Sometimes, the greatest messages are not made with the help of formalized speeches and great platforms but as well by the very silence of the hearts of those who have made extraordinary lives despite their simplicity. Men with Dirty Faces: The Human Worms, authored by Valentine J. Thomas and carefully guarded by his grandson, Albert J. Thomas, is a message of this kind, a message that is lifted right out of the deepest pit of the coal mines to help us remember what it is a human being means, what endurance means, and what hope means. A Message from Valentine J. is not a story; it is a voice out of a past that has addressed a world that has lost its origin.
Valentine J. Thomas was not a writer by profession. He was a coal miner, one of the myriads of men who went down in the early and late 19th century into the dark tunnels of Pennsylvania ground. The world in which he lived was prospering off the efforts he and his fellow miners made, but their lives were kept under wraps.
The coal dust had blackened their faces, the work had scarred their lungs and the hardship had tried their souls. Yet in spite of all the adversities they suffered, they bore with them something deep within themselves, this indestructible strength of will to endure and to hope. The message written by himself in his own hand is a tribute to these lost souls by Valentine.
He did not write to get fame or fortune, and the reason is because he was a witness, to speak the truth about a world that many people would never encounter. His draft, written in bad English, turned into an unrefined, emotional account of human suffering. It spoke of families, the Durants and the Tarnowskis, whose existence was based on the ruthless pace of mines. Valentine had preserved in their stories the spirit behind all working-class dreamers who ever lived: the father who toiled to educate his child, the mother who hoped to live to be safe, and the child who wished it were light in a dark world.
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In Men with Dirty Faces: The Human Worms, the viewer accompanies these families in all their success and failures. Syl Durant is a prideful miner who fantasizes that his son Jerry will get out of the pit and get a better life on learning. However, the concept of poverty kills those hopes and young Jerry has to move underground like his father. He is crippled in a horrible accident, and in that despair, he had discovered one of the most terrifying facts in the book: that even hope has a price in the mines.
Then there is Stanley Tarnowski, who is a Polish immigrant who arrives in America with the hope of freedom and wealth. He suffers the same darkness, the same stifling threat, till years of work destroy him without destroying his soul. Valentine conveys one of his strongest messages through his pain; that a man is not judged by how well he is doing but by how he believes, by how he has his family and struggles on.
A Message from Valentine J. is eventually a cry of remembrance. It challenges us to celebrate the unrecognized heroes whom we call builders, laborers, and dreamers of America, who made it not in offices or theatrical stages, but in the very bottom of the earth. It is the message of thanks and humility, whereby we should not peer ahead of us before we can peer back. In a time of ease and plenty, the words of the old man, Valentine, sound as they have never sounded before: Do not forget the men with dirty faces, whose agony made you the comfort you are.
This is not merely a historical message but a message of humanity. It addresses all readers who think in the righteousness of labor, the might of persistence, and the value of family. It also makes us aware of the fact that great things are probably found in the smallest corners. And with the help of Albert, the voice of Valentin is still heard in new generations as his story is brought to the modern world out of the mines.
Dirty Face Men: The Human Worms is currently being sold in print and digital versions in large bookstores and online entities. Enter the world of Valentine J. Thomas. Hear his message. Feel his truth. And keep in mind the hands that used to work in dust so that we ourselves might live in light.