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

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

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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

A drawing and a poem by Ralph Chaplin:

JOE HILL
By Ralph Chaplin

High head and back unbending—rebel “true blue,”
Into the night unending; why was it you?

Heart that was quick with song, torn with their lead;
Life that was young and strong, shattered and dead.

Singer of manly songs, laughter and tears;
Singer of Labor’s wrongs, joys, hopes and fears.

Though you were one of us, what could we do?
Joe, there were none of us needed like you.

We gave, however small, what life could give;
We would have given all that you might live.

Your death you held as naught, slander and shame;
We from the awful thought shrank as from flame.

Each of us held his breath, tense with despair,
You who were close to Death seemed not to care.

White-handed loathsome Power, knowing no pause,
Sinking in Labor’s flower, murderous claws.

Boastful, with leering eyes—blood-dripping jaws . . .
Accurst be the cowardice hidden in laws!

Utah has drained your blood; white hands are wet;
We of the “surging flood” NEVER FORGET!

Our songster! have your laws now had their fill?
Know, ye, his songs and Cause ye cannot kill.

High head and back unbending—such men are few,
Into the night unending; why was it you?
—–

Letter from Orrin N. Hilton to the Utah Board of Pardons:

International Socialist Review on Joe Hill:

JOE HILL

A FEW minutes after the firing squad of the state of Utah had pumped their slugs of lead into the heart of Joe Hill, there came a telegram into the hands of Bill Haywood, sitting in the national headquarters of the Industrial Workers of the World, Mortimer Building, Chicago.

It was from Ed Rowan, secretary of the I. W. W. local at Salt Lake City, and it read “Joe died game.” And that, after all, is the big point about Joe Hill, his life, his deeds, his songs, his death: “He died game.”

They were looking over one of his straightforward, simple letters, written in lead pencil, from the Utah State Prison to the I. W. W. national headquarters and some thought this line would make a good inscription for Joe Hill’s grave stone:

I am glad to hear that the One Big Union idea is gaining headway and I hope it won’t be long before the plutes will fall off their high horses and be made to realize that they were not made out of any special kind of clay after all.

On the night before the dawn, when he faced the muzzles of death he sent these two telegrams to Haywood:

Good-bye, Bill. I will die like a true blue rebel. Don’t waste any time in mourning. Organize.

It is a hundred miles from here to Wyoming. Could you arrange to have my body hauled to the state line to be buried? Don’t want to be found dead in Utah.

And this was the rejoinder Bill Haywood sent as the good-bye of the working class to one of the gamiest, gladdest, brawniest, big-hearted rebels the American working class has flung forward into historic action:

Good-bye, Joe. You will live long in the hearts of the working class. Your songs will be sung wherever the workers toil, urging them to organize. Wired Rowan to see your wishes are carried out.

Now the finish has come and the Utah capitalist and Mormon thirst for the blood of one who defied them has been glutted—now that the remonstrances of the President of the United States have been sneered at and the bunch of thieving, conniving, adulterous money-mongers of Utah have had their drink of the red life fluid of Joe Hill—the working class can look back at the short flash of his scarlet life, can remember the heroic nerve of him, can learn better to sing his songs and live up to the daring and ironic quality of his songs.

—–

[Emphasis added.]

The Chicago Funeral Oration by Jim Larkin:

MURDER MOST FOUL
By JIM LARKIN
—–

“FIRE! Let her go!”

With these words on his lips passed to the great beyond a few hours ago Joseph Hillstrom, murdered by the hired assassins of the capitalist class, who, for a few dirty pieces of silver, shot to death a man for the alleged killing of the man Morrison and his son, in what has been well named the City of Undiscovered Crime, Salt Lake City.

While we here respectfully tender our sincere condolences to the bereaved woman Morrison, it must be said, Comrades, that lie as they may, apologize and explain as they may, Joe Hill was shot to death because he was a member of the fighting section of the American working class, the Industrial Workers of the World.

It is necessary that this should be said by one like myself who is not a member of that organization. Maybe I, like many others of its critics, lack the intelligence and requisite courage to fit me for membership in the organization which in its brief life has displayed more real revolutionary spirit, greater self-sacrifice, than any other movement in the world of labor has produced—admitting that at times it has made mistakes due to over zeal on the part of its members and propagandists, and has been somewhat intolerant of less revolutionary sections.

Nevertheless, the I. W. W. has ever hewed true to the line of working-class emancipation. Never at any time or place or under the most adverse conditions can it be charged with having obscured the issue or with ever having preached permanent peace with, or given recognition to, the capitalist system. No! but true to its mission as the pioneer movement of the newer time, it advocated perpetual war on, and the total abolition of the system of wage slavery that blights humanity.

That is a record to be proud of in these days of compromise, when we are cursed with a breed of sycophants masquerading as labor leaders, whose sole purpose in life seems to be apologizing for and defending the capitalist system of exploitation and forever putting forward palliatives and outworn nostrums such as arbitration boards, time agreements and protocols.

Even the Gods cannot fight against stupidity, but when allied with that we have venial graft, lust for power and place, and a deep-seated contempt for the workers who elect them to office, animating the soul-cases of these alleged leaders, it gives us great hope and courage and strength of purpose to know of a movement that can produce a great soul like Joe Hill, whose heart was attuned to the spirit of the coming time and who voiced in rebellious phrases his belief in the working class.

Judge of the type of man he was, who on the verge of eternity, writing to Comrade Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, who with many other good Comrades was making a heroic uphill fight to save that valuable life for the cause, penned the following:

We cannot afford to drain the resources of the whole organization and weaken its fighting strength just on account of one individual—common sense will tell you that Gurley—there will be plenty of new rebels coming to fill up the gap.

Never thinking of self, but always of the cause, such was the type of man a vindictive jury, filled with blood lust and desire for revenge, found guilty of an atrocious cowardly murder on circumstantial evidence only. They lied in their verdict, and they knew they lied, but a victim had to be found and so the itinerant I. W. W. propagandist and poet, Joseph Hillstrom, one of the Ishmaelites of the industrial world, was to hand and they “shot him to death” because he was a rebel, one of the disinherited, because he was the voice of the inarticulate down trodden; they crucified him on their cross of gold, spilled his blood on the altar of their God-Profit.

Because he cried out in the market place, on the highways and in the dark places where the children of men gathered together, the truth that would make men free, for such a crime they crucified the Man of Galilee, for such a crime they crucified John Ball, Parsons, and a million unnamed, aye and for such a crime they will crucify millions unborn, if we cry not halt.

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, his valuable life. Though dead in flesh he liveth amongst us, and cries out:

Arouse! Arouse! Ye sons of toil from every rank of Labor,
Not to strife of leaping lead, of bayonet or of saber.
Ye are not murderers such as they who break ye day and hour!
Arouse! Unite! Win back your world with a whirlwind stroke of power!

—–

Let his blood cement the many divided sections of our movement, and our slogan for the future be:

“Joe Hill’s body lies mouldering in the grave, but the cause goes marching on.”

[Photograph added.]

—–

The body of Joe Hill will be brought to Chicago. Funeral services will be held Thursday, Nov. 25th, at 10.30 a. m., at the West Side Auditorium, 1010 S. Racine avenue, under the auspices of the I. W. W.

Members representing twelve nationalities will speak and songs by Joe Hill will be sung.

The funeral oration will be delivered by Judge O. N. Hilton of Denver, Colorado.