Joel
Emmanuel Haaglund
was born in Gefle (Gävle), Sweden
in 1882. He emigrated to the United States
in 1901 and settled in California where he changed
his name to Joe
Hill. Converted
to socialism in 1910, Hill became a member
of the
Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) and
was one of the leaders of the San Pedro dock workers' strike. In 1912
he was beaten up and permanently scarred during a free speech campaign
in San Diego.
Hill was also a songwriter and his socialist songs appeared in the
trade union newspapers, Industrial
Worker and Solidarity.
After his Red Songbook
was published his songs were sung on picket lines and demonstrations.
Songs such as The
Preacher and the Slave and Casey
Jones - The Union Scab became
internationally known folk songs.
Hill's trade union activities made him a marked man and unable to
find work in California, he moved to Utah. In 1913 it is believed
Hill helped to organize a successful strike
at the United Construction Company. During this dispute Hill stayed
with some friends in Salt Lake City. While he was there, J.
B. Morrison, a former
policeman, was shot dead by two masked gunman in his grocery shop.
A few weeks before the murder, Morrison had told a journalist that
he had recently been threatened with a revenge attack because of an
incident while he was in the police force.
On the night of the murder, 10th January, 1914, Hill visited a doctor
with a bullet wound in his left lung. Hill claimed he had been shot
in a quarrel over a woman. Noting that the bullet had gone clean through
the body, the doctor reported Hill's visit to the police. They already
knew about Hill's trade union activities
and decided to arrest him. Hill refused to say how he got the wound.
As a witnesses standing outside Morrison's store claimed that he heard
one of the murderers say: "Oh, God, I'm shot." Hill was
charged with the murder of Morrison.
Leaders of the Industrial
Workers of the World argued that Hill had
been framed as a warning to others considering trade
union activity. Even William
Spry, the Republican
governor of Utah admitted that he wanted to use the case to "stop
street speaking" and to clear the state of this "lawless
elements, whether they be corrupt businessmen, IWW agitators, or whatever
name they call themselves"
At Hill's trial in Salt Lake City none of the witnesses were able
to identify Hill as one of the murders. The bullet that hit Hill was
not found in the store. Nor was any of Hill's blood. As no money was
taken and one of the gunman was heard to say: "We've got you
now", the defence argued that it was a revenge killing. However,
Hill, who had no previous connection with Morrison, was found guilty
of murder and sentenced to death.
Bill Haywood and the IWW
launched a campaign to halt the execution. Elizabeth
Flynn visited Hill in prison and was a leading figure in the attempts
to force a retrial. In July, 1915, 30,000 members of Australian IWW
sent a resolution calling on Governor William
Spry to free Hill. Similar resolutions were passed at trade
union meetings in Britain and other European countries. Woodrow
Wilson also contacted Spry and asked for a retrial. This was refused
and plans were made for Hill's execution by firing-squad on 19th November,
1915.
When he heard the news, Hill sent a message to Bill
Haywood saying: "Goodbye Bill. I die like a true blue
rebel. Don't waste any time in mourning. Organize." He also asked
Haywood to arrange his funeral: "Could you arrange to have my
body hauled to the state line to be buried? I don't want to be found
dead in Utah." Hill last act before his death was to write the
poem, My Last Will.
An estimated 30,000 people attended Hill's funeral. The instructions
left in Hill's last poem were carried out: "And let the merry
breezes blow/My dust to where some flowers grow/Perhaps some fading
flower then/Would come to life and bloom again." Hill's ashes
were put into small envelopes and on May Day, 1916, were scattered
to the winds in every state of the union. This ceremony also took
place in several other countries.
Alfred Hayes
wrote a poem about Hill that was later adapted by Earl Robinson and
became the
famous folk song, I
Dreamed I Saw Joe Hill Last Night.
Bo Widerberg's popular Swedish film, Joe
Hill, appeared in 1971.
(1)
Joe Hill, letter to Ben Williams, the
editor of Solidarity (9th October,
1915)
I have always tried to make this earth a little better for the great
producing class, and I can pass off into the great unknown with the
pleasure of knowing that I never in my life double-crossed a man,
woman or child.
(2)
Tom
Mooney,
letter to Governor
William
Spry
on the Joe
Haaglund Hill
case (September
1915)
If you are not in favor
of Justice, then you can only be expected to be treated as you would
treat others.... We are not going to see any working man perish without
being avenged, when we are satisfied he was not proven guilty of the
crime charged in our estimation. Every principle of justice was denied
this man.... If Utah takes this life it will pay dearly for so doing.
Governor the Issue is up to you. Act, and Act Right, or others will
act right. Our demand is that Hillstrom be pardoned.
(3)
Just
before his execution, Joe Hill wrote an article about his case for
the socialist journal,
Appeal
to Reason
(15th August, 1915)
In
spite of all the hideous pictures and all the bad things and printed
about me, I had only been arrested once before in my life, and that
was in Sal Pedro, California. At the time of the stevedores' and dock
workers' strike. I was secretary of the strike committee, and I suppose
I was a little too active to suit the chief of that burg, so he arrested
me and gave me thirty days in the city jail for vagrancy and there
you have the full extent of my "criminal record".
The main and only fact worth considering, however, is this: I never
killed Morrison and do not know a thing about it. He was, as the records
plainly show, killed by some enemy for the sake of revenge, and I
have not been in the city long enough to make an enemy.
Shortly before my arrest I came down from Park City; where I was working
in the mines. Owing to the prominence of Mr Morrison, there had to
be a "goat" and the undersigned being, as they thought,
a friendless tramp, a Swede, and worst of all, an I.W.W, had no right
to live anyway, and was therefore duly selected to be "the goat".
I have always worked hard for a living and paid for everything i got,
and in my spare time I spend by painting pictures, writing songs and
composing music.
Now, if the people of the state of Utah want to shoot me without giving
me half a chance to state my side of the case, bring on your firing
squads - I am ready for you. I have lived like an artist and I shall
die like an artist.
(4)
Joe Hill, My Last Will (November, 1915)
My will is easy to decide,
For there is nothing to divide.
My kin don't need to fuss and moan -
"Moss does not cling to a rolling stone."
My body? - Oh! - If I could choose,
I would to ashes it reduce,
And let the merry breezes blow
My dust to where some flowers grow.
Perhaps some fading flower then
Would come to life and bloom again.
This is my last and final will.
Good luck to all of you.
(5)
Ralph
Chaplin described Joe Hill's funeral in the International Socialist
Review (December, 1915)
By 10.30 the streets were blocked in all directions; street cars could
not run and all traffic was suspended. Within the hall one could almost
hear the drop of a pin at all times. The casket was placed on the
flower-laden, black and red draped stage, above which was hanging
a hand woven I.W.W. label.
The funeral exercises were opened with the singing of Joe Hill's wonderful
song, Workers of the World, Awaken - members of the I.W.W.
leading and the audience swelling out the chorus. This was followed
by Jennie Wosczynska's singing of the Rebel Girl, written and
composed by Joe Hill, after which came two beautiful tenor solos,
one in Swedish by John Chellman and one in Italian by Ivan Rodems.
Thousands in the procession wore I.W.W. pennants on their sleeves
or red ribbons worded, "Joe Hill, murdered by the authorities
of the state of Utah, November the 19th, 1915" or "Joe Hill,
I.W.W. martyr to a great cause," "Don't mourn - organize,
Joe Hill" and many others.
Songs were sung all along the way, chiefly Joe Hill's, although some
of the foreign-speaking workers sang revolutionary songs in their
native tongues. As soon as a song would die down in one place, the
same song would or another would be taken up by other voices along
the line.
The murdering of martyrs has never yet made a tyrant's place secure.
The state of Utah has shot our song-writer into everlasting immortality
and has shot itself into everlasting shame.
(6)
James
Larkin, International
Socialist Review
(December 1916)
Joseph Hillstrom, one of
the Ishmaelites of the industrial world, was
to hand and they "shot him to death" because he was a rebel,
one of the disinherited, because he was the voice of the inarticulate
downtrodden; they crucified him on their cross of gold, spilled his
blood on the altar of their God - Profit. Therefore,
Comrades, over the great heart of Joe Hill, now stilled in
death, let us take up his burden, rededicate ourselves to the cause
that knows no failure,
and for which Joseph Hillstrom cheerfully gave his
all, his valuable life.
(7) In 1925 Alfred Hayes wrote
a poem about the death of Joe Hill. In 1950 Earl Robinson turned it
into a song, I Dreamed I Saw Joe Hill Last Night.
I dreamed I saw Joe Hill last night
Alive as you and me.
Says I, "But Joe, you're ten years dead."
"I never died," says he.
"Joe Hill ain't dead," he says to me.
"Joe Hill ain't never died,
Where workingmen are out on strike
Joe Hill is at their side!"
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