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
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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.
Tuesday November 23, 1915
Salt Lake City, Utah-
Execution of FW Joe Hill Cost County $371.80
The men who were selected to shoot bullets into the heart of Fellow Worker Joe Hill will, apparently, be very well paid, for most of the nearly 380 dollars, allocated by the county for that purpose, goes to them. Pretty good pay for just a few minutes of work, if one does not mind being paid to put another human being to death.
The body of our Rebel Songwriter is now a train to Chicago and will arrive there this afternoon. A grand funeral followed by a march to the cemetery is being planned at I. W. W. headquarters in that city for later on in the week.
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.
