The Man Who Didn't Die

[WilliamPitt]

Today marks the 94th anniversary of labor hero Joe Hill's death by firing squad. (Photo: david_axe / flickr)

The Man Who Didn't Die
By Dick Meister
t r u t h o u t | Report

Thursday 19 November 2009

It's November 19, 1915, in a courtyard of the Utah State Penitentiary in Salt Lake City. Five riflemen take careful aim at a condemned organizer for the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), Joe Hill, who stands before them straight and stiff and proud.

"Fire!" he shouts defiantly.

The firing squad didn't miss. But Joe Hill, as the folk ballad says, "ain't never died." On this 94th anniversary, he lives on as one of the most enduring and influential of American symbols.

Joe Hill's story is that of a labor martyr framed for murder by viciously anti-labor employer and government forces, a man who never faltered in fighting for the rights of the oppressed, who never faltered in his attempts to bring them together for the collective action essential if they were to overcome their wealthy and powerful oppressors.

His is the story of a man and an organization destroyed by government opposition, yet immensely successful. As historian Joyce Kornbluh noted, the IWW made "an indelible mark on the American labor movement and American society," laying the groundwork for mass unionization, inspiring the formation of groups to protect the civil liberties of dissidents, prompting prison and farm labor reforms, and leaving behind "a genuine heritage ... industrial democracy."

Joe Hill's story is the story of, perhaps, the greatest of all folk poets, whose simple, satirical rhymes set to simple, familiar melodies did so much to focus working people on the common body of ideals needed to forge them into a collective force.

The rest: http://www.truthout.org/1119094

[Mari333]

1. knr

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8Kxq9uFDes

[Brickbat]

2. I dreamed I saw Joe Hill last night, alive as you or me.

Don't mourn, organize!

[sasquatch]

3. RIP Joe Hill

[malaise]

4. Bravo Joe Hill

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YR6SMAJQW8Y
Workers' rights forever!!

[Blue-Jay]

5. Good article.

But I have to admit that I giggled at "Dick Meister".

The Dickinator
Dick-o-Rama
The Dickmeister

[kentuck]

6. Joan Baez..

remembers him fondly in her songs.

[cali]

7. Great thread. Thanks, Will.

[DBoon]

8. too bad we don't have more of Joe Hill here on DU

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x7044775

[bigtree]

9. I never died said he . . .

Casey Jones - The Union Scab (sung by Utah Phillips): http://popup.lala.com/popup/1657606181683997194

[StarfarerBill]

10. "I will die like a true-blue rebel. Don't waste any time in mourning - organize!"

Thanks, Joe, for your heroic work, up to the very last.

[imdjh]

11. Do we think he killed the butcher?

I love the Joe Hill icon, and the song makes me cry though I prefer Joan Baez. But the way the story reads means that we would have to give Joe Hill a great deal of the benefit of the doubt. If you were on the jury, would you have acquitted him?

[izzybeans]

12. "Patriotism was a ruse to set the workers of one nation against those of another

for the profit of capitalist manipulators".

If only this lesson were applied today.

[safeinOhio]

13. Solidarity forever.....

The Union makes us strong.....

[G_j]

14. K&R!

[anonymous171]

15. K&R.

[Raster]

16. How 'bout that?

"As Hill's futile appeals made their way through the courts, Gov. William Spry of Utah was swamped with thousands of petitions and letters from all over the world asking for a pardon or commutation. But he would not even be swayed by the pleas for mercy from the Swedish ambassador. Not even by the pleas of US President Woodrow Wilson.

The governor paid much greater attention to the views of Utah's powerful Mormon Church leaders and powerful employer interests, particularly those who controlled the state's dominant copper mining industry. They insisted that the man they considered one of the most dangerous radicals in the country be put to death.

Joe Hill's body was shipped to Chicago, where it was cremated after a hero's funeral, the ashes divided up and sent to IWW locals for scattering on the winds in every state except Utah. Hill, with typical grim humor, had declared, "I don't want to be caught dead in Utah.""

[Uncle Joe]

17. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, WilliamPitt.:thumbsup:

[Stockholm]

18. Jag drömde om Joe Hill i natt

Vi stod där man mot man...

interpreted by Swedish troubadour Fred Åkerström

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4lrBsz763I&feature=related

Great article - thanks!

[dana_b]

19. k & r

Union Song

For the fired auto workers
Who were twisted, tricked and robbed
To the peasant in Guatemala
In a sweatshop got your job
And she can't feed her family
On the pennies that she makes
Meanwhile the crime rate's rising
Up and down the Great Lake states

Like vegetables left in the field
The signatures smell rotten
On the contracts and the deeds
That push the race down to the bottom
As they load the rubber bullets
As they fire another round
I'm heading into the tear gas
Dig in man, hold your ground

For Joe Hill and Caesar Chavez
Who fought in their own time
For our brothers and our sisters
Up and down that picket line
For the unnamed and unnumbered
Who struggle brave and long
For the union men and women
Standing up and standing strong

Si nos quedemos
Juntos vamos a ganar? Si !
Hit em where it hurts
And bite the hand that feeds
You might get one to three
Or probation and a fine
But I know where I'm gonna be
I'm gonna be right on that front line

For Joe Hill and Caesar Chavez
Who fought in their own time
For our brothers and our sisters
Up and down that picket line
For the unnamed and unnumbered
Who struggle brave and long
For the union men and women
Standing up and standing strong

Now dirty scabs will cross the line
While others stand aside and look
But ain't nobody never got nothin'
That didn't raise their voice and push
Like the steel worker in Ohio
The miner in West Virginia
The teacher in Chicago
Janitor in Mississippi
From the sweatshops of L.A.
To the fields of Mission Flats
There's a thunder cloud exploding
And I'm free at last

Like Joe Hill and Caesar Chavez
Who fought in their own time
Like our brothers and our sisters
Up and down that picket line
Like the unnamed and unnumbered
Who struggle brave and long
Like the union men and women
Standing up and standing strong

[WilliamPitt]

20. Kick

[johan helge]

21. k & r

[ClayZ]

22. K and R

[Hekate]

23. KnR. Thanks, Will. "I never died, said he."

[WilliamPitt]

24. One last kick

for Boot Hill.