/2007 9:47:58 AM PDT by Mike Bates
Chicago author Studs Terkel has been getting a good deal of recognition recently. CNN carried a Reuters article that began, "American original Studs Terkel, the author and oral historian who for decades gave a voice to working men and women, turned 95 Wednesday."
To Senator Barack Obama, "Studs Terkel is not just a national treasure - he's one of Chicago's treasures. For more than 50 years, his writings, broadcasts and interviews have illuminated the American experience."
According to ABC News Chicago, "Terkel is a liberal's liberal." Chicago Sun-Times columnist Neil Steinberg writes of Terkel : "He was a TV star -- one of the first. "Studs' Place" ran on NBC from 1950 until 1953, until the blacklist did him in." Syndicated columnist Amy Goodman wrote that Terkel's "support for the refugees from the Spanish Civil War, with the Anti-Fascist Refugee Committee, earned the attention of Joe McCarthy."
I can find no evidence that Senator McCarthy's attention was ever focused on Studs Terkel. What I did find, however, was an October, 1952 Chicago Tribune news article that began:
"Louis (Studs) Terkel, disc jockey, TV entertainer, and one-time political broadcaster, declined yesterday to discuss charges by Owen Vinson that Vinson joined the Communist party in 1943 at the invitation of Terkel.
"Vinson, former Chicago radio writer, director, and actor, made the charge Thursday in Los Angeles before the house committee on un-American activities. Vinson has left the party, he testified." At least one other person also provided sworn testimony that he had joined the party at Terkel's invitation.
The news article goes on to report that Terkel refused to say whether he was or had been a Communist. He also stated:
"I have an overwhelming pity and contempt for Mr. Vinson. Here is a nightmarish example of what fear and hysteria can do to the human spirit. It makes of a man the lowest of God' creatures - an informer.
"I've always believed in the principle that a man's thoughts, whether political or religious, are his private domain. . . . "
Well, they are private until the point they're put into action, such as joining - and getting others to join - an organization whose primary objective is to advance the interests of the Soviet Union and destroy the freedoms we Americans have enjoyed.
Insofar as informers being the lowest of God's creatures, would Terkel ever feel that way about an informant turning in Ku Klux Klan members? Or someone turning in an abortion clinic bomber?
The horrors of Communism, and the dupes who fell for it, are a matter of record. Yet here's your man who for decades gave a voice to working men and women, CNN. Here's your national treasure, Senator Obama. Here's your liberal's liberal, ABC News Chicago.
Maybe before he leaves the stage, he'll tell us whether he'd been a Communist. Not that it would matter to any of you.
That's instructive.
As far as Terkel is concerned, telling the truth debases the teller.
I'll go with Jesus on this one, not a wrinkly old Communist.
No wonder he's a national treasure. Unfortunately, the USSR was the nation.
In Chicago the other day it was all Studs all the time. He’s been called the greatest living Chicagoan. He’s certainly known everyone.
Was that in the Daily Worker?
Studs is STILL alive?
I thought the old communist pud knocker died years ago.
I think he’s trying to stick around until no one remembers his Red background.
Again proving the old saw:
The good die young, Stalinists live WAY past their time.
I guess God is giving them a chance to change their ways before the catch the express elevator down.
It was at a local tribute to him. Roger Ebert said it I believe.
Just die.
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