Joe Hill
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Joe Hill, born Joel Emmanuel Hägglund, and also known as Joseph Hillström (October 7, 1879 – November 19, 1915) was a Swedish-American labor activist and member of the Industrial Workers of the World, better known as the Wobblies. He was executed for murder after a controversial trial, and after his death became the subject of a folksong.
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Early life and I.W.W. activity
Hill was born in Gävle, a town in the province of Gästrikland, Sweden. He emigrated to the United States in 1902, where he became a migrant laborer, moving from New York City to Cleveland, Ohio, and eventually to the West Coast. He was in San Francisco, California, at the time of the 1906 earthquake. Hill joined the Wobblies around 1910, when he was working on the docks in San Pedro, California. In late 1910 he wrote a letter to the I.W.W. newspaper, Industrial Worker, identifying himself as a member of the Portland, Oregon I.W.W. local.
Hill rose in the I.W.W. organization and travelled widely organizing workers under the I.W.W. banner, writing political songs and satirical poems, and making speeches. He coined the phrase "pie in the sky" which appeared in his song "The Preacher and the Slave" (a parody of the then well known hymn "In the Sweet Bye and Bye"):
- Long-haired preachers come out every night,
- Try to tell you what's wrong and what's right;
- But when asked how 'bout something to eat
- They will answer with voices so sweet:
- You will eat, bye and bye
- In that glorious land above the sky;
- Work and pray,
- Live on hay,
- You'll get pie in the sky when you die.
Trial and execution
On January 10, 1914, John G. Morrison and his son Arling were killed in Salt Lake City by two armed men masked by red bandannas. Arling had drawn a revolver from the groceries and wounded one of the masked men before being killed. The police first thought it was a crime of revenge, for nothing had been stolen. On the same evening, Joe Hill appeared on the doorsteps of a local doctor with a bullet wound. Hill said that he had been wounded defending a woman. The doctor noticed that Hill was armed with a pistol.
Hill was arrested for Morrison's death. Morrison had once been a police officer, and several men he had arrested were at first considered suspects, but they were not pursued.
A red bandanna was found in Hill's rooms. The pistol Hill had when he was at the doctor was not found. Hill resolutely denied that he was involved in the robbery and killing of Morrison, but he refused to testify at his trial, and was convicted of murder. An appeal to the Utah Supreme Court was unsuccessful, and it is uncertain whether appeals for mercy organized by the I.W.W. did his case any good.
The case generated international attention, and critics charged that the trial and conviction were unfair. Much later the state of Utah declared that under their law today, Joe Hill would not have been executed based on the evidence presented at his trial.
Hill was executed by firing squad on November 19, 1915. Just prior to his execution, he had written to Bill Haywood, an I.W.W. leader, saying "Don't waste any time in mourning. Organize."<ref>Zinn, 335.</ref>
His will, which was eventually set to music by Ethel Raim, read:
- 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? Ah, 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, Joe Hill
Hill's body was sent to Chicago where it was cremated. This was fitting as he had joked that he would not be caught dead in Utah. His ashes were purportedly sent to every I. W. W. local. In 1988 it was discovered that one envelope had been seized by the U. S. Postal Service in 1917 because of its "subversive potential." The envelope, with a photo affixed captioned: "Joe Hill murdered by the capitalist class, Nov. 19, 1915," as well as its contents, was deposited at the National Archives. After some negotiations, the last of Hill's ashes (but not the envelope that contained them) was turned over to the I. W. W. in 1988. The weekly In These Times ran notice of the ashes and invited readers to make suggestions as to what should be done with them. Suggestions varied from enshrining them at the AFL-CIO headquarters in Washington DC to Abbie Hoffman's suggestion that they be eaten by today's "Joe Hills" like Billy Bragg and Michelle Shocked. Bragg indeed did swallow a small bit of the ashes and still carries Shocked's share for eventual completion of Hoffman's last prank.[1] The majority were once again cast to the wind in the US, Canada, Sweden, Australia and Nicaragua. The ash sent to Sweden was only partly cast to the wind. The main part was interred in the wall of a union office in Landskrona, a minor city in the south of the country, with a plaque commemorating him. That room is now the reading room of the local city library.
Influence and tributes
Joe Hill is remembered for his devotion to union organizing and his many clever song lyrics, some of which continue to be sung.
Hill is also remembered from a tribute poem written about him in 1925 by Alfred Hayes entitled "I Dreamed I Saw Joe Hill Last Night", although sometimes referred to simply as "Joe Hill". Hayes's lyrics were turned into a song in 1936 by Earl Robinson. The usual lyrics to the song go:
- 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" said he,
- "I never died" said he.
- "In Salt Lake, Joe," says I to him,
- him standing by my bed,
- "They framed you on a murder charge,"
- Says Joe, "But I ain't dead,"
- Says Joe, "But I ain't dead."
- "The Copper Bosses killed you Joe,
- they shot you Joe" says I.
- "Takes more than guns to kill a man"
- Says Joe "I didn't die"
- Says Joe "I didn't die"
- And standing there as big as life
- and smiling with his eyes.
- Says Joe "What they can never kill
- went on to organize,
- went on to organize"
- From San Diego up to Maine,
- in every mine and mill,
- where working-men defend their rights,
- it's there you find Joe Hill,
- it's there you find Joe Hill!
- 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" said he,
- "I never died" said he.
Paul Robeson and Pete Seeger often performed this song and are associated with it, along with renowned Irish folk group The Dubliners. Their version, scored by Phil Coulter and sung by Luke Kelly, offers a stirring mix of Coulter's simple piano accompanient and Kelly's gravelly voice. Joan Baez's Woodstock performance of "Joe Hill" in 1969 is the most well-known recording.
Phil Ochs has also written and performed a song about Joe Hill, and in his turn was the subject of a rewritten version of the song by Billy Bragg.
The story of Joe Hill's execution served as the inspiration for the folk song "Long Black Veil," composed by Danny Dill and Marijohn Wilkin. The song was first recorded by the bluegrass group The Country Gentlemen in 1960, and would go on to become a folk classic, recorded most notably Johnny Cash's on the album "At Folsom Prison" and by The Band on the seminal "Music From Big Pink," both in 1968. Inspired by speculation that Joe Hill's refusal to testify was to protect honor of a woman, the lyrics of the song are as follows:
"Ten years ago, on a cold dark night Someone was killed, 'neath the town hall light There were few at the scene, but they all agreed That the slayer who ran, looked a lot like me
The judge said son, what is your alibi, If you were somewhere else, then you won't haveto die, I spoke not a word, though it meant my life, For I'd been in the arms of my best friend's wife.
Chorus She walks these hills in a long black veil, She visits my grave when the night winds wail, Nobody knows, nobody sees, Nobody knows but me.
Oh, the scaffold is high and eternity's near, She stood in the crowd and shed not a tear, But late at night, when the north wind blows, In a long black veil, she cries over my bones."
Bob Dylan claims that Hill's story was one of his inspirations to begin writing his own songs.
The Swedish radical Socialist leader, Ture Nerman (1886 – 1969), wrote a biography about Joe Hill. Ture Nerman also translated most of Joe Hill's songs into Swedish.
Wallace Stegner published a fictional biography called Joe Hill in 1969.
He was also depicted in the 1971 movie Joe Hill, directed by Bo Widerberg. [2]
The Swedish hardcore band Refused named their LP from 1996 Songs to Fan the Flames of Discontent after his song and textbook, published 1909 by the I.W.W.
See also
- Joe Hill the guitarist for the rock band Alien Ant Farm.
- Anarchist poetry
- Joe Hill House
- Anton Nilson
Notes
<references/>
References
Fellow Workers. Philips, Utah and Difranco, Ani. Righteous Babe Records, NY, 1999.
Wobblies! A Graphic History of the Industrial Workers of the World. Buhle, Paul and Schulman, Nicole, eds. Verso, NY, 2005.
{{cite book
| first = Howard | last = Zinn | authorlink = Howard Zinn | year = 2001 | month = September | title = A People's History of the United States | edition = Revised and Updated | publisher = HarperCollins Publishers | location = New York, NY | id = ISBN 0-06-093731-9 }}