Joe Hill

Joe Hill (born Joel Emmanuel Hägglund, and so known under the name of Joseph Hillström; October 7th 1879 - November 19th 1915) was an engaged singer, member of the trade union étatsunien IWW (Industrial Workers off the World). It was carried out for murder after a discussed lawsuit, and became thereafter the object of a folksong .

Biography

Born with Gävle in the province from the Gästrikland (Sweden), Joe Hill is very quickly orphan, his father having been crushed by a train of the company for which he worked. He emigrated in the United States in 1902. Arrived at New York, he moved thereafter in Cleveland (Ohio) then on the west coast. Present at the time of the Earthquake of 1906 in San Francisco, he united with the Wobblies (IWW) about 1910, whereas he worked as docker with San Pedro (California). Writing committed songs and satirical poems, Joe Hill continued to work in various States, jumping on the goods trains, and organizing the workmen under the banner of the IWW. With the beginning of the year 1914, Joe Hill worked on the tram in Silver King Mine in Park City (Utah), not far from Salt Lake City. Utah was then a State which repressed the trade unions hard.

January 10th, 1914, John G. Morrison and his Arling son were killed in their butchery of Salt Lake City by two people masked by red bandanas. Nothing not having been stolen, the police force initially accepted a personal revenge, perhaps due to the fact that the Morrison father had been an police officer in the past. The same evening, Joe Hill presented himself in a local doctor with a wound by ball, which he did not want to explain, for personal reasons. It is supposed that it was related to a love affair. Hill was finally shown murder of Morrison, although denying any implication and refusing to testify at the time of her lawsuit. He was condemned for murder, and the Supreme court of Utah rejected its call. In a letter with the magistrates, Joe Hill refused straight to the State of Utah to enquérir himself on the origins of his wound, which he regarded as an exclusively personal business.

The business took a national turn. The president Woodrow Wilson, Helen Keller and Sweden asked for leniency, while in the whole world the trade unions defended Joe Hill. The lawsuit was shown to have been unjust. Years later, the State of Utah declared that, under the current laws, Joe Hill would never have been carried out with so light evidence.

The last word of Joe Hill, carried out on November 19th, 1915 by a firing squad, was " Fire! " (Fire!). Right before dying, he had written with Bill Haywood, a person in charge of the IWW: " Do not waste time in mourning. You organize!. "

Its will, put in music by Ethel Raim, declared:

My will is easy to decides,

For there is nothing to divide,

My kin don' T need to fuss and moan-

" Moss does not cling to has rolling stone."

My body? Ah, Yew I could choose,

I would to ashes it reduce,

And let the merry breezes blow

My dust to where nap flowers grow.

Perhaps summons fading flower then

Would like to life and bloom again.

final This is my last and will,

Good luck to all off you, Joe Hill

My will is easy to decide,

Because there is nothing to divide,

My family does not need to complain and about ergoter

" Pierre who rolls does not pile up mousse"

My body? Ah, if I could choose,

I will let it be reduced in ashes,

And the merry breezes to blow

My dust where some flowers will push.

Ainsi perhaps that a faded flower

Would return to the life and would flower once again.

This is my last and ultimate will,

Good luck with all, Joe Hill .

Incineration and censures

The body of Hill was incinerated with Chicago, and its ashes sent in each local section of the IWW. One discovered in 1988 qu ' one of the envelopes, with a photograph where the legend indicated " Joe Hill assassinated by the capitalist class, November 19th, 1915 " , had been seized by Postal U.S. Service in 1917 because of sound " potential subversif". This letter is from now on with the Public records states-uniennes. After some negotiations, last ashes of Hill contained in this seized envelope were returned with the IWW.

The memory of Joe Hill was maintained by the singers protestors (protest songs), for example Alfred Hayes, Earl Robinson, Paul Robeson, Pete Seeger, The Dubliners, or Joan Baez which sang " Joe Hill" in 1969 with Woodstock (" I dreamed I see Joe Hill last night, alive ace you and me: I dreamed that I saw Joe Hill the night spent, as alive as you and me). Bob Dylan said that the history of Hill was one of the reasons which pushed it to write songs. The Swedish Socialist Ture Nerman (1886-1969) wrote a biography of Joe Hill, interviewing members of his family in Sweden and translating the majority of his songs into Swedish. Wallace Stegner published a biographical novel in 1969, and Bo Widerberg depicts Hill in her film éponyme of 1971.

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