Drawings of Joe Hill, 1911 & 1914, from Postcards
Sent to Charles Rudberg
From Labor History Journal of Fall 1984:
JOE HILL-CARTOONIST
by PHILIP MASON
In 1980, the Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs at Wayne State University acquired four postcards written by Joe Hill, the “Wobbly songwriter and poet,” to a friend, Charles Rudberg, between the years 1911 and 1914. The four postcards contained more than the usual short message-each included a cartoon of drawing by Joe Hill…..
Mason goes on to describe the postcards (see below).
Mason fails to mention exactly how the postcards were acquired, but perhaps they came from Rudberg’s daughter, Frances Horn, of Ventura, California, with whom Mason had communicated. Horn stated that her father and Joe Hill were childhood friends in Galve, Sweden, and reunited later in San Francisco shortly before the San Francisco Fire. Both Rudberg and his daughters cherished the postcards from Joe Hill and kept them as “priceless heirlooms.”
Mason was, in 1984, Director of the Archives of Labor History and Urban Affairs , Wayne State Univ., Professor History Dept.
Franklin Rosemont states that in a letter to Mason on January 29, 1980, Frances Horn wrote that her father told her older sister that Joe could also “sing like an angel, play the violin like a master and write like a fury.”
POSTCARD DRAWINGS by JOE HILL
January 24, 1911 -from Joe Hill at Coalinga CA to Charles Rudberg at Sailors Rest Mission, San Pedro CA:
“Doings of Väran Kalle”
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April 29, 1911 -from Joe Hill at Sailors Rest Mission, San Pedro CA to Charles Rudberg at Sailor’s Union Hall, East Street, San Francisco CA:
“I’ve Got a Mission to Fill Don’t Ye Knauw, JO-EL”
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September 2, 1911 -from Joe Hill at San Pedro CA to Charles Rudberg at Sailors Union Hall, East Street, San Francisco CA:
“Oh you Hoboeing”
With Poem by Joe Hill:
The song of Mauser bullets may be exciting and the rattle of machine-guns may also have its thrills- but Oh you hoboeing!
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December 18, 1914 -from Joe Hill at Salt Lake County Jail, Salt Lake City UT to Charles Rudberg at San Francisco (?) CA Note: Joe was not moved to Utah State Pen until July 1915, after appeal for new trial was denied by Utah Supreme Court.
Hellraisers Journal – Saturday April 13, 1912 San Francisco, California – Joe Hill Speaks on Conditions in San Diego Jail
From the Spokane Industrial Worker of April 11, 1912:
FREE SPEECH DOINGS IN CALIFORNIA
(By Caroline Nelson).
The free speech protest in Building Trades hall Last Sunday [March 31] was a great success; $175 were collected to carry on the fight in San Diego.
Austin Lewis delivered one of his masterly addresses. He showed that street speaking of the I. W. W.’s was an absolute necessity. Without street speaking the migratory worker could not be reached, because he would not go to any hall. Without street speaking there would have been no organization among the lumber workers and section laborers, and therefore no strikes or fights for better conditions. In street speaking pamphlets, circulars and propaganda sheets are given out and find their way to camps where they do their work.
The last speaker was a released speaker from San Diego, Fellow Worker Hill. He explained that he had just come from the hospitality of the M. & M. [Merchants and Manufacturers Association] in San Diego, that owing to that hospitality he was physically unable to make any lengthy speech.He looked as though he had just risen from a sick bed. His face was pale and pinched. Dressed in overalls he bespoke the low standard of living that our modern civilization imposes upon our most intelligent workers; for he spoke more intelligently and eloquently than many a widely heralded upper class jaw smith, who has had nothing to do all his life but to wag his tongue and to look up references. He nailed the widely circulated lie that the upper class have bought out all the workers who have any intelligence, and that every intelligent man can get work.
Fellow Worker told how they practiced sabotage in San Diego in the jail in the form of building battle ships, as they called it, by hammering on the iron doors. The court was located on the second story over the jail and terrible noise made by the hungry prisoners prevented them from holding a session in the upper region. They sent word down to the prisoners to be quiet or they couldn’t hold court. The prisoners’ replied that it was their intention that no court should be held until they were fed.
Hill brought down the house when he proposed that the army of fifty thousand unemployed of San Francisco move on the San Diego, to free the men now in jail there which the M. & M. intend to railroad to the pen. The San Diego jail and bull pen are full now. They are running up the expenses of the tax-payers fearfully and an army of invaders would scare them stiff, and prevent the sending of the ten men now on trial to the penitentiary. But unless something was done quickly these men would be sent over the road; for there is nothing our ruling class doesn’t dare when it comes to strike terror to the hearts of the workers. They violate every law on the statute books, and trample in the dust every human right that is supposed to be sacred. They hold no law sacred except when it protects them in their piracy.
Hellraisers Journal – Monday January 29, 1912 Boston, Massachusetts – Joe Ettor Speaks on Behalf of Lawrence Strikers
From The Boston Daily Globe of January 27, 1912:
ETTOR SPEAKS IN FANEUIL HALL ———–
Joseph J. Ettor was the star of the great meeting in the interest of the Lawrence strikers which was held last evening in Faneuil Hail under the auspices of the socialist party of Boston. His picturesque looks and his vivid description of conditions in Lawrence contributed in part to the applause which greeted him.
This man differs in appearance from any labor leader that has ever been seen in this part of the world before. He has a face on him which at first impresses you as being feminine, but which becomes masculine and full of expression when he talks. His skin looks as soft as a girls and his eyes are as black as coals.
More than $200 was taken up in a collection for the benefit of the strikers. The hall was crowded, though not uncomfortably so, and the rather large force of policemen found nothing to do but listen. There was a band of music, which kept the crowd entertained until 8:20, when a great cheer went up as the red Socialist flag and the American flag were borne up the center aisle and behind them came Ettor, James P. Carey and a number of people who were to sit on the platform.
The meeting was called to order by George D. Hall, who said he had personally visited all the textile cities in New England and had found nowhere more miserable conditions than existed in Lawrence.
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Woman Striker Speaks.
Miss K. S. Hanscom, one of the Lawrence strikers, addressed an audience for the first time and found a little difficulty in expressing herself. But she was so deeply impressed with the thing she wanted to say that she found no difficulty in making herself understood. She wanted to express first her admiration for the courage of the poor people who went out on strike, but more especially for the Italian women who were the first to walk out of the Wood Worsted mill. The average wage of most of the men and women, she said, was $5 a week, and they were compelled to do three and four times more work than formerly. The weavers and spinner do not average $9 a week.
Chairman Hall announced that the Boston Socialist Club proposed through a committee of 300 to collect by means of a house-to-house campaign clothing and funds for the strikers.
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Ettor Speaks of Wood.
Joseph J. Ettor was loudly cheered when he was introduced and it took considerable protesting with his hand to stop the applause.
This evening I was an conference with Mr. William M. Wood and he assured me that while I represented 20,000 workers he had 14.000 investors. Some of them live on the Riviera. (Laughter).
[Continued Ettor with a laugh:]
That’s way off in Russia, I guess. You see the capitalist class know no East nor West, nor any other boundary.
The important thing today is that 20,000 mill workers of Lawrence are out on strike. The other side has done all in its power to crush out every effort that has been made by these people in the past to express themselves. The one who made a complaint was always made the victim of oppression by bosses and superintendents.
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Learn They Are Not Slaves.
An attempt is being made to bring the workers back to the mills, that they may be able to weave their lives into cloth on the old terms. John Golden with Billy Woods, say that in Lawrence we have no strike-we have a revolution. Well, where it is a question of life and death it is sure a revolution.
Twelve days ago the strikers were slaves, with nobody to speak for them-slaves attached to the looms who did not dare to raise their heads. All that has been changed in 12 days. These people have discovered that they are not slaves to superintendents or agents of mills.
Hellraisers Journal – Saturday July 8, 1911 Second Battle of Tijuana Ends in Defeat for Rebel Forces
From the Spokane Industrial Worker of July 6, 1911:
REBELS ARE DEFEATED BUT NOT CONQUERED —————
The liberal campaign in Lower California was practically ended with the defeat of the hundred men under General Jack Mosby at Tijuana, Mexico, on June 22nd, although there is yet two bands of armed rebel Mexicans, one near Santa Rosalia, in the southern end of the peninsula and another of about twenty-five men in the mountains between Tijuana and Mexicali in the north
[…..]
The rebels who surrendered were held at Fort Rosecrans for three days and then released with the exception of thirteenwho were deserters from the army and navyand Mosby and [Adjutant Bert] Laflin, whom the Madero government is trying to extradite to torture and murder in Mexico. Boys, will we stand for it? I’ll leave it to your actions. Will you act?
About the same time the battle took place the Liberal Junta in Los Angeles were arrested. They have already served three years in our vile American prisons and we must not let them serve any more years.
Subscribe for “Regeneracion” (address 519½ East Fourth street, Los Angeles) and learn the facts of the case.
Remember although the little campaign in Lower California has been smashed the Mexican people are not through revolting. Madero did not start the revolution NOR WILL HE END IT.
Hellraisers Journal – Saturday May 27, 1911 Tijuana, Baja California, Mexico – Rebels Win Great Victory
From the Spokane Industrial Worker of May 25, 1911:
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REDS GAIN A GREAT VICTORY ———–
TURNING POINT IN LIBERAL REVOLUTION -MANY DEEDS OF BRAVERY -I. W. W. BOYS IN INSURRECTO ARMY.
Special to the “Worker.”
TIJUANA, Baja, Cal., May 10.-At last the victory of social revolutionists in Lower California is assured. The workers of America and Mexico are awakening, and brave men are sacrificing their lives for the cause of Freedom, and their sacrifice shall not be in vain. All opposition is being swept aside by “la Bandera Roja” (the red band), the latest victory being the capture of this little Mexican village, situated in the Tijuana river valley right on the International boundary line, and fifteen miles southeast of San Diego, Cal.
The fall of Tijuana, means the turning point in the campaign against Diaz tyranny in Baja, California. The rebels now control the whole peninsula excepting the capital of the state, Ensenada, and the acquisition of Tijuana gives the “red army” an excellent base of supplies, and a military headquarters from which to conduct the rest of the campaign.
The battle [of May 8th and 9th] was by far the biggest battle that has been fought since the Mexican Liberal party [P. L. M.] placed their army in Lower California. It lasted nearly 36 hours, and about 400 men were involved. Many brave acts were recorded, one was the firing of the Catholic church, and the “Bull pen” by the rebels. At an early stage of the fight four men crawled from the rebel ranks through Tijuana, and slipped into a federal trench and from that point these four insurrectos poured a deadly fire into the ranks of the Mexican federal troops, the latter being unable to locate the four men until too late, as by that time the rebels had completely surrounded the town and were advancing on all sides, steadily pouring a well directed fire into the Diaz camp.
[…..]
[A]t 8:30 a. m., Tuesday, May 9th, the Liberal Army was in full possession of Tijuana, Mexico, a port of entry and a valuable recruiting station for the Liberals in Lower California.
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The free speech protest in Building Trades hall Last Sunday [March 31] was a great success; $175 were collected to carry on the fight in San Diego.
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