Anna Deveare Smith's play "House Arrest" is about the presidency, and she noted that "one of the people who I talked to a lot when I was studying the presidency was Studs [Terkel]. He's in Chicago now; he's quite old; he doesn't hear very well, so he talks quite loudly….I went to Studs and I thought I would just cut to the chase and ask him, since my search is for American character, if he could tell me about a defining moment in American character."

Defining moment in American history?
I don't think there's one
you can't say Hiroshima.
That's a big moment.
I don't think there's any one.
I can't pick out any one.
It's a combination of many.
I can't think of any one moment I'd say is the defining moment.
But the gradual slippage -
slippage is the word used by people in
Watergate -
moral slippage.
It's a gradual kind of thing.
A combination of things.
You see we also have the technology.
I say less and less the human type.
Oh, I can tell you tell you tell you another funny little
playlet.
The Atlanta airport is a modern airport.
And as you go there
these trains take you
out to a destination
And on to a concourse…
And on these trains there's a voice, you see.
The voice.
You know in the old days we had robots.
Robots imitated humans.
Now you have humans, imitating robots!
So we got this voice
on this train
"Concourse One
Omaha -
Lincoln Concourse Two
Dallas
Fort Worth."
Same voice.
Just!
as the train is about to go,
A young couple
rush in.
And they're just about to close the pneumatic doors?
And that voice
without-losing-a-beat says
"Because of late entry we're delayed thirty seconds."
Just then,
Everybody is looking at this couple
with hateful eyes
And the couple is going like this you know shrinkin'…
And I'd happen to have a couple of drinks,
before boarding
I do that to steel my nerves.
And so I imitate a train call
holding my hand over my -
"George Orwell,
your time has come!"
Everybody laughs when I say that
but not on the train!
Silence!
And so suddenly they're lookin' at me.
And so here I am with a couple, shrinkin',
the three of us
at the foot of Cavalry
about to be upped you know.
Just then, I see a baby,
a little baby in the lap of a mother,
I know it's Hispanic 'cause she speakin'
Spanish
to her companion
so I'm going to talk to that baby.
So I say to the baby, holding my hand over my mouth 'cause
my breath must a hundred proof!
I say to the baby
"Sir, or, madam…
what is your considered opinion
of the human species?"
And the baby looks
You know the way babies look at ya
clearly
and starts laughing
starts busting out with this crazy little laugh
And I say
"Thank God for
a human reaction!
We haven't lost yet!"…
But you see the human touch!
You see the human touch!
That's disappearing you see.
So you ask about a defining moment-
Ain't no defining moment,
for me.
It's an accretion of moments that add up to where we are now.
Now.
Where trivia becomes news.
And more and more, less and less, awareness
of the pain of the pain of the other.
This is an interesting dilemma with which we're faced.
I don't know if you can use this or not,
but it's quoting Wright Morris
writer from Nebraska who says that
"We're more and more into communications and less and less in communication!"
Okay kids!
I've got to scram.
I gotta go see my cardiologist!