Employment Genocide in the Name of Progress

My father was a great historian and he often told this story.

In the wake of our current financial crisis and that the super committee failed and is hoping Santa has a Christmas miracle in his sleigh for them, I figured I might share it with you all.

John William Henry was an African American laborer who worked as a "steel-driver." A man tasked with hammering in railroad spikes in the construction of railroad tracks across the U.S. territories. He was prisoner #497 in the Virginia State Penitentiary, released by the warden to work on the C&O Railway in the 1860s. John Henry’s original crime was stealing food so that his family could successfully survive running away from slavery using the Underground Railroad ... a family that he would never see again.

John Henry's prowess as a steel-driver was eventually measured in a race against a machine, a steam powered hammer. It was the classic man versus machine contest. It is a true story that is one of varying morals and metaphors. It is like the movies War Games and Blade Runner, where man must dig deep within his own soul to beat a machine.

It is like the movies Shawshank Redemption and Stagecoach, where the criminal finds rehabilitation. And it is like Armageddon and Karate Kid movies, where the hero must beat all odds to be victorious.

John Henry was a black man of exceptional physical gifts and attributes. A former slave, born in Tennessee, Henry became the greatest role model for American Rail workers in the mid-19th century. He helped the push to expand railroads from the east coast of the United States, across and through the mountains, to the frontier west, doing the job of nearly 10 men.

Most of the railroad workers at that time were Asians. The rail bosses found them to be quiet, self-reliant and tireless. The Asians were willing to work for less pay than the others except maybe the black former slaves and white criminals. But for criminals, it was a better life than working on a chain gang. But John Henry was no ordinary man and no ordinary criminal.

Criminals seeking to show rehabilitation and early release were allowed to work on the railroad and not be chained constantly. Other criminals at that time were given tasks such as mining or timber collecting, as a form of punishment. Such punishment might include building roads, digging ditches or chipping stone. But the owners of the railroad were getting much flack for hiring immigrants and criminals from the U.S. government.

They wanted them to hire more white settlers looking to go out west. In response to this growing tension, the owners of the railroad bought a steam-powered pike hammer to do the work of his steel-driving crews. A measure that was assured to save the railroad tons of money by allowing a machine to do what man had done for years. It would also get the government off of the railroad owners’ backs, because government did not govern machines. The steel-driving crews and the steam-powered hammer worked reluctantly side by side for months.

To save his job and the jobs of his men, John Henry challenges the owner to a contest: Henry will race the steam-powered hammer and in return the owners would agree to keep all the employees working for at least one year if he wins. Henry beats the machine, but in his exhaustion he collapses and dies.

The owners stay true to their word. (Mainly because the steam-powered spike hammer had extreme mechanical problems in the frigid winter months in the cold Midwest and were better suited and more fiscally responsible to be turned into steam locomotives instead.)

And so one man becomes a legend for doing the right thing at the right time for the right reason. Just keep that in mind and other negative aspects of modernization the next time you pass the token token clerk, an ATM and a self-checkout counter.

That and the fact that government has to help create new jobs and affordable training like in the area of electronic repair and maintenance. We are quickly forcing job obsolescence without a plan for new job creation.  

I just wish one of the new presidential candidates would cover this issue as they debate. Now that would be a huge surprise.