Gook luck to all of you,
-Joe Hill
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Monday November 22, 1915
Salt Lake City, Utah-
Joe Hill Given Grand Send-off, Will Arrive in Chicago Tomorrow
Fellow Worker Joe Hill, our martyred rebel songwriter, was given a grand send-off in Salt Lake City before his body was placed upon a train bound for Chicago where another grand funeral will be held in that city, headquarters of the Industrial Workers of the World. The Salt Lake City funeral was presided over by I. W. W. Local Union #69 and by Verdandi, Swedish Temperance Society.
Unfortunately, the only report of the funeral that we have on hand is from the hostile Salt Lake Tribune, one of the newspapers which so gleefully reported the Governor’s intention to drive the I. W. W. from Salt Lake immediately following the murder of our fellow worker. Nevertheless, as can be seen below, the unquenchable spirit of Solidarity displayed by those in attendance shines through the anti-I. W. W. propaganda of the Tribune’s reporting.
From The Salt Lake Tribune of November 22, 1915:
THREATEN TO AVENGE DEATH
OF HILLSTROM
—–Caustic Criticism of Governor Spry and Other State Officials
Is Heard at the Funeral Services for
the Slayer of the Morrisons.
—–
SIX WOMEN ACT AS PALLBEARERS
—–
Mormon Church Is Included in Attacks Made by the Speakers;
Many Persons Follow Body
to Short Line Station; Sent East.
—–
“Authorities of this state will have pause, in the near future to remember the day they took Joe Hillstrom out at sunrise and shot him.”
In measured and clear tones Edward Rowan, secretary of the Salt Lake local No. 69, Industrial Workers of the World, spoke the foregoing words yesterday at the, funeral services for Joseph Hillstrom which were held in the mortuary chapel of O’Donnell & Co., on South West Temple street.
“We are satisfied to face the world,” continued the speaker, “no matter what may come, for time will show the sterling qualities our fellow worker.”
Every address made at the, funeral was marked by bitter criticism and attacks upon the state, upon the authorities who were connected with the execution, and even upon the Mormon church and other religious bodies of Salt Lake City.
The name of God was not directly spoken in the services, nor was there any direct reference to Christianity, except in a vague outline of a “spirituality” somewhat similar, perhaps, to that professed by Hillstrom on the day of his death.
Women Are Pallbearers.
—–
Hilda Erickson, who was a friend of the murderer, and to whom he left one of his few possessions, a picture of the son of Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, was among the weeping pallbearers. All six of the pallbearers were Swedish women, members of the Verdani [Verdandi], the Swedish Temperance society. Mrs. Oscar W. Larson, Miss Hilda Olson and Mrs. Florence Lemon were among the others. The sixth girl refused to give her name.
The girls wore red sashes across their shoulders, and each of them picked roses from the bouquets laid on the coffin when it was placed in the shipping case at the Oregon Short Line depot, from where it was shipped to Chicago for burial. The women’s eyes flooded with tears as the undertaker’s assistants fastened down the lid of the shipping box, and as an afterthought they took off their sashes and tied them to tho box.
Burt Lurton [Lorton], a local ], I. W. W. member, accompanied the body, which will arrive in Chicago at 2 o’ clock Tuesday afternoon. There it will be taken in charge by William D. Haywood, leader of the organization. An elaborate funeral and burial service will be held there, the mourners planning to walk seven miles to the cemetery.
Red Ribbons Are Worn.Hundreds of people, some of them sympathizers and others merely curious, gathered outside the O’Donnell establishment at 3 o’clock yesterday afternoon. Members of the I. W. W. wore red ribbons tied in bows on their coats, and a committee saw to it that only their own people were permitted to enter the chapel. After the service, however, the doors were thrown open for fifteen minutes to permit many of those outside to file past the coffin before it was closed.
George Child, treasurer of the I. W. W. defense committee, which conducted the long legal battle which ended in defeat at the execution last Friday morning, acted as chairman of the meeting. In opening the service he branded the execution as “murder” committed by the authorities who had permitted it.
He then introduced a “worker from Denver.” The man was George Faulkener. He declared that he had been shocked at the newspaper reports permitted by Salt Lake editors during the last few months of the Hillstrom case. He bitterly attacked the newspapers for their reports which, he said, he did not believe had been fair to Hillstrom.
Faulkener read the will left by Hillstrom in poetic form, declaring that it contained more, “spirituality” than could be found among all the clergymen of Salt Lake, “from the strictest Mormon to the broadest Unitarian.” He said he was glad Hillstrom had persisted in not seeing a minister, because ministers of Salt Lake could have done nothing “spiritual” for him.
Attacks Mormon Church.Oscar W. Larson, president of the Swedish Temperance society, was called upon to speak for that organization, which has taken an interest in the Hillstrom case. He made his address in Swedish, but those who understood it translated his principal text as being an attack on the Mormon church.
Larson called attention to the teachings of Mormon missionaries, which he said the followers of Hillstrom must correct. These missionaries, he said, went out and taught that this was “Zion,” and that people could come here and live in peace and happiness. Then, he said, when they came here they were shot.
The Swedish Temperance society choir then gathered around the open coffin and sang the I. W.W. “Internationale.”
M. Brennan was the next speaker, representing the Socialists, it was said. Brennan declared he was glad Hillstrom had not betrayed “the woman” who was supposed to have been in the quarrel in which Hillstrom was shot. He said the press had lied about Hillstrom. He said Governor Spry had now declared that members of the I. W. W. had to leave town.
Calls Spry a “Nonentity”“He has nothing to do with this,” shouted the speaker. “He is a nonentity!”
Referring to the board of pardons, in describing them, he said he had to turn to Darwin’s “Origin of the Species.” In that book he said Darwin had described a certain worm as being “without backbone.” That fitted those men, said Brennan, as a number of those in the audience laughed.
He said the Utah authorities had been angered because President Wilson had not stood with them in the matter. He said the Utah authorities had expressed the belief that the president did not understand the facts in the case fully.
“The president understood better than they knew,” asserted the speaker. “He had his own secret service men here, and they investigated fully. But their report was different, because they would not be subservient to the Mormon church.”
Phil Engel was the next speaker, reiterating the declarations of other speakers and urging that the I. W. W. continue to “organize” and march on toward the emancipation of the working class.
Edward Rowan, secretary of the I. W. W. local and chairman of the defense committee, then delivered his oration as representative of the Industrial Workers. He told of being refused admission to the execution, though he said he made efforts to get in so that “a friend could stand by Joe while he met his fate.” But, he added, he had to stand outside the walls in the turnkey house.
Authorities Threatened“But Joe has been judged now by a higher tribunal,” said Rowan. “And that higher tribunal is the working class of the world. They have passed their judgment upon his case, and it is a higher one than the Utah authorities.”
He then expressed the prediction, that in the near future the authorities would remember the day they took Hillstrom out and shot him.
[And this, apparently is the “threat” advertised so prominently in the article’s headline!]
Rowan told of receiving a silk handkerchief from the condemned man the afternoon before his death, and of receiving the picture of Elizabeth Gurley Flynn’s son, to be given to Hilda Erickson, who lived at the Eselius home in Murray, where Hillstrom was living when arrested. He took the slip of paper on which Hillstrom had written the will poem out of his pocket and read it again.
The only other speaker was Emil S. Lund, representative in the last legislature, who was introduced by Child as “Senator Lund.” Mr. Lund said that if Hillstrom was guilty the state had exacted the penalty. But, he said, if an innocent man was shot it was a tragedy. He said he was speaking as an opponent of capital punishment, and wanted to call upon the people present to stand back of him in an effort to wipe the law of capital punishment from the statute books. He was always, he said, a friend of the laboring men.
Hilstrom Song Is Sung.The Swedish choir and the others present sang one of Hillstrom’s own songs, contained in the I. W. W. handbook of songs. It is entitled, “There Is a Power in the Union.” The refrain runs:
There is a pow’r, there is a pow’r
In a band of working men,
When they stand hand in hand,
There’s a pow’r, that’s a pow’r
That must rule in every land-
One industrial union grand.
Among the spectators was Mrs. Virginia Snow Stephen, art instructor at the university of Utan, who has been active in behalf of Hillstrom. Mrs. Stephen did not speak, however.
There were a large number of women in the chapel, fully as many as there were men, and perhaps more. A number of them wore red sashes or red ribbons, the insignia of the I. W. W. Not a few of them shed tears during the services.
The funeral procession proceeded north on West Temple from the O’Donnell chapel to South Temple, and thence west to the Oregon Short Line depot. The six women pallbearers walked on either side of the undertaker’s machine, which carried the casket. As the other sympathizers matched behind it they sang I. W. W. songs.
In the driveway south of the depot, the marchers were halted, while the casket was taken through to the baggage platform. There stood the shipping box, labeled “Joseph Hillstrom, Chicago, Ill.”
Pallbearers Assist.The pallbearers were allowed to pass through and assist in putting the coffin in the box. With tear-stained faces they picked roses from the bouquets, each taking a white rose and a red one. There were about half a dozen bouquets placed in the box, which was then sealed.
One of the women mourners then bethought herself that they still wore the red sashes. “We should have put those in the box,” she said. And then, as an afterthought, she pulled her sash off and with feverish haste tied it through the loops of the fasteners on the box cover. Then the girls and a few of the leaders followed the baggage truck to the car and watched the body of Joseph Hillstrom out of the confines of the state in which he had been executed. In compliance with his request that he “be not found dead in Utah.”
“The body has been placed in the train. You may go to your homes now,” announced the undertaker, as he returned to the crowd that pressed against the iron fence. They dispersed, and as they went away snatches of their conversation included “murder” and other furious criticism of the state officials who had condemned Hillstrom to die for the murder of J. G. Morrison and his son Arling, on the night of January 10, 1914.
Spry Comes In on Train.Peculiarly, Governor William Spry arrived in Salt Lake from the south on the same train which carried Hillstrom’s body east. The governor had been on a short trip on the Salt Lake Route. He was met by George Robinson.
The train, however, was late in arriving, and the I. W. W. members dispersed before the train pulled into the station, and none of them was there to note his arrival.
Police officers, knowing of his expected arrival on that train, were prepared to keep back the crowd should there be an attempt to make a demonstration in the governor’s presence.
—–“JOE HILLSTROM” ON CASKET IN STREET PARADE
—–Special to The Tribune.
SEATTLE, Nov. 21.-Nearly a thousand members of the I. W. W. marched through Seattle’s downtown streets this afternoon as a demonstration against the execution of Joe Hillstrom.
Six men with red sashes over their shoulders carried a black coffin, covered with red carnations. In white letters on either side of the coffin was the name “Joe Hillstrom,” every man in the parade which stretched over three blocks, wore a long red ribbon in his button hole.
In the line were a number of signs bearing such inscriptions as, “I don’t want to be found dead in Utah,” “Don’t spend your time mourning for Joe Hillstrom, organize,” and “Joe Hillstrom was murdered by the state of Utah, but his spirit lives on in the hearts of his fellow workers.”
At the meeting which followed in the I. W. W. hall, J. B. [P.] Thompson, one of the leaders in the Lawrence, Mass., strike eulogized the executed murderer and read a number of his songs and poems dedicated to the I. W. W. propaganda.
—–[Photographs and emphasis added.]
The Salt Lake Tribune
(Salt Lake City, Utah)
-Nov 22, 1915
http://newspaperarchive.com/us/utah/salt-lake-city/salt-lake-tribune/1915/11-22
Wobbly: The Rough and Tumble Story of an American Radical
-by Ralph Chaplin
Literary Licensing, LLC, 2013
https://books.google.com/books?id=o8gmnwEACAAJ
IMAGES
Joe Hill, IWW
Location: http://www.freedomarchives.org/La_Lucha_Continua/Joe_Hill.html
Verdandi, Virginia Snow Stephen, Hilda Erickson, etc.
Also source for image of Hilda
Note: unknown exactly when or where this photo was taken, perhaps at Joe Hill’s Salt Lake City funeral.
Virginia Snow Stephen, in the center of this unidentified group and wearing a cap, was a University of Utah art professor who believed in Joe Hill’s innocence and worked to raise money for his defense. She is wearing an Industrial Workers of the World ribbon and one of the men on the floor is holding a program with a portrait of Hill on it. The program the other man on the floor is holding has the name of Oscar Larson’s Swedish organization, Verdandi, on the cover.
http://local.sltrib.com/charts/joehill/gallery/trial.html
Professor Virginia Snow Stephen
http://local.sltrib.com/charts/joehill/gallery/trial.html
IWW Union Label
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Workers_of_the_World
Joe Hill’s Last Will
http://local.sltrib.com/charts/joehill/gallery/joehill.html
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Joe Hill’s Last Will
