Hellraisers Journal: Miners Strike at Cananea, Sonora, Mexico, Leads to Fierce Fighting, Many Killed

3rd June 201625th January 2019 Janet RayeHellraisers Journal

Quote Mother Jones, Powers of Privilege, Ab Chp III —–

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday June 3, 1906
Tucson, Arizona – Reports on Cananea Copper Strike

From the Arizona Daily Star of June 2, 1906:

(Special to the Star.)

Naco, June 1.-There is a great riot at Cananea. All of the Mexicans at the mines of Colonel W. C. Greene are on the strike.

George Metcalf, the purchasing agent of the mines, and his brother, Will Metcalf, have been murdered by the strikers.

Between thirty and forty of the Mexicans have been killed, and about a hundred wounded.

It is reported that two days ago some Mexican police shot an American saloonkeeper wounding him. No arrests were made at the time, but later Colonel Greene had the perpetrators of the deed imprisoned. This precipitated the disturbance. A number of the miners dynamited a large pawnshop, taking all of the arms and ammunition. The company’s lumber yard was then burned, a property valued at a quarter of a million dollars.

Three carloads of refugees have just arrived from Cananea including Col. Greene. They bring the information that all of the Americans are trying to leave Cananea. The Mexicans are trying to dynamite all of the American houses. A reign of terror exists.

Governor Yzabel is said to be enroute with a division of Federal troops, and is expected to arrive at Naco late tonight or tomorrow morning. The situation is very serious, the lives of hundreds of Americans being threatened.

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Hellraisers Journal: George Pettibone, Miners’ Hero and First President of the Gem Miner’s Union of Idaho

26th March 201617th August 2018 Janet RayeHellraisers Journal

There are no limits to which
powers of privilege will not go
to keep the workers in slavery.
-Mother Jones

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Hellraisers Journal, Monday March 26, 1906
An Introduction to George Pettibone, Miners’ Hero

From The Miners’ Magazine of November 1901:

From the archives of The Miners’ Magazine, official organ of the Western Federation of Miners, we came across the following introduction to George Pettibone, who now stands accused, along with Charles Moyer and Bill Haywood, of the murder of the ex-governor of Idaho:

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Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones on Rich at Horse Show & Children on Breadline, One Block Away

9th December 20158th May 2025 Janet RayeHellraisers Journal

I want justice, no more, no less.
If you’ll give us justice we won’t need charity.
-Mother Jones

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Hellraisers Journal, Saturday December 9, 1905
From the Albuquerque Evening Citizen:
Rich of Gotham Frolic While Children Stand in Breadline One Block Away

Mother Jones, Mar 11, 1905, AtR

In an article which appeared yesterday in the Albuquerque Evening Citizen, Mother Jones describes the ostentatious display of wealth at a Madison Square Garden horse show while the children of the poor queued up for stale bread one block away.

Mother describes the Rich Spectators:

Hundreds of men and women, dressed in the height of what they called fashion, were seated in boxes, facing a circle, where well-bred horses, beautifully kept, beautifully fed, beautifully groomed and carefully sheltered from the cold blast of a November evening, were prancing about on the tan bark.

The horse show was in progress. The great garden was hung with gay bunting, the air was oppressive with the perfume of cologne and flowers. Pecks of diamonds glistened at the ears and breasts of the women. Orchids, which I am told cost $5 apiece, were as common at the corsages of the society dames as are daisies in an uncultivated meadow in July.

Mother describes the Hungry Children of the Slums:

I walked a hundred paces east, toward the corner of 27th street, and Fourth avenue. A little army of children from the slums was drawn up before Cushman’s bakery. Those children are there every night at 6 o’clock, drawn up in a line of misery. They came for free bread-stale bread, something to hold together the bodies and souls of brothers and sisters and fathers and mothers.

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WE NEVER FORGET: Songs to Honor and Remember Fellow Worker and Rebel Songwriter Joe Hill

8th December 20158th May 2025 Janet RayeHellraisers Journal

Songs for Joe Hill

Joe Hill’s Great-Grand Niece, Lovisa Samuelsson performs a song she wrote for Joe Hill at the Joe Hill Centennial Celebration in Salt Lake, Utah. She is joined on stage by her mother, Pia Samuelsson, and her uncle, Rolf Hägglund. They are descendants of Joe Hill’s brother Efraim Hägglund. She is playing on the guitar of Utah Phillips which contains some of Joe Hill’s ashes.

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WE NEVER FORGET: The Love Songs of Joe Hill

7th December 20158th May 2025 Janet RayeHellraisers Journal

Organize! Oh, toilers, come organize your might;
Then we’ll sing one song of the workers’ commonwealth,
Full of beauty, full of love and health.
-Joe Hill

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Hilda Erickson

There are three love songs written by Joe Hill that have survived to make their way into our Rebel Songwriter’s musical legacy. Two were found in his room when it was searched soon after his arrest in January of 1914. These two songs were subsequently published in The Salt Lake Tribune of June 21, 1914. The third was found years later in Stockholm, Sweden, during a search of the Joe Hill file of the Archives of the Royal Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

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WE NEVER FORGET: Joe Hill-Songs from the Little Red Songbook, Part Three

5th December 201515th November 2017 Janet RayeHellraisers Journal

Organize! Oh, toilers, come organize your might;
Then we’ll sing one song of the workers’ commonwealth,
Full of beauty, full of love and health.
-Joe Hill

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Joe Hill, cartoon, And stay off! See! Sept 1911 — Cartoon drawing by Joe Hill, September 1911

Fellow Workers, sit back and relax. It’s time to honor the memory of Joe Hill by enjoying the songs that he left to us. For the second day, WE NEVER FORGET, The Labor Martyrs Project, features FW Hill’s musical and lyrical legacy. We are presenting his songs in the order in which they were first published in the Little Red Songbooks of the Industrial Workers of the World. Today we offer Part 3 of this series.

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WE NEVER FORGET: Joe Hill-Songs from the Little Red Songbook, Part One

3rd December 20155th July 2021 Janet RayeHellraisers Journal

Then we’ll sing one song of the One Big Union Grand,
The hope of the toiler and slave,
It’s coming fast; it is sweeping sea and land,
To the terror of the grafter and the knave.
-Joe Hill

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The Songs of Joe Hill from the Little Red Songbook, Part 1.
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Joe Hill, Self-Portrait at San Pedro Sailors Mission — Joe Hill, Self-Portrait at Sailors’ Rest Mission in San Pedro, April 1911

Fellow Workers, sit back and relax. It’s time to honor the memory of Joe Hill by enjoying the songs that he left to us. Over the next few days, WE NEVER FORGET, The Labor Martyrs Project, will feature FW Hill’s musical and lyrical legacy by presenting his songs in the order in which they were first published in the Little Red Songbooks of the Industrial Workers of the World. Today we offer Part 1 of this series.

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Hellraisers Journal: Ralph Chaplin and Jim Larkin Honor the Memory of Joe Hill, from the International Socialist Review

1st December 20158th November 2017 Janet RayeHellraisers Journal

Therefore, Comrades, over the great heart of Joe Hill, now stilled in death,
let us take up his burden, rededicate ourselves to the cause that knows no failure,
and for which Joseph Hillstrom cheerfully gave his all.
-Jim Larkin

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Hellraisers Journal, Wednesday December 1, 1915
From the International Socialist Review:
Comrades Ralph Chaplin and Big Jim Larkin Remember Joe Hill

This month’s edition of the Review honors the memory of Joe Hill who was murdered by the state of Utah on Friday, November 19th.

Joe Hill, charcoal drawing by L. Stanford Chumley:

Joe Hill, charcoal, by L. Stanford Chumley, ISR, Dec 1915

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Hellraisers Journal: Joe Hill Lives! “Do you hear it every body? Joe Hillstrom will never die.”

30th November 20158th May 2025 Janet RayeHellraisers Journal

But tho’ his clarion voice is hushed,
And tho’ his harp lies mute and still,
Hill’s murdered dust is vocal yet
With words that burn and notes that thrill.
-Major Honere J. Jaxon

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Hellraisers Journal, Tuesday November 30, 1915
From The Day Book:
“Another Immortal” by Honore J. Jaxon

Joe Hill, charcoal, by L. Stanford Chumley, ISR, Dec 1915

In yesterday’s Day Book we find a poem, written by Honore J. Jaxon, which declares Fellow Worker Joe Hill to be “Another Immortal” and begins:

Once more a glorious rebel falls,
Ensnared by knaves in legal guise.
Once more a rebel’s name is smirched
By slaves who peddle purchased lies.

But tho’ his clarion voice is hushed,
And tho’ his harp lies mute and still,
Hill’s murdered dust is vocal yet
With words that burn and notes that thrill.

These words recall the chant voiced by members of I. W. W. Local 69 and their Verdandi allies as they kept vigil throughout the long night of November 18th until sunrise the next morning when the shots rang out that ended the life of Joe Hill. There, in Salt Lake City, on the corner of Second South and Commercial Streets, where Local 69 soapboxers had rallied since its founding five years earlier, they gathered and sang the songs of Joe Hill and listened to speeches by members of the Joe Hill Defense Committee, Ed Rowan and Fred Ritter among them.

The chant began, “And Joe Hill will be shot in the morning,” and was answered by “Not if we can help it!” Then someone called out:

Something is going to happen. Joe Hillstrom will never die,
do you hear it every body, Joe Hillstrom will never die.

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Hellraisers Journal: The Body of Rebel Songwriter, Poet, & Artist Joe Hill Reduced to Ashes

29th November 20158th May 2025 Janet RayeHellraisers Journal

Through this aperture each of us, one at a time,
and each with feelings all his own,
viewed the flame-lashed casket.
-Ralph Chaplin

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Hellraisers Journal, Monday November 29, 1915
Chicago, Illinois-
The Body of Fellow Worker Joe Hill Reduced to Ashes

Joe Hill, charcoal, by L. Stanford Chumley, ISR, Dec 1915

In his Last Will, FW Joe Hill wrote:

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.

In accordance with the wishes of our Rebel Songwriter, Hill’s body was taken to the crematory at Graceland Cemetery on Friday, November 26th, and cremated. Ralph Chaplin has provided a moving description of the cremation procedure:

The coffin lid was raised for the last time to permit final identification. The attendants looked to me as committee spokesman for word to proceed. I bowed my head. The casket was wheeled to the doors of the blast chamber, which creaked open to receive it. The steel doors creaked together, and the tiny room was all white again. Only the roar of the fire blast could be heard, growing louder and louder. We could hardly bear it.

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Songs for Joe Hill

The Songs of Joe Hill from the Little Red Songbook, Part 1. —–

The Songs of Joe Hill from the Little Red Songbook, Part 1.
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