The boy whose.
Years and years it was always smoke over these hoes fine morning. Good times.
I've been mayor here for twenty twenty years I'm a I've lived on the hill
where I could watch the people men and women who lived by machines
and bought machine.
Made good
and slept Denver wake up to go to the machine.
I remember when those factories were built. We were pretty happy about it.
Concrete
and glass is why it was like money in the bank more machines more jobs thirty
six million more minute work in the last seventy years.
Eighteen new industries in the country.
Millions of new jobs automobiles get radio man wanted
man wanted. Well what about the man. That's a complicated question.
Sometimes the change was slow machinery didn't always disturb our lives.
The old jobs when there was trouble but we got new jobs.
Take Russell for example used to make carriages live next door to me a good many
years. He took to making parts for Indians.
A man with skilled hands like Tom can turn them to another trade if the work is not
too far different.
Even the older man had not so much trouble as you think some machines needed
skilled men almost as many as before
and this work was easier on the back
or Bill Johansen used to be a break but on the railroad
that ran from the junction across to our town.
Now there's a bus runs right alongside the old track.
He was out of work about six months now he's turning out parts for diesel
that same engine that helped put him out of his job.
That's the way it was.
And machines like this machine looms came in pretty gradually everybody knew they
were coming.
Times a good minute a chance to look around moved to another state move into our
town because they heard about our new law.
The steel rolling mill three thousand jobs
and to ask you had to have strong arms
and a hard nerve there it was money for three thousand pounds of
the machines brought life to our time.
Goofball with
the cool with the the
globe the ball boy
boy the cool the big blue
glow cool beaucoup pong with
the boss the
name of the
cool the
pocket Baku
ha ha ha ha ha ha with
the ten
blue cobalt blue the
good Blue Book
blue the blue the
the
good times make.
Good Christmas make payrolls from the steel mill the engine plant weaving mills
plenty of money in town that went to buy food
and drove the same all over the country.
Machines making cheaper goods a lot of them a new kinds of products quite a few new
stores to a lot of the young people got silly jobs in those stores
and clerical jobs in the offices. Not so long ago either.
My own youngest daughter got married. A Christmas marriage. Right.
All the church bells and. We thought prosperity would last forever.
We were able to buy good products shipped from other industrial towns from
everywhere in the US
and we shipped our goods in return the wheels kept going around.
And then the wheels stop.
We thought prosperity would last forever.
Now it was over we hoped it would return.
But the machines were idle a long time. So little man.
It wasn't the fault of the machines we kept blame them for depression.
In fact machines that often created jobs but now there was depression.
I never thought I'd see it snow on those rollers two thirds of the town on release.
Then when recovery began
when there were orders for steel again the old mill stage
and the years have brought a new method a new machine automatic high speed
strip now for every thirty men who worked before.
Now there is one no more strain on the back and shoulders.
No more work for three thousand the family is automatic high speed.
Powerful accurate never gets tired never gets sick.
What am I going home for.
What the devil am I going home. The walk in the door. Say.
No job again. That's what.
Very is the old If you haven't dealt with the
bank and Jack along the way out and trying to land a job there.
Well I mean here.
I'm trying to keep home
and I gotta get out of this dump.
Soon.
He used to hang around together.
Workin at the moon
and now I can't stand them look at them make their thinking.
And I think when is
that on a home burning when
when there's nothing wrong with me I can still work.
Walk in the door. Some of the same old things. I know that again.
We've got to look at a rise again. I don't want to go home. What am I going home.
What the devil.
I know
I know I can see nothing. Down.
Given the dinner anything happens every day
and if I said today we did come back and tell me.
Well forget it.
I've been planning some of what does it.
You.
Or
that they were living in the one below the
age of machine gadgets something
and age to wonder. All right.
I'm wondering.
One room is how much I can do no more than trying.
The.
Long as the old mill was there. We kept on hoping we kept our eyes on them.
Maybe they'll reopen maybe next month but
when they cut those smokestacks out of the sky.
We had nothing to look at any more decent fine work when every one of them.
Their hands were trained. But now that training is no good.
They're no more than unskilled men until they learn a new skill
but why we're all good men here and we know our jobs.
Why are we finished because the male can make the studio cheaper.
I can make it cheaper
but I can't make it as good as they can make it is a good keeper and
that would be like. What. A machine to play for us out of work.
Labor saving machines can make more goods for a lot of people
but the machines have come so fast
that the displaced workers have not been able to learn new skills
and find other guy.
Why should these men be thrown away as if they were obsolete as if they were broken
machines. I'm only twenty five years old.
I'm not obsolete. Maybe we could get him to bring some new factories into the city.
I'm a spiel worker I worked in a mill twenty years I couldn't go to work making
radios or refrigerators but did get a job.
It's the same way with millions of trained men.
It hit our town hard and suddenly but it's not a local problem.
Nothing is this is our town by itself can't feed these men can't afford to retrain
them. It's a bigger thing than one mayor in one town can possibly him.
It's a national problem.
A man may be through it is old occupation
but he still can retrain for another job in the last ten years we've let our
reservoir of skill run seriously low.
Millions of workers have been idle in each of these ten years.
That means millions of man years of work experience a lot of films allowed to rust.
We've needed a retraining program for a long time industries need machinists
mechanics skilled workers of every kind method to change.
All right let's train the men for new jobs. Let's teach them versatile skills.
It's taken an emergency to get us started on a nationwide scale
but what we learned this year about the problem about taking new skills to
displaced workers could help a peacetime economy as well as national defense.
We need claims men more than ever today schools in our town
and hundreds of others are training men for new jobs.
The men who worked in the old steel mills and learned to handle then drill.
The men who knew one operation and be trained for a wider usefulness.
We're meeting a crisis now government
and industry are working together to retrain these men when the crisis is passed.
Let's remember what they've learned. New automatic processes will keep on coming.
We need them. But let's keep the workers of today.
Let's keep their skills as modern as the new machines.