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Bulldozers & Draglines. Through the skills of Harry Morrison and other U.S. builders, economic progress has been given a mighty push. U.S. earth movers have shown the world that man need not be a prisoner of his surroundings, starving in desert lands or drowned by torrential floods. He can change much of the unproductive land to suit his needs— Part of this change is due to the new machinery: the clanking bulldozers that knock down forests, the great draglines that claw house-sized holes at a single scoop, the cranes, jumbos, earth movers, power shovels, trenchers and dozens of other mechanical giants that lay pipelines, tunnel through mountains, and pour concrete for dams with the ease of a man putting down a sidewalk. But the biggest part of the change is the revolution in construction thinking; today, there is almost no project too big to tackle, no reasonable limit to reshaping the earth to make it more productive. Only 70 years ago, a project such as Brooklyn Bridge was considered a construction marvel. Today, Harry Morrison and the other builders consider far greater marvels just routine jobs.
Last week in New Zealand, an M-K crew broke through the last rock barrier 14 months ahead of schedule to finish a great, 5½-mile railroad tunnel in the rugged Rimutaka Mountains. By M-K standards, it was a small-scale operation, costing only about $7,000,000. But on the record, it was one of the world's longest railroad tunnels and one of the greatest construction feats in New Zealand history.
About 8,000 miles away, in British Columbia, another M-K construction crew was finishing a far bigger job, a $173 million hydroelectric installation. It was MK's share of the $500 million Nechako-Kitimat project of the Aluminum Co. of Canada, probably the biggest construction job ever attempted by private capital. To supply power for a new aluminum smelter, M-K had dammed a river to form a 120-mile-long reservoir, hollowed out a mountain to enclose a huge powerhouse five city blocks long, and drilled a ten-mile tunnel to carry the water to the turbines. At ultimate capacity, Alcan's powerhouse would be able to produce 1,671,000 kw., 34% more than Hoover Dam, enough electricity to match the combined output of such U.S. giants as Shasta, Bonneville and Wilson Dams.
"We Can Learn, Too." Overseas, Morrison-Knudsen is as much teacher as builder. When M-K first went into Afghanistan seven years ago to erect two dams to control floods and bring water to 400,000 desert acres, it brought in a large crew of Americans. There were even high-school graduates to work on surveying teams. M-K found, as it had in South America, that it could train natives for many of the jobs. Now it generally operates with only one American specialist to scores of natives on each job. M-K sometimes has as many as 400,000 local men on its payroll. It leaves a cadre of native engineers to take over completely when U.S. foremen go home.
No one insists that workers must learn to do everything the American way if they can work out a good method of their own. "The fact is," says one M-K executive, "there's a lot we can learn from them." By patient explanation and endless demonstration, tribesmen are coaxed off camels and onto roaring cats, and ancient peoples are taught a thousand undreamed of modern skills.