Tomorrow I expect to take a trip to the planet Mars, and if so, will immediately commence
to organize the Mars canal workers into the I.W.W., and we will sing the good old songs
so loud that the learned star gazers on earth will once and for all get
positive proofs that the planet Mars really is inhabited.
-Joe Hill
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Tuesday October 12, 1915
Solidarity on Fellow Worker Joe Hill: "All the World May Say: Here Is a Man"
In the October 9th edition of
Solidarity we find a letter to the editor written by Joe Hill on what he believed to be the eve of his execution. Taking note of the typical Wobbly gallows-humor and steadfast courage with which our fellow worker gazed into the abyss, the caption above the letter read, "All the World May Say: Here Is a Man."
Of the record of his time on this earth, FW Hill states:
I have nothing to say about myself, only that I have always tried to do what little I could 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 have never in my life, double crossed a man, woman or child.
Letter to the Editor of Solidarity by Joe Hill
Utah State Prison,
Sept. 30, 1915.
Ben Williams, 112 Hamilton avenue,
Cleveland, Ohio, care "Solidarity"
Dear Friends and F.W.'s:
"John Law" has given me his last and final order to get off the earth and stay off. He has told me that lots of times before, but this time it seems as if he is meaning business. I have said time and again that I was going to get a new trial or die trying. I have told it to my friends. It has been printed in the newspapers, and I don't see why I should "eat my own crow" just because I happen to be up against a firing squad. I have stated my position plainly to everybody, and I won't budge an inch, because I know I am in the right. Tomorrow I expect to take a trip to the planet Mars, and if so, will immediately commence to organize the Mars canal workers into the I.W.W., and we will sing the good old songs so loud that the learned star gazers on earth will once and for all get positive proofs that the planet Mars really is inhabited. In the meantime I hope you'll keep the ball a-rolling here. You are on the right track and you are bound to get there. I have nothing to say about myself, only that I have always tried to do what little I could 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 have never in my life, double crossed a man, woman or child.
With a last fond farewell to all true rebels and hearty thanks for the noble support you have given me in this unequal fight, I remain,
Yours for International Solidarity,
Joe Hill
P.S. I have written down for publication, the facts about the case AS I KNOW THEM, I want you to get the truth.
Joe.
[Photograph added.]
Charles Ashleigh Reflects on Joe Hill's Reprieve
In the same issue of Solidarity, we find an article written by Fellow Worker Charles Ashleigh entitled "Reflections on Joe Hill's Reprieve" which also makes note of the courageous stand taken by Joe Hill:
...Possibly very few workers knew the magnificent role played by Joe Hill himself, in this desperate struggle for his life. No victim of class injustice in modern times has exhibited such unswerving courage under fire. Accustomed to an outdoor life, and chafing under prison confinement, Hill nevertheless refused to yield an inch. Before the Board of Pardons he said: "I do not want a pardon or a commutation I want a new trial or nothing." To the press he wrote: "I have lived like an artist and I shall die like an artist." At Hill's very last when asked by the Swedish Consul to name the woman he said: "It's nobody's business who she is-I am innocent." Even the cold blooded impersonal upholders of the law must have been shaken at the thought of killing such a man...
[Photograph added.]
Joe Hill: "A Few Reasons Why I Demand A New Trial" (Continued)
On October 4th, the Salt Lake City Deseret Evening News published a long statement by Fellow Worker Joe Hill which Hellraisers is republishing in three parts. We continue today with Part 2. The statement was prepared by Joe Hill for the Utah Board of Pardons in order to explain his reasons for insisting upon a new trial rather than commutation. Solidarity will also republish FW Hill's statement in its October 16th edition.
From the Salt Lake City Deseret Evening News of October 4, 1915:
HILLSTROM'S STATEMENT [Part 2]
TELLS OF SHOOTING.
At the time when I was shot I was unarmed. I threw my hands up in the air just before the bullet struck me. That accounts for the fact that the bullet hole in my coat is four inches and a half below the bullet hole in my body. The prosecuting attorney endeavors to explain that fact by saying, "that the bandit would throw one hand up in surprise when Arlin Morrison got a hold of his father's pistol." He also states that the bandit might have been leaning over the counter when he was shot. Very well. If the bandit "threw up his hands in surprise," as he said, that would of course, raise the coat some, but it would not raise it four inches and one-half; "leaning over the counter" would not raise the coat at all.
Justice McCarty agrees with the prosecuting attorney and says that throwing his hand up would be just the very thing that the bandit would do if the boy Arlin made an attempt to shoot him. Let me ask Mr. McCarty a question, suppose that you would some night discover that there was a burglar crawling around in your home, then suppose that you would get your gun and surprise the burglar right in the act, if the burglar should then reach for his gun, would you then throw up your hands and let the burglar take a shot at you and then shoot the burglar afterward? Or would you shoot the burglar before he had a chance to reach for his gun? Think it over, it is not a question of law but one of human nature. I also wish Mr. McCarty would try to find out if it is possible to raise a coat on a person four and one-half inches in the manner described by the prosecuting attorney.
We will now go back to the bullet, after the bullet had penetrated the bandit, the prosecuting attorney says that "it dropped to the floor" and then disappeared, it left no mark anywhere that an ordinary bullet would, it just disappeared, that's all. Now gentlemen, I don't know a thing about this bullet but I will say this, that if I should sit down and write a novel, I certainly would have to think out something more realistic than that, otherwise I never would be able to sell it. The story of a bullet that first makes an upshoot of four inches and a half at an angle of 90 degrees, then cuts around another corner and penetrates a bandit and finally make a drop like a spit ball and disappears forever, would not be very well received in the twentieth century. And just to think of it that the greatest brains in Utah can sit and listen to such rot as that and then say that "Hillstrom" got a fair and impartial trial.
OPINION OF MORRISON KILLING.
I have heard this case rehashed many times and I wish to state that I have formed my own opinion about this shooting. My opinion is this: Two or three bandits entered the Morrison store for the express purpose of killing Mr. Morrison. As they entered, both of them shouted: "We've got you now," and started to blaze away with automatic colt pistols caliber "38," and having the advantage of a surprise it does not seem reasonable that they would allow a boy to shoot them. The story about that remarkable disappearing bullet; the fact that the official records were changed for the purpose of proving that somebody was shot in that store; all that goes to show that there is a decided lack of evidence that anybody was shot in that store outside of the two victims.
Nobody saw the Morrison gun fired. Merlin Morrison ran in deadly fright into some backroom and hid himself. In spite of the fact that he was almost scared to death he "counted seven shots" and that is supposed to be some more proof that the Morrison gun was discharged. Six shots were fired by the bandits and all the bullets found. But there had to be seven shots fired, otherwise there would be no case against me. The boy "counted seven shots" and that "evidence" is introduced by the state as proofs that the Morrison gun was discharged. Any sensible person can readily see what chance a frightened boy or anybody else for that matter, would have to "count the shots" when two bandits are blazing away with automatic pistols.
There were some officers there who claimed that they smelled the end of the gun and that thereby they could tell that the gun had been recently discharged but the gun expert from the Western Arm Co. exploded that argument. He stated that it was a physical impossibility to determine with any degree of certainty, at what time a gun has been discharged, in a case where smokeless powder is used on account of the fact that the odor of powder is always there. Then there was that empty chamber in the Morrison gun. An officer testified that it was customary among police officers to keep an empty chamber under the hammer of their guns. Morrison used to be sargent of police I was told.
Then there was "a pool of blood" found two or three blocks away from the Morrison store and the prosecution made a whole ocean out of it in spite of the fact that the Utah state chemist would not say that it was human blood. He said that the blood was of "Mammalian origin."
Then there is Miss Mahan, who is supposed to have heard somebody say; "I'm shot." At the preliminary hearing she was very uncertain about it. She said she thought she heard somebody say those words but was not by any means sure about it.
Now, that's all there is, to my knowledge, and I am positively sure that all this so-called evidence which is supposed to prove that the Morrison gun was discharged on the night of Jan. 10, 1914, would not stand the acid test of a capable attorney, such as I am now in a position to get. At the time of my arrest I did not have money enough to employ an attorney. Thinking that there was nothing to my case, and always being willing to try anything once, I decided to "go it" alone and be my own attorney, which I did at the preliminary hearing.
[Photograph and paragraph breaks added.]
~~~~~~~~~~
SOURCES
The Letters of Joe Hill
-ed by Philip S Foner
Oak Publications, 1965
https://books.google.com/...
Joe Hill
-by Gibbs M. Smith
Gibbs M Smith Inc, 1984
(copyright 1969)
https://books.google.com/...
Deseret Evening News
(Salt Lake City, Utah)
-Oct 4, 1915
http://newspaperarchive.com/...
IMAGES
Solidarity (newspaper), July 31, 1915,
Cover by Ralph Chaplin
http://spartacus-educational.com/...
Joe Hill, Salt Lake Tribune, Sept 19, 1915
http://newspaperarchive.com/...
Joe Hill arrest record,
Salt Lake County Jail, ab Jan 14, 1914
http://local.sltrib.com/...
Joe Hill, Application for Commutation to
Utah Board of Pardons, Sept 1, 1915
http://images.archives.utah.gov/...
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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 "What We Want" on page 9.
WHAT WE WANT
By Joe Hill
(Tune: "Rainbow")
Rainbow - Ada Jones & Billy Murray
We want all the workers in the world to organize
Into a great big union grand
And when we all united stand
The world for workers we'll demand
If the working class could only see and realize
What mighty power labor has
Then the exploiting master class
It would soon fade away.
CHORUS
Come all ye toilers that work for wages,
Come from every land,
Join the fighting band,
In one union grand,
Then for the workers we'll make upon this earth a paradise
When the slaves get wise and organize.
We want the sailor and the tailor and the lumberjacks,
And all the cooks and laundry girls,
We want the guy that dives for pearls,
The pretty maid that's making curls,
And the baker and staker and the chimneysweep
We want the man that's slinging hash,
The child that works for little cash
In one union grand.
We want the tinner and the skinner and the chambermaid,
We want the man that spikes on soles,
We want the man that's digging holes,
We want the man that's climbing poles,
And the trucker and the mucker and the hired man
And all the factory girls and clerks,
Yes, we want every one that works,
In one union grand.
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