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Title: Joe Hill Author: Albert Meltzer Date: 1991 Language: en Topics: Joe Hill, biography, Kate Sharpley Library Source: Retrieved on 19th May 2021 from https://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/g4f5hc Notes: Published in KSL: Bulletin of the Kate Sharpley Library No. 2 [1991?]
Emmanuel Joe Hagglund arrived in the USA as a penniless immigrant — just
like rhymester Irving Berlin around the same time. But whereas Berlin
glorified the American dream and slavishly followed the patriotic road
to commercial success to become a millionaire songwriter, Hagglund — now
Joe Hill by far the superior talent, remained an itinerant worker and
became an industrial organiser for the IWW. His songs are known around
the world, ‘where working folk defend their rights there you will find
Joe Hill’. He was framed on a murder charge by the copper bosses in the
Mormon state of Utah 76 years ago last November.
In his native town of Gavle (Sweden) there is a statue to him in a town
square round from where he lived (opposite a people’s palace), while the
room where his family lived is preserved as a museum (15,000 visitors a
year come to see it, listed as a town sight). Some years ago the owner
of the house (a distant relative) sold it to the SAC in preference to
others, to preserve Joe’s memory. The rest of the house are the offices
of the forestry union — in accordance with his last message “Don’t
mourn, organise” — and the backyard is converted to an attractive summer
meeting place — the Joe Hill Garden.
He asked for his ashes to be sent to Chicago for burial (jesting “I
wouldn’t be found dead in Utah”) but the FBI had the last sick laugh —
they intercepted them in the post and, perhaps thinking they too might
be unquenchable and inflammatory, kept them until recently.