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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.