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About Northwest labor press. (Portland , Ore.) 1987-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 6, 2015)
PAGE 8 | November 6, 2015 | NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS LABOR HISTORY Poet, songwriter, labor activist Joe Hill had connections to Portland By Jim Cook Chair, Labor History Committee, Northwest Oregon Labor Council Joe Hill was a Swedish immi- grant songwriter and activist member of the Industrial Work- ers of the World (Wobblies). In 1914, he was convicted of mur- der and sentenced to death by firing squad. Many believe Hill was condemned for his associa- tion with the radical Wobblies. His sentencing ignited an inter- national campaign to save him, including President Woodrow Wilson, American Federation of Labor (AFL) President Samuel Gompers, and U.S. ambassador to Sweden Helen Keller. Hill died a labor martyr on Nov. 19, 1915 by a State of Utah firing squad. Before he died he declared: “Don’t waste any time mourning. Organize!” One hundred years later, on Thursday, Nov. 19, the North- west Oregon Labor Council and Portland area labor unions will celebrate his life, spirit and inspi- rational music with a centennial tribute concert at Alberta Rose Theatre in Northeast Portland. Born Joel Emmanuel Häg- glund on Oct. 7, 1879 in Gävle, Sweden, he changed his name to Joseph Hillstrom, and later shortened it to Joe Hill. He came to New York in 1902 following the death of his mother. His fa- ther died a few years prior from an occupational injury. Histori- ans are unclear of his where- Nationally-touring Joe Hill Roadshow comes to Medford Nov. 12 MEDFORD —The nationally- touring “Joe Hill 100 Road- show” will make a stop in Southern Oregon Thursday, Nov. 12, at the Grass Shack Hawaiian Cafe, 205 Fern Valley Road, Phoenix, Ore. Phoenix is three miles southwest of Med- ford on Interstate 5. The Roadshow features folk musicians George Mann, David Rovics, Mark Ross and South- ern Oregon’s Patrick Dodd. A buffet dinner will be served at 6 p.m. and the concert begins at 7. Cost for dinner is $15. The concert costs $10-20 sliding scale, with no one turned away. The event is sponsored by Southern Oregon Jobs with Jus- tice. For more information visit www.sojwj.org. Joe Hill ‘I die with a clear con- science. I die fighting, not like a coward. Said while being taken to his execution, as quoted in Philip Foner, The Case of Joe Hill abouts for the next 12 years, but several labor history books ref- erence Hill being in Portland. William Adler’s, “The Man Who Never Died: The Life, Times, and Legacy of Joe Hill, American Labor Icon,” places Hill in Portland in 1906 and 1910. According to Adler, he traveled here after involuntary labor service cleaning up after the San Francisco earthquake. Adler writes: “After a brush with death in San Francisco dur- ing the great earthquake of 1906, he hoboed up the coast to Port- land, where he joined the Indus- trial Workers of the World (IWW). Within the fellowship of the union, he found a home, shed his anonymity, and discovered his voice as a songwriter: a gifted satirist and parodist who helped pioneer—and became the leading practitioner of—the use of music as a political weapon and organizing tool. In time, his prominence as a writer of popu- lar revolutionary songs for an or- ganization profoundly feared and hated by the establishment led to his prosecution and, ulti- mately, to his martyrdom.” Adler writes that Hill likely found work on the Portland docks, sourcing a IWW pam- phleteer proclaiming “excep- tional demand for labor of all kinds.” “By early 1907,” Adler writes, “the union had organized its first Portland local, No. 92. Joe Hill was one of the IWW’s new recruits. It is not known when he joined Local 92—there are no membership records ex- tant—or where in Portland he was working at the time. It is plausible that he was among the longshoremen who responded during the strike to the IWW’s citywide appeal for solidarity. Regardless, it is evident from his first article for the union’s West- ern weekly, the Industrial Worker, that he took out a red card in Portland. The 1910 story carried the byline, Joe Hill, Port- land Local No. 92.” In The Portland Red Guide, author Michael Munk writes that one of Hill’s best-known songs —The Preacher and the Slave —was first introduced in Port- land. “Another Wobbly songster, Harry ‘Haywire Mac’ McClin- tock recalls, ‘I first met Joe Hill Order tickets online at: albertarosetheatre.com $15 at the door. Doors: 6:30 p.m. Music: 7:30 p.m. in Portland, Oregon, fall of 1910. He brought ‘The Preacher and the Slave’ to the Portland IWW Hall, then on West Burnside and SW Third Avenue.” Hill rose in the IWW ranks, traveling coast to coast organiz- ing workers until his execution. Munk writes: “His ashes were divided into forty-seven packets and sent to radicals in every state except Utah ‘to be scattered to the winds.’ In Ore- gon, Dr. Marie Equi was given the honor. Radicalized by police suppression of Oregon Packing Company women strikers in 1913, Equi was an outspoken opponent of United States entry into World War I.” Adler, writes: “Unity, or class solidarity, was the marrow of IWW doctrine. Hill came to see and feel that during his time in Portland and Spokane. And he had known all along—had known since he was a small boy singing and playing around the family pump organ—that noth- ing glued people together like song. ‘I’ve got music in my blood,’ he would say.” General Strike to perform Nov. 20 General Strike, a Portland labor band, along with the Portland In- dustrial Workers of the World members have been celebrating Hill’s life annually since 1990. On Friday, Nov. 20, they will present an evening of songs and stories spotlighting Hill’s Port- land Connections. It begins at 7 p.m. at the Musicians Local 99 hall, 325 NE 20th Avenue. For more information, con- tact Jim Cook at 503-703-1693.
