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What man in history has done most to change the face of the earth? Politicians might name Augustus Caesar or Adolf Hitler. Military men might name Napoleon Bonaparte, or perhaps General "Tooey" Spaatz, whose U.S. bomber fleets leveled Nazi cities in World War II. But among builders, there is no disagreement. The man who has done more than anyone else to change the face of the earth lives in a one-story frame house at an elevation of 2,695 ft. in Boise, Idaho (long. 116° 11 min. W., lat. 43° 34 min. N.). He is Harry Winford Morrison, 69, white-haired boss of Morrison-Knudsen Co., the world's biggest heavy construction firm.
In his 50 years as a builder, Harry Morrison and his men have moved mountains, tamed rivers, built scores of dams, tunnels, power plants, railroads, highways, bridges and airfields around the world. Morrison was the driving force behind Hoover Dam; he was part of the combine that built the string of Navy airfields across the Pacific during World War II. Like many Americans, he thinks of nothing but work, and he has a simple adage to explain his passionate absorption. "A man's worth," he says, "is counted in the things he creates for the betterment of his fellow men."
Last week, for the betterment of his fellow men and to keep an eye on his projects abroad, Builder Morrison took off on a five-week, world-girdling trip. His itinerary: Casablanca, to look over work on the North African air bases; Iraq, to bid on a dam project; Italy, to check on a tunnel through the Italian Alps. Many of Morrison's other jobs are in primitive, undeveloped countries, where MK's giant power shovels and 18-ton bulldozers are as much a source of wonder as the iron horse was to the Indians a century ago. In these countries, M-K has caused roses to grow in deserts, electric power and wealth to flow from forbidding mountain streams, new skills to enrich poverty-stricken natives. In all his endeavors, Harry Morrison does not forget that he is a hardheaded American businessman working to make a profit. But that is not his only objective.
"We're not missionaries," he says. "We're represented abroad by some of the ruggedest, two-fisted construction men in the business. But from the dams and roads and canals that we build come new hopes. What we do is often taken to be representative of what all America does. We like to think we leave the impression around the world that all America is interested, earnestly and hopefully, in economic and social progress for all men."