And herein lies the irony of the situation, certainly as far as African Americans were concerned. On one hand the machine was regarded as a curse because it represented a threat to employees. But the last hired, first fired employment principle that was applied to African American employees made the machine an even greater threat to them. Then, on the other hand, the machine reduced the amount of human physical exertion required to accomplish a task. Since racist discrimination insured that African Americans would end up with the least desirable, most arduous tasks, machines were then...