VLVL _Joe Hill: The IWW & the Making of a Revolutionary Workingclass Counterculture_

[pynchonoid]

Rhymsters and Revolutionaries
Joe Hill and the IWW

By PETER LINEBAUGH

Franklin Rosemont, Joe Hill: The IWW & the Making of a
Revolutionary Workingclass Counterculture (Charles H.
Kerr: Chicago, 2003).

It's the right man by the right biographer at the
right time. 

[...] It was a talking, speaking, soapboxing, arguing,
singing movement. Thirteen of the fifty songs in the
Little Red Song Book (1973) were written by Joe Hill.
"Mr Block," "The Rebel Girl," "Scissor Bill," "There
is Power in a Union," "Workers of the World, Awaken,"
"Casey Jones--The Union Scab," "Where the Fraser
Flows," and "The Preacher and the Slave" are the most
well-known.

The Wobbly songs originated in Spokane, Washington, in
competition with the Salvation Army. The authorities
opposed the Wobs, so the Free Speech fights resulted.
The singing victorious Wobblies rode the rods as the
Overalls Brigade to the 1908 Chicago convention, and
threw the Socialists out. A debate ensued. One faction
felt only the written and spoken word could
effectively educate the workers in the class struggle.
Joe Hill answered, "a pamphlet, no matter how good, is
never read more than once, but a song is learned by
heart and repeated over and over...." In addition to
the didactic purpose, songs are politics taking
refuge. They calm down beating hearts, or they rouse
torpid souls, they cheer a picket line. They fan the
flames of discontent, as the sub-title says.

Joe Hill was musical. Born Joel Hägglund in Sweden, he
came to the U.S.A. in 1902. He played banjo, violin,
guitar, accordion and piano. This was before TV or
radio. He didn't smoke or drink. He was a good cook of
Chinese food (the word "Wobbly" derves from a Chinese
prounciation of IWW). He was a longshoreman in San
Pedro, California. He took an active part in the
Mexican revolution; he loaded sugar in Honolulu; he
helped out strikes of Canadian railroad workers. In
January 1914 he was arrested in Salt Lake City and
charged with murder. The victim was a grocer and
ex-cop. The police, the copper trust, and the Mormon
Church launched a campaign of vilification. The San
Pedro police chief favored execution explaining, "he
is somewhat of a musician and writer of songs for the
IWW songbook." The Joe Hill Defense Committee got to
work. Although it did not save his life, it laid the
groundwork for the legend. He was executed by firing
squad the following year refusing morphine or a shot
of whiskey. His funeral was the largest in American
history. His last will and testament combined Buddhist
purity with proletarian reality.


My Will is easy to decide
For there is nothing to divide
My kin don't need to fuss and moan
'Moss does not cling to a rolling stone.'

My body?--Oh!--If I could choose
I would to ashes it reduce
And let the merry breezes blow
My dust to where some flowers grow.

Perhaps some fading flower then
Would come to life and bloom again.
This is my last and final Will.
Good luck to all of you.
Joe Hill.

The cardinal significance of Joe Hill is that he sang;
the capital importance of him is that he was shot. He
epitomized the IWW at its best as he was victimized by
capitalist terror at its worst. "If angels are
persons, how is it that they can fly?" asked the
child, and the sage replied, "because they take
themselves lightly." This is why Joe Hill is also
known as The Man Who Never Died. It is the theme of
the song, "I dreamed I saw Joe Hill last night." [...]

continues:
<http://www.counterpunch.org/linebaugh10032003.html>


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