I have lived like an artist and I shall die like an artist.
-Joe Hill
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Wednesday September 22, 1915
Salt Lake City, Utah - Virginia Snow Stephen & Sigrid Bolin Appeal to Swedish Minister
From the
Ogden Standard
of September 21, 1915:
SWEDES AIDING JOS. HILLSTROM
Salt Lake City, Utah, Sept. 21.-To save life of Joseph Hillstrom Swedish residents of Salt Lake have invoked the aid of the Swedish vice consul in New York and hope to interest the Swedish minister to the United States. Hillstrom is sentenced to be shot October 1 for the murder of a grocery man. He was convicted on circumstantial evidence.
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Hellraisers has learned that two prominent women of Salt Lake City,
Virginia Snow Stephen and Sigrid Bolin, have appealed directly to
W. A. F. Ekengren, Swedish Minister to the United States, requesting his aid in the effort to save the life of Joe Hill. Mrs. Stephens was instrumental in bringing attorneys O. N. Hilton and Soren X. Christensen into the case to defend Fellow Worker Joe Hill.
Big Bill Haywood, General Secretary-Treasurer of the Industrial Workers of the World, telegraphed Mr. Ekengren on Monday, September 20th:
Joseph Hillstrom a Swedish subject has been sentenced to be shot to death October first at Salt Lake City, Utah. will you request Secretary of State Lansing to delay execution pending investigation.
From The New York Times of September 20, 1915:
The following article is an excellent example of the lies being spread by the kept press concerning our Fellow Worker Joe Hill and those who are fighting to save his life. Following the article, we take on and correct these lies one by one.
THREATEN UTAH OFFICIALS.
-----
Joe Hill's Partisans Resent Failure
to Pardon I. W. W. Poet.
Special to The New York Times.
SALT LAKE, Sept. 19.-Threats, both veiled and open, against the lives of Governor William Spry, the members of his family, and of various state officials have poured into State offices recently, following the propaganda instituted by the Industrial Workers of the World and many Socialists to prevent the execution of Joseph Hillstrom for murder. More than 10,000 of these letters have been received.
The number of guards at the State prison have been doubled, and the residences of Governor Spry, members of the Supreme Court, and other State officials are under heavy guard night and day. Private detectives and peace officers in civilian clothes form bodyguards for the Governor and other State officials. As an added precaution Hillstrom is kept in solitary confinement and visiting hours at the prisons have been discontinued.
Yesterday Hillstrom was given a final hearing before the State Board of Pardons, and his application was turned down. He will be shot on Oct. 1. None of the I. W. W. representatives were permitted at the hearing and fourteen guards, armed with rifles, were posted about the building where the hearing was held, Machine guns have been borrowed from the State militia, and operatives are stationed with them at the prison entrance.
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Joseph Hillstrom, better known as Joe Hill, the Hobo Poet, was convicted of the murder of a grocer on what his friends declare was flimsy circumstantial evidence. Hillstrom explained a wound found on him when he was arrested shortly after the crime by saying he had received it in a quarrel with a prominent Salt Lake woman whose name he would not reveal for fear of compromising her. Hill's best-known poem effort is "Hallelujah, I'm a Bum." which was the marching song of the church-raiding army of the unemployed in New York in the Winter of 1914.
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1. While it is true that letters have poured into the Governor's office and that there may well be more than 10,000 such requests from all around the world, only a small minority of them have been threatening. Many believe that some, if not most, of the threats are being made by private detective agencies in order to make work for themselves. If true, it seems to be working, for, as seen above, private detectives are being hired as body guards for Utah officials.
2. Ed Rowan of the Joe Hill Defense Committee was indeed present at the hearing of the Board of Pardons.
3. Joe Hill has never stated that he received his wound in a fight with a prominent Salt Lake woman. He stated that he was shot by a friend over a quarrel about a woman. The woman has never been identified by her prominence (or lack thereof) in Salt Lake City. Perhaps the Times is alluding to Mrs. Stephen who has been active in defense of Joe Hill.
4. Joe Hill did not write "Hallelujah, I'm a Bum." Some of Joe Hill's most popular songs are: "The Preacher and the Slave," "Casey Jones," and "Mr. Block."
An example of the many thousands of letters
pleading for the life Joe Hill.
~~~~~~~~~~
SOURCES
The Case of Joe Hill
-by Philip S Foner
International Publishers, 1965
https://books.google.com/...
Joe Hill
-by Gibbs M. Smith
Gibbs M Smith Inc, 1984
(copyright 1969)
https://books.google.com/...
The Ogden Standard
(Ogden City, Utah)
-Sept 21, 1915
http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/...
The New York Times
(New York, New York)
-Sept 20, 1915
http://query.nytimes.com/...
IMAGES
Virginia Snow Stephen
http://historytogo.utah.gov/...
Joe Hill, Salt Lake Tribune,
Sept 19, 1915
http://newspaperarchive.com/...
Letter to UT Board of Pardons on behalf of Joe Hill
from UT Rep Lund, Sept 14, 1915
(page 2) http://images.archives.utah.gov/...
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First published in the March 6, 1913 edition, Fifth Edition of the
Little Red Songbook, this was song was being sung as Salt Lake
City police attacked an I. W. W. rally in August 1913, about the
time that Joe Hill arrived in that city from San Pedro, California.
Mr Block - Utah Phillips
Mr. Block by Joe Hill
Tune: "It Looks Like A Big Night Tonight"
Please give me your attention, I'll introduce to you
A man that is a credit to "Our Red White and Blue,"
His head is made of lumber, and solid as a rock;
He is a common worker and his name is Mr. Block.
And Block he thinks he may
Be President some day.
CHORUS:
Oh Mr. Block, you were born by mistake,
You take the cake, you make me ache.
Tie a rock on your block and then jump in the lake,
Kindly do that for Liberty's sake.
Yes, Mr. Block is lucky; he found a job, by gee!
The sharks got seven dollars, for job and fare and fee.
They shipped him to a desert and dumped him with his truck,
But when he tried to find his job, he sure was out of luck,
He shouted, "That's too raw,
I'll fix them with the law."
Block hiked back to the city, but wasn't doing well.
He said "I'll join the union -- the great A. F. of L."
He got a job next morning, got fired in the night,
He said, "I'll see Sam Gompers and he'll fix that foreman right."
Sam Gompers said, "You see,
You've got our sympathy."
Election day he shouted, "A Socialist for Mayor!"
The "comrade" got elected, he happy was for fair,
But after the election he got an awful shock,
A great big socialistic Bull did rap him on the block.
And Comrade Block did sob,
"I helped him to his job."
The money kings in Cuba blew up the gunboat Maine,
But Block got awful angry and blamed it all on Spain.
He went right in the battle and there he lost his leg.
And now he's peddling shoestrings and is walking on a peg.
He shouts, "Remember Maine,
Hurrah! To hell with Spain!"
Poor Block he died one evening, I'm very glad to state,
He climbed the golden ladder up to the pearly gate.
He said, "Oh Mister Peter, one word I'd like to tell,
I'd like to meet the Astorbilts and John D Rockefell."
Old Pete said, "Is that so?
You'll meet them down below."
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