-Joe Hill
Hellraisers Journal, Sunday November 28, 1915
From Solidarity:
The Joe Hill Edition: “Don’t Waste Anytime Mourning!”
The latest edition of the I. W. W. newspaper, Solidarity, is dedicated to Joe Hill and features the following cartoon, penned by Ralph Chaplin:
According to the cartoon, the firing squad is made up of the five members of the Utah Board of pardons, which includes Governor Spry, Attorney General Barnes, and the three members of the Supreme Court: Chief Justice Straup, and Associate Justices Frick and McCarty. As the money power directs the state-sanctioned murder of Fellow Worker Hill, the rising sun of Organization appears over the prison wall.
Below Chaplin’s drawing is a banner with FW Hill’s farewell message:
Don’t Waste any Time in Mourning-Organize
This week’s Solidarity also includes a story from the Salt Lake Herald-Republican, written by one of the reporters who visited Joe Hill on the last afternoon of his life, recounting the tale of how FW Hill wrote his Last Will.
The reporter asked FW Joe Hill:
“What disposition are you going to make of your effects, your little trinkets, and personal belongings…”
Hill replied that he really had nothing in the way of “trinkets, keepsakes” as he had never believed in them. “But I have a will to make, and I’ll scribble it. I’ll send it to the world in care of Ed Rowan and my I. W. W. friends.”
The reporter continued:
“Hillstrom then sat down on the edge of his cot and inscribed the following valedictory to the world.”
My Last Will
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 than
Would come to life and bloom again.
This is my last and final will
Good luck to all of you. -Joe Hill
A Poem for Joe Hill by John Nordquist
Also featured is a new song by John Nordquist, which we suspect will soon be found reprinted in the next edition of the Little Red Songbook:
November Nineteenth
(Tune- “The Red Flag”)
-by John Nordquist
They’ve shot Joe Hill, his life has fled,
Thy’ve filled his manly heart with lead;
But his brave spirit hovers near
And bids each fellow worker cheer.
On high the blood red banners wave!
The flag for which his life he gave;
The master class shall rue the day
They took Joe Hillstrom’s life away.
Now, fellow workers shed no tear,
For Joe Hill died without fear;
He told the bosses’ gunmen, low:
“I’m ready; fire! Let her go!”
No more Joe Hill shall pen the songs
That pictured all the worker’s wrongs;
His might pen shall rust away,
But all his songs are here to stay.
Now Salt Lake City’s Mormon throngs
Must list to Joe Hill’s rebel songs
While rebel workers press the fight
And show the One Big Union’s might.
March on, march on, you mighty host,
And organize from coast to coast;
And Joe Hill’s spirit soon shall see
Triumphant Labor’s victory.
The Letters of Joe Hill
-ed by Philip Foner
Oak Publications, 1965
https://books.google.com/books?id=1tHfAAAAMAAJ
Joe Hill
-by Gibbs M. Smith
Gibbs Smith, Sep 1, 2009
https://books.google.com/books?id=wFwsHQVuHVUC
The Man Who Never Died:
The Life, Times, and Legacy of Joe Hill, American Labor Icon
-by William M. Adler
Bloomsbury Publishing USA, Aug 30, 2011
https://books.google.com/books?id=nCwHDiXYMRMC
IMAGE
Joe Hill, Cartoon/ Firing Squad with Screen Removed, Solidarity Newspaper of Nov 27, 1915
http://theunionleader.blogspot.com/2017/05/union-workers-memorial-day-joe-hill.html
Joe Hill, Joe Hillstrom, He died a martyr, button worn at Chicago funeral, Nov 25, 1915
http://quod.lib.umich.edu/l/lbc1ic/x-lbc.0307/LBC0307.TIF?lastkey=subject;lastpage=browse;lastvalue=l;size=50;start=1;subview=detail;view=entry
Joe Hill in handcuffs from Chicago Day Book of July 20 1914
http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045487/1914-07-20/ed-1/seq-21/