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:: Sunday, November 20, 2005 ::

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(poster by Carlos Cortez 1923-2005)

Joe Hill: The Man Who Didn't Die - By Dick Meister, AxisofLogic
Even in death, Hill was not safe from the government. One packet of his ashes, sent belatedly to an IWW organizer in 1917 for scattering in Chicago, was seized by postal inspectors. They acted under the Espionage Act, passed after the United States entered World War I that year, which made it illegal to mail any material that advocated "treason, insurrection. or forcible resistance to any law of the United States." The envelope, containing about a tablespoon of Hill's ashes, was sent to the National Archives in Washington, D.C. It remained hidden there until 1988, when it was discovered and turned over in Chicago to the men who preside over what little remains of the Industrial Workers of the World, shrunken now to only a few hundred members. The Post Office apparently had objected to the caption beneath a photo of Hill on the front of the envelope. "Joe Hill," it said -- "murdered by the capitalist class, Nov. 19, 1915."


"I don't want to be found dead in Utah."

Utah authorities & copper bosses execute labor organizer & songwriter Joe Hill for his organizing with the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) — despite an international movement to save him.

Hill was convicted of killing a grocer & his son, even though the bullets were not from Hill's revolver & no one identified him as the murderer. His last words:

"Don't mourn, organize!"

Poet Alfred Hays wrote a ballad in Hill's memory:
"I dreamed I saw Joe Hill last night,
Alive as you & me.
Says I, 'But Joe you're ten years dead,'
'I never died,' says he."

posted 9:10 AM :: reference link :: 0 comments ::

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