At 7:00 a.m. on November 19, 1915, they shot Joe Hill, strapped to a chair, a target placed on his heart. Five sheriff’s deputies armed with rifles, four with live ammunition, one with blanks, stood ready.
“Aim” said the sheriff.
“Yes, aim,” said Hill.
Then it was over. Joe Hill — the Wobbly composer of revolutionary songs, the writer of revolutionary poems, an organizer on the docks of San Pedro, just thirty-six years old — was gone.
Joe Hill to some, Joe Hillstrom to others, was murdered that morning in Salt Lake City, a victim of Utah’s authorities — or was it the copper bosses?
The movement to spare Joe Hill had been massive. Millions of workers spoke out demanding that he not be killed. Few, save the bosses themselves, could believe that Hill had shot the grocer John G. Morrison and his son Arling. Even the American Federation of Labor appealed on Hill’s behalf at its 1915 convention in San Francisco. Its president, Samuel Gompers, intensely hostile to the radical Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), wired President Woodrow Wilson urging him to intervene; Wilson in turn appealed to William Spry, the governor of Utah. To no effect — the copper bosses would have their way.
Joe Hill’s remains were viewed by thousands in Salt Lake, then shipped back to Chicago. There, the Thanksgiving Day outpouring of grief and solidarity was like nothing seen before. In a packed West Side hall, there were speakers and singing. Bill Haywood, with his huge frame and one blazing eye, stood alone beside the casket and spoke for the IWW: “Goodbye Joe, you will live long in the hearts of the working class. Your songs will be sung wherever workers toil, urging them to organize.”
Ralph Chaplin, another Wobbly poet, composer of the labor anthem “Solidarity Forever,” reviewed the unimaginable day:
Slowly and impressively the vast throng moved through the west side streets. Windows flew open at its approach and were filled with peering faces. Porches and even roofs were blackened with people, and some of the more daring were lined up over signboards and on telephone and arc-light poles. The flower-bearers, with their bright colored floral pieces and wreaths tied with crimson ribbons, formed a walking garden almost a block in length. Thousands in the procession wore IWW pennants on their sleeves or red ribbons worded, “Joe Hill, murdered by the authorities of the state of Utah, November the 19th, 1915,” or, “Joe Hill, IWW martyr to a great cause,” “Don’t mourn — organize. Joe Hill,” and many others.