Henry Ford’s Jungle Kingdom

In the late 1920s, Henry Ford set up an American-style town called Fordlandia eighty miles south of the Brazilian city of Santarem. Fordlandia was the centerpiece a two million acre land concession the size of Connecticut. It was here that Ford planned to by-pass the English rubber growers of Malaya and to operate his own rubber plantations. The rubber from Brazil would be used for the tires of the automobiles pouring out of Ford’s factories.

Dozens of Ford employees were relocated to Brazil, and a model American town was built in the jungle, complete with a modern hospital, a library, a golf course, and rows of white bungalows. The streets were dotted with Model T Ford automobiles. Henry Ford exported small town America to the jungle.

Local Brazilian workers were offered twice the pay they could make elsewhere, but the terms of employment included adopting what Ford called, “the healthy lifestyle”, which was enforced with a totalitarian efficiency. The plantation cafeterias served American fare such as hamburgers. Local workers had to live in American-style houses, and were assigned numbers which they wore on badges. Alcohol was strictly forbidden inside Fordlandia, even within the workers’ homes, on pain of immediate termination. Brazilian workers were forced to work the customary American nine-to-five shifts under the hot Amazon sun, using Ford’s assembly-line philosophies. It was Ford’s way, or the highway.

In December 1930, worker resentment reached critical mass in the company cafeteria.

A Brazilian man stood and shouted that he would no longer tolerate the dictatorial conditions imposed on workers. A chorus of voices joined his, which was soon joined by banging cups and shattering dishes. Members of Fordlandia’s American management fled swiftly to their homes or into the woods, some of them chased by machete-wielding workers. A group of managers scrambled to the docks and boarded boats, which they moved to the center of the river and out of reach of the escalating riots. The riots went on for three days until put down by the Brazilian military.

Ford misjudged the temperament of his workers, but also failed to grasp the demands of the natural environment. Ford's engineers were not knowledgeable about tropical agriculture. Rubber trees were packed closely together on plantations rather than being widely spaced as they were in the jungle. The British successfully used this technique in Malaya after smuggling Brazilian plants to Asia. In Asia, the transplanted Amazonian rubber trees faced no natural predators (they were an invasive foreign species), but in Brazil the technique of close packing trees was unworkable. By 1945 synthetic rubber had been developed, reducing world demand for natural rubber. Ford's investment opportunity dried up overnight without producing any rubber.

Compassion in War (The Battle of Fredericksburg)

The Union army came across the wide plain in beautiful order, a moving forest of steel, hundreds of regimental flags giving a russet tinge to the wintry landscape. The army, in its thousands, came relentlessly toward the stone wall, the wind rippling its flags, the sunlight sparkling from its musket barrels and bayonets.

“General Lee was right in what he said,” thought nineteen year old Sergeant Richard Kirkland of the 2nd South Carolina watching this grand spectacle, “It is good that war is so terrible or men would come to love it.”

Kirkland knew war. He had fought at first Manassas, Savage Station, Maryland Heights and Antietam. He had killed and seen beloved friends killed. And now as he crouched behind the stone wall above the little town of Fredericksburg, Virginia he prepared to kill again.

The Northern host moved steadily forward until the guns of Kirkland and his brother soldiers began to thunder from behind the stone wall. An avalanche of iron whistled, shrieked, and burst into the bodies of the men in the advancing lines. The lines shuddered, staggered for an instant, and then dissolved. But the Yankees kept coming, wave after wave, crashing against that stone wall until only nightfall brought the slaughter to an end, leaving thousands of dead and dying men on the frozen field.

A chilly fog filled the valley. The cries of the wounded echoed in the darkness. A single agonized scream quivered above the others, and then merged into the crescendo of thousands of voices pleading in a disorganized chorus of pain.

“Damn Yankees,” said Newt, a big bellied veteran in his forties, “I wish they’d all just die and shut the hell up. I wish they had just one neck, I’d crawl out there and chop it off.”

“It’s a terrible noise,” said Kirkland, running a hand over the slight blond beard that barely covered his still soft cheek. “We could crawl out there and help some of them boys.”

“Help them to Hell you mean?”

“No, not help them to Hell. Give ‘em some water or something. Here we are two weeks from Christmas and you’re wanting to crawl out and kill wounded men. And you call yourself a Christian?”

“You’ve been shooting ‘em all day, and now you want to save them? That don’t make good sense, ” said Newt spitting a stream of tobacco juice in the direction of the Yankees, a trickle of the brown liquid trailing down his long filthy beard.

“My pa says that even in a battle you shouldn’t hate your enemy, any more than the sheriff hates a lawbreaker. My pa says war is a terrible scourge. You do your duty, but you don’t add to the evil by hating individuals.”

“Sounds like your pa ain’t spent much time on the battlefield.”

“Maybe not, but that don’t mean he’s not right about this,” said Kirkland. “That could be you or me out there.”

“But it ain’t,” said Newt. “Besides, I ain’t never heard of no Yankee worth his own weight in shit. I’m sure there ain’t one worth getting shot over.”

“I’m going to slip over the wall and give some of them boys water,” said Kirkland.

“You do, and they’ll shoot you down sure. And if they don’t Colonel Kershaw will have you shot for deserting your post. You do know we are at war with those people?”

“I’d better talk to the Colonel first,” said Kirkland.

“You do just that. And be sure to tell him about Christmas and how you want to give the Yankees a present,” Newt said.

Kirkland made his way back to the headquarters of the brigade commander Colonel Joseph Kershaw.

“Sergeant Kirkland, you are a good man and you have done good service, but we’d just best leave God in church for Sunday morning and leave him off the battlefield,” said Colonel Kershaw, a man of commanding presence in his early forties, who looked benignly at Kirkland from behind firm blue eyes.

“But I’ve heard General Jackson say that this is God’s army and that we must have God with us always. General Jackson says we must pray without ceasing. When we take our meals, when we take a draught of water, when we write a letter, and so for every act of the day,” said Kirkland.

“And I’ll tell you what I’ve heard General Jackson say,” said Kershaw, his eyes hardening, “when we were fighting during the Seven Days, a Yankee colonel on a white horse was riding up and down in front of his men, bold as brass, rallying his men. And we didn’t shoot because it was such a sight of magnificent gallantry. General Jackson rode up and said to me, ‘Why are you not shooting at that man’. And I answered, ‘General, we are honoring that man’s heroic bravery’. General Jackson said to me, ‘Shoot that man. If you kill the brave, the weak will run.’”

Kirkland’s lips pressed together tightly. “Sir, I request permission to speak to General Jackson so that I may ask him directly if I may comfort the wounded.”

Colonel Kershaw flushed red. He wasn’t going to risk being reprimanded by General Jackson a second time. General Jackson was a tough old cob, that was sure, but you never knew which way he was going to jump. “Alright boy, you hear me now,” said Kershaw, flecks of spit boiling from the corners of his mouth, “If you want to get yourself killed then you go over that wall. But if you do, you are not taking a white flag. I don’t want to see so much as the flutter of a white handkerchief, and if I do I’ll have you shot for desertion. You will have to rely on the mercy of those people. Do you understand me sergeant?”

“All right, sir, I'll take my chances,” answered Kirkland.

Kirkland returned to the stone wall, gathering up whatever canteens and blankets he could along the way.

“Colonel says I can go,” Kirkland told Newt.

“You are the damndest fool.”

Kirkland scampered over the wall. A shot rang out.

“I knew that damned fool would get shot,” thought Newt. “I warned him. Hell, now I guess I’ll have to crawl out there and save his sorry ass.”

But Kirkland was not dead, or even wounded. He made his way toward the closest wounded Union soldier. The soldier, laying flat on his back, tried to raise his rifle but didn’t have the strength.

“Probably thinks I’m going to chop his neck off,” thought Kirkland. Kirkland gave the man water which the wounded soldier gulped gratefully.

Another shot rang out. “Probably think I’m looting the corpses,” thought Kirkland, with the sickening realization that now the Yankees weren’t shooting at the Confederate army, they were shooting at Richard Rowland Kirkland.

Kirkland crawled on to the next soldier and the next, making his way through the writhing mass of mangled bodies. Some begged for water. Some called on God for pity. Some with delirious, dreamy voices, murmured loved ones names. Kirkland could do little but ease a painful posture; give a cooling draught; compress a severed artery; apply a crude bandage; take a token or farewell message for some stricken home.

Within a very short time, it became obvious to both sides what Kirkland was doing. There were no more shots. Some of the men behind the stone wall began to cheer, but no one came out to help.

Cries for water and comfort erupted all over the battlefield. There were thousands upon thousands of wounded men. There was so little he could do, but Kirkland kept crawling from man to man. It reminded him of those red tides along the beach when he was a boy. He still didn’t know why they called them red tides, but that’s what they called them. Thousands of fish would suddenly wash up on the beach, seemingly for no reason, flopping helplessly, gasping for air, dying. He spent one entire summer afternoon picking up fish and throwing them back into the sea. One of his friends said, “Richard, you must be addled. Can’t you see you’re not doing any good. There are thousands of them”. He remembered throwing another fish back and then saying, “It did that one some good.”

As dawn approached and the armies prepared to renew the fight, Kirkland slid back across the stone wall and slouched down next to Newt.

“Someday you’re going to get yourself killed with that kind of foolishness,” said Newt.

“If I do, tell my pa, I died right.”

Authors note: This fictionalized story is based on a true incident. Sergeant Richard Kirkland is known to history as the “Angel of Marye’s Heights” for his compassionate acts upon the battlefield of Fredericksburg. Kirkland was killed in action at the Battle of Chickamauga at the age of twenty. At the time of the Battle of Fredericksburg, Kershaw was a Brigadier General. He initially refused to let Kirkland go onto the field to help the Union wounded, but relented. He refused to let Kirkland go out under a white flag.

Northern Virginia Environmental Issues

The climate of the Northern Virginia became much as we know it today 5,000 years ago. Prehistoric peoples became less nomadic, settling in larger camps near rivers and streams. Food was abundant and diverse. The natives called the Potomac River above Great Falls the "river of geese”.

With the coming of modern civilization also came people. The population of Virginia reached one million in 1830. Eighty years later the population reached two million. Within the next thirty five years the population of Virginia reached three million. It took only fifteen more years to reach four million in 1960. Since then, growth has accelerated. By 1990, the population stood at six million and by 2010 was eight million. People brought pollution.

The Potomac River was particularly hard hit. With increased mining and agriculture upstream and increased urban sewage and runoff downstream, the Potomac River was slowly poisoned. It is said that President Lincoln used to escape to the outskirts of Washington on hot summer nights to escape the river’s stench. In 1965, after centuries of contamination by raw sewage and industrial pollution, President Lyndon B. Johnson called the Potomac River a "national disgrace." President Johnson set in motion a long-term effort to reduce sewage pollution and restore the health of the Potomac. Since the mid-1960s, there have been large-scale improvements at wastewater treatment plants, and the Potomac is now clean enough to support numerous bald eagles and support smallmouth and largemouth bass.

The threat to Northern Virginia’s environment is far from over however.

The British at Mount Vernon (War of 1812)

 
In August, 1814, as Washington City still smoldered, seven British warships under the command of Captain James Gordon appeared on the Potomac River headed for the city. Instead of attacking and destroying Mount Vernon, as anticipated the seven vessels fired salutes as they came abreast of the mansion.

The British flotilla proceeded up the river and held the town of Alexandria, Virginia hostage for several days. While the British were confiscating goods in Alexandria, American forces were setting up a battery on the river at White House Landing below Mount Vernon. On September 1, Captain Gordon sent two of his ships to fire on the battery to impede its completion, but by evening the Americans had five naval long guns and eight artillery field pieces in place. On September 6, the entire squadron engaged the battery destroying all thirteen American guns within forty five minutes. All seven British warships and twenty one captured merchant vessels returned to the main fleet.

Strange Spoils of the Mexican War (1846-1848)

Mexican President Antonio López de Santa Anna has long been vilified in American history for the massacre of the defenders of the Alamo. The flamboyant Santa Anna had an on-again-off-again relationship with the Mexican people during the course of a forty year career during which he served as President of Mexico on eleven non-consecutive occasions.

During one of his more popular cycles, Santa Anna became a hero to the Mexican people for resisting French forces that landed in Mexico to collect debts owed to French citizens. In the ensuing battle Santa Anna lost a leg and subsequently used a cork leg, and on occasion a simpler wooden peg leg. Both of these legs were captured by the 4th Illinois Infantry during the Mexican-American War (1846-1848) in a surprise attack which sent Santa Anna galloping away without them.

Both legs are now on display. The cork leg pictured below is on display at the Illinois State Military Museum, 1301 N. MacArthur Blvd, Springfield, IL. The peg leg is on display at the Oglesby Mansion, 421 West William St., Decatur, IL.

What’s good for General Motors is good for America

“What’s good for General Motors is good for America,” is a mis-quote from 1953 testimony given by Charles E. Wilson at his Congressional confirmation hearings to become Secretary of Defense in the Eisenhower administration. Wilson was defending his reluctance to sell millions of dollars of General Motors stock. When asked if he as Secretary of Defense could make a decision adverse to the interests of General Motors, Wilson answered that he could not conceive of such a situation, “because for years I thought what was good for the country was good for General Motors and vice versa.”

The American economy in the Eisenhower 1950s was the envy of the world. Without significant global competition American corporations and workers prospered. America was the workshop of the world, and American exports were king.

No modern American corporate executive could make a statement like Wilson’s without irony. Between 2004 and 2009 American based multi-national corporations have cut 2.9 million jobs in the United States, while outsourcing 2.4 million jobs to their overseas operations.

General Electric’s chief executive Jeff Immelt (the head of the Obama administration’s, “jobs council”) acknowledges that the health and well being of a company such as GE is now less connected to the well being of the American economy. Immelt says, “I’m a GE leader first and foremost. At the same time…I work for an American company.”

In 2000 some 54 percent of GE employees worked in the United States. In 2010 about 46 percent of General Electric’s 287,000 employees worked in the United States. GE laid off 21,000 American workers and closed 20 factories between 2007 and 2009.

The company, led by Immelt, earned $14.2 billion in profits in 2010, but paid no Federal taxes because the bulk of those profits, some $9 billion, were offshore. The year 2010 was the second year in a row that GE paid no taxes. General Electric states that it “pays what it owes under the law.”

George Washington Starts a War

In 1754 the age old contest between Great Britain and France once again erupted into war. The so called Seven Years War was fought across several continents and the world’s oceans between the British and French, together with their European allies. In North America, the English colonies were locked in mortal combat with their age old enemy the French and their Indian allies. Some say that George Washington started the war at a place called Jumonville Glen in western Pennsylvania. The clip below explains.

War and Taxes (1861-2011)

With the birth of the 21st century America entered the era of the “free war”. Despite urgent calls for a world wide War on Terror in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the American homeland, Americans continued to enjoy low tax rates. More than $1 trillion has been added to the national deficit by expenditures generated by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the first wars since the War of 1812 that have not been financed in part by new taxes.

There were three taxes instituted to pay for the Civil War. In the Spanish American War Congress levied a tax on certain luxury items. World War I was a “pay as you go” war. In World War II top income rates reached 94 % to pay for War. Congress passed new taxes in 1950 and 1951 to pay for the Korean War. During the Vietnam War Congress passed a ten percent surcharge, which meant 10 percent of owed income tax was added to the bill to pay for the war.

Civilians and the First Battle of Manassas, July 21, 1861

On July 16, the great Union army, marched out of Washington City to meet the Confederates at Manassas Junction. On July 21, 1861, the two great armies grappled. By evening the lives of the people of Manassas had changed forever.

JUDITH CARTER HENRY OF “SPRING HILL”

Judith Carter was born at Pittsylvania in 1777 in the midst of the Revolutionary War. She was the daughter of Landon Carter, who inherited the plantation in direct descent from Robert “King” Carter, who from 1702-1732 managed to patent some 300,000 acres in Northern Virginia for himself and his children.

In 1801 Judith Carter married Dr. Isaac Henry, one of the first surgeons in the United States Navy. Dr. Henry established himself and his family on 333 acres purchased from the Pittsylvania estate. He called this estate “Spring Hill.” The doctor died in 1829 but the family continued living at Spring Hill.

On July 21, 1861 the eighty four year old, invalid Judith Henry lay in her bed, as the battle began around Pittsylvania, her childhood home. Shells from Union artillery began to fall around the widow’s house. Mrs. Henry’s two sons, shocked to find Union troops on their doorstep, decided something must be done to move their mother to safety. Mrs. Henry was unwilling to leave, but after several shells struck the house, the terrified woman gave in.

The two sons placed the old woman on a mattress and carried her out of the house, intending to carry her to the Reverend Compton’s house, which was about a mile away. The small party was quickly caught in the open, between two opposing armies engaged in a furious battle. Terrified and hysterical, the old woman begged piteously to be taken back to her own home. The three Henrys returned to the house, and Mrs. Henry was returned to her bed. She was only there a short time before a shell burst in the room where she lay. She was struck by five shell fragments and lived for several agonizing hours, dying about nightfall. Rosa Stokes, a young slave who had been caring for the old lady was wounded by the same shell that killed Mrs. Henry.

Manassas 150th Civil War Tapestries