There are no limits to which
powers of privilege will not go
to keep the workers in slavery.
-Mother Jones
Hellraisers Journal, Monday November 8, 1915
From The Boston Globe: Protest on Boston Commons
If the people who gathered to hear Joe Ettor speak on Boston Common yesterday do as he asked them to do, there is a huge bunch of mail outbound from Boston this morning addressed to President Wilson, Gov Spry of Utah and Senator Reed Smoot. All the letters are to ask for further consideration of the case of Joe Hillstrom, the song writer of the I. W. W., under sentence of death by shooting and with his execution set for Nov 19.
Hillstrom Is the young Swede convicted of murder in Salt Lake City last year and whose execution was set for Oct 1. An appeal to the President through the Swedish Minister at Washington produced a stay, but the Utah Board of Pardons refused to act, and the death sentence was reaffirmed, the date being advanced to a week from next Friday.
John Nason opened the meeting, attended by nearly 1000 people, explaining its purpose to awake public opinion concerning a case in which there had not been a fair trial, he said. Hillstrom was up against prejudice, he said, because he was a member of the I. W. W., and before a Mormon jury and a Mormon judge and had been forced to accept as counsel men who he had discharged.
The speaker recalled the meetings in favor of Moyer and Pettibone, held on Boston Common, and of their effect toward freeing the two men; also of the later meetings in favor of Ettor and Giovannitti, and then introduced Joe Ettor.
Ettor, who has become even more handsome than he formerly was, took his place on the little portable platform, bareheaded, his thick, wavy black hair blowing over his forehead. He spoke quietly, but with utmost force, and used few gestures.
The I. W. W. leader painted the horrors of shooting as a mode of execution in moving terms and dwelt briefly on the aims of the I. W. W. characterized as being designed for human betterment, of which Hillstrom had been an eloquent exponent in verse.
Ettor reviewed the details of the case, as told to him by Hillstrom, a laborer, who came into Salt Lake City with about $300 savings. One night a few weeks later, a storekeeper and his son were shot to death by two masked men, who did not attempt to rob the store. The same night Hillstrom went to a doctor and asked to have a wound treated, which he said he had got in a scrape over a woman. The doctor told the police and Hillstrom was charged with the murder.
He retained attorneys named Scott and McDougal, giving them all the money he had, but they did so little that he discharged them. The court reappointed them his attorneys, and when he again refused to have them, said they could sit as “friends of the court.” There were no witnesses for the defense, Ettor said, and the only important witness for the Government to show that Hillstrom was near the scene of the murder would not identify him positively. Hillstrom was convicted.
The case was reviewed and declared to have been a fair trial. Hillstrom refused a pardon, offered if he would tell the name of the woman over whom he had been shot. “I am not on trial for being shot,” said he, “and that is none of your business.”
“There is only one hope for him,” said Ettor, “and that is to turn the searchlight of criticism toward Utah. We don’t need money for him, but we do need support. Write tonight three letters, not threatening letters, for there will be among the thousands probably some insane people writing those. But write to the President, to Gov Spry at Salt Lake City, and to Senator Reed Smoot, and express your sentiments in this matter.” Resolutions were passed asking the Hillstrom committee to send telegrams, expressing the indignation of the meeting, to the President, Senator Smoot and Gov Spry.
SOURCE
The Boston Globe
(Boston, Massachusetts)
-Nov 8, 1915
(Also source for image within article.)
https://newspaperarchive.com/us/massachusetts/boston/boston-daily-globe/1915/11-08/page-14
Information from Archie Green via Gibbs Smith:
The Industrial Worker of March 6, 1913 announced that the new edition of the I. W. W. songbook (Little Red Songbook) would include eleven new songs. That edition of the songbook was designated as the Fifth Edition on the front cover. Nine of the eleven new songs were by Joe Hill, including “We Will Sing One Song” on page 35.
WE WILL SING ONE SONG – Six Feet in the Pine
Lyrics by Joe Hill
(Air: “My Old Kentucky Home”)
Source for Lyrics:
https://joehill100.com/songs-of-joe-hill/
We will sing one song of the meek and humble slave,
The horn-handed son of the soil,
He’s toiling hard from the cradle to the grave,
But his master reaps the profits from his toil.
Then we’ll sing one song of the greedy master class,
They’re vagrants in broadcloth, indeed,
They live by robbing the ever-toiling mass,
Human blood they spill to satisfy their greed.
CHORUS:
Organize! Oh, toilers, come organize your might;
Then we’ll sing one song of the workers’ commonwealth,
Full of beauty, full of love and health.
We will sing one song of the politician sly,
He’s talking of changing the laws;
Election day all the drinks and smokes he’ll buy,
While he’s living from the sweat of your brow.
Then we’ll sing one song of the girl below the line,
She’s scorned and despised everywhere,
While in their mansions the “keepers” wine and dine
From the profits that immoral traffic bear.
We will sing one song of the preacher, fat and sleek,
He tells you of homes in the sky.
He says, “Be generous, be lowly, and be meek,
If you don’t you’ll sure get roasted when you die.”
Then we sing one song of the poor and ragged tramp,
He carries his home on his back;
Too old to work, he’s not wanted ’round the camp,
So he wanders without aim along the track.
We will sing one song of the children in the mills,
They’re taken from playgrounds and schools,
In tender years made to go the pace that kills,
In the sweatshops, ‘mong the looms and the spools.
Then we’ll sing one song of the One Big Union Grand,
The hope of the toiler and slave,
It’s coming fast; it is sweeping sea and land,
To the terror of the grafter and the knave.