Let us take a moment to remember Joe Hill, who on the 19th day of November, 1915 the state of Utah shot and killed.

Don't mourn from him, rather organize....

THE PREACHER AND THE SLAVE
by Joe Hill

Long-haired preachers come out every night,
Try to tell you what's wrong and what's right,
But when asked about something to eat,
They will answer with voices so sweet:

You will eat bye and bye,
In that glorious land above the sky;
Work and pray, (work and pray), live on hay, (live on hay),
You'll get Pie in the Sky when you die (that's a lie!).

And the starvation army they play,
They sing and they dance and they pray,
Till they get all your coin on the drum,
Then they tell you when you're on the bum:

CHORUS

Holy Rollers and jumpers come out,
They holler, they jump and they shout.
Give your money to Jesus they say,
He will cure all diseases today.

CHORUS

If you fight hard for children and wife-
Try to get something good in this life-
You're a sinner and bad man, they tell,
When you die you will sure go to hell.

CHORUS

Workingmen of all countries unite,
Side by side we for freedom will fight;
When the world and its wealth we have gained
To the grafters we'll sing this refrain:

You will eat, bye and bye,
When you've learned how to cook and to fry;
Chop some wood, 'twill do you good
And you'll eat in the sweet bye and bye (that's no lie!).

Joe Hill wrote this song for "The Little Red Book Of Songs" of the IWW, a pro-union group. Woody Guthrie also wrote songs for the book, and they both sang songs for the union and tried to help the working man, whenever and however they could.

Lyrics as reprinted in Woody Guthrie, American Folksong, New York, NY, 1961
(reprint of 1947 edition), pp. 22-23
© 1947 by DISC Company of America


On January Tenth Nineteen Fourteen
Two men fixed some masks of red handkerchiefs
Walked into the Temple and South Street Store
Laid Morrison and his son dead on the floor.
Before he died Merlin Morrison
Reached under his counter and pulled his gun
The fellows tried to run back out the door again
Morrison put a bullet in one of the men.
Just three days later you arrested me
At the Eselius home on Seventeenth South Street
Just because I've got a fresh bullet hole
You claim that I killed the Morrsons in their store.

I was courting a woman and had a fight with a man
He fired a pistol that lodged in me
Old Prosecutor Leatherwood can beat out his brains
But I'm not going to tell you this lady's name.
Take away these attorneys you picked for me
My own lawyer now I'm going to be
It's because I'm a union organizer in the copper mines
You've got me on your killing floor to die.

My labor friends sent Judge Hilton and Christensen
To prove I did not kill the Morrisons
But I cannot drag my lady's honor down
I can't tell where I got my gunshot wound.
It was in June you convicted me
You said I was guilty in the worst degree
I don't want your pardon, but an honest trial,
If I can't get a fair trial I will die.

President Wilson wired the Governor Spry
Saying please don't let Joe Hillstrom die
Several thousand letters and telegrams
Piled up on the governor's desk from workers hands.
The governor wired to Wilson, Nothing I can do,
The Pardon Board and Supreme Court, too,
Both did uphold the frame up trial
They all want to see me walk my last long mile.

The death watch is set, it's November Eighteenth,
My comrades are marching up and down the streets
Of all of the cities and the towns around
They can sing Joe Hillstrom never let them down.
The Nineteenth Day of November is here
A frosty old morning with winter in the air
Two telegrams that I got to send
To Elizabeth Gurley Flynn1 and Bill Haywood2.

It's a hundred miles to the Wyoming line
Could you arrange to have my body hauled
Past that old state line before you bury me at all
I just don't want to be found dead here in Utah.
Hey, Gurley Flynn, I wrote you a song
To the dove of peace. It's coming along.
I lived like a rebel, like a rebel I die.
Forget me. Organize these copper mines.

They march me now out to the baseball park
Tie me down in a chair, and the Doctor marks my heart
With a little white rag against this black robe
Goodbye Joe Hillstrom you done a pretty good job.

I thought I saw Joe Hill today, as alive as you or me, says I but Joe you are so many years dead, I never died said he.

But you won't find me in the union office anymore, they have become as fat as the bosses, no I will be singing with the working man, who still can not feed himself and his family, I will be watching the war protestors and standing in a field in Woodstock, the soul of a man lives in the working class.

A valiant effort, Nathen, but seems like Joe still has some recruiting to do! I can hear Pete singing that song, and I don't have my CD player on--is that bad?

No Pat, that is excellent, I mean this could be the start of a movement and at my age, any movement is good.

I can just hear Joe Hill, Woody and a few others sitting down in hell, singing their songs non-stop to all the fat cat bosses, hmmmmmm one man's hell could be another man's heaven.

Antiunionism seems to be right up there with baseball as a national passtime these days. (these decades?) I thought Enron, etc., might make unions come around on the guitar again...ever hopeful, hopes ever dashed. I think unions will need a new "name" and "image." Kind of like feminism, unions can benefit everyone but few seem to realize that or to want to be associated with them. At least here, in a "right to work" state. Maybe it's different in the Midwest and Northeast. I hope so. So thank you, Nathen, for helping to keep that flame going.

Unions still pretty strong up here, especially in the Detroit area. Bro-in-law is a trade union member (plumber) and is proud of it. Keeps his union membership even though he mainly works for his wife (my sis).

I think one of the better comments on the working man of today is found in Lennon's "Working Class Hero", In today's world, the farm hands of yesterday are to be found in the offices of today.

The unions of yesterday did a great deal for the working man, but today, in many ways the union is like the agents for baseball, it's all about the mighty dollar with little regard to botherhood.