November 19, 1915: Joe Hill Is Executed

November 19, 1915: Labor activist Joe Hill is executed by firing squad at Sugar House Prison in Salt Lake City, Utah. He was 36 years old.

Born on October 7, 1879 as Joel Emmanuel Hägglund in Gävle, Sweden, he and his brother Paul immigrated to America in 1902. He went across the country, ending up in San Francisco, and was there when the 1906 earthquake hit.

In 1910, he took the name Joe Hillstrom, began working on the docks in the San Pedro section of Los Angeles, and joined the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW, a.k.a. "The Wobblies"). They were leftists, and were already celebrating labor in song. He took to this, and began writing poems and songs under the name Joe Hill, never knowing that he would be immortalized in song under that name.

In 1868, S. Fillmore Bennett and Joseph P. Webster wrote the Christian hymn "The Sweet By-and-By." It is mostly forgotten today. Better-remembered is Hill's parody of it, "The Preacher and the Slave":

Long-haired preachers come out every night

try to tell you what's wrong and what's right

but when asked, How 'bout something to eat?

they will answer in voices so sweet:

You will eat, bye and bye

in that glorious land above the sky.

Work and pray, live on hay

you'll get pie in the sky when you die.

Thus was coined the phrase "pie in the sky." And whenever Joe sang all 3 verses and 3 full choruses, his audience would respond, "And that's a lie!"

On January 10, 1914, Hill was working in the Silver King Mine in Park City, Utah, outside Salt Lake City. That night, John G. Morrison and his son Arling Morrison were killed in their grocery store in Salt Lake City by two armed intruders, masked in red bandanas. It had not been all that long since the days of the Wild West: Robert LeRoy Parker, a.k.a. Butch Cassidy, had committed his last robbery in his home State of Utah only 13 years earlier.

Nothing was stolen from the store, so the police first considered that the motive was revenge: John Morrison had been a police officer, and had enemies. There were 12 different people arrested before Hill was considered a suspect.

That same night, Hill met a doctor. He said he'd been shot in the chest, in an argument over a woman, though he wouldn't give her name. The doctor reported that Hill had a pistol with him. When his room at a boarding house was searched, a red bandana was found.

Hill denied killing the Morrisons. He denied ever having met them. The murder weapon was never found. The red bandana that was found proved nothing: Lots of men had one. There was no evidence that he was at the store that night. And four other men were treated for bullet wounds in Salt Lake City that night.

At his trial, the prosecution produced 12 eyewitnesses who said the killer resembled Hill. One was Merlin Morrison, age 13, son of one victim and brother of the other. At the trial, he identified Hill as the killer. But when originally question, Merlin said, "That's not him."

The jury took only a few hours to find Hill guilty. Hill appealed, but the Utah Supreme Court upheld the earlier verdict. Orrin Hilton, who represented him in the appeal, said, "The main thing the State had on Hill was that he was a Wobbly, and therefore sure to be guilty."

Hill never testified on his own behalf. A recent biographer has suggested that he saw himself worth more to the movement as a martyr than as a living songwriter and agitator. At any rate, the real killer of the Morrisons has never been identified.

On November 19, 1915, Hill wrote to IWW leader Big Bill Haywood, whom he knew: "Goodbye Bill. I die like a true blue rebel. Don't waste any time in mourning. Organize." He also wrote, "Could you arrange to have my body hauled to the state line to be buried? I don't want to be found dead in Utah."

That day, he was led out to a wall, to be executed by firing squad. The order was given: "Ready, aim... " But, having had so little control over his life, he exercised a sliver of control over his death, shouting the last word: "Fire!"

In 1925, Alfred Hayes wrote the poem, "I Dreamed I Saw Joe Hill Last Night." In 1936, Earl Robinson set it to music, and it became the song "Joe Hill" that is remembered today:

I dreamed I saw Joe Hill last night,
alive as you and me.
Says I, "But Joe, you're ten years dead."
"I never died," says he.
"I never died," says he.

"In Salt Lake City, Joe," says I,
him standing by my bed,
"They framed you on a murder charge."
Says Joe, "But I ain't dead."
Says Joe, "But I ain't dead."

"The Copper Bosses killed you Joe,
they shot you Joe," says I.
"Takes more than guns to kill a man."
Says Joe, "I didn't die."
Says Joe, "I didn't die."

And standing there as big as life
and smiling with his eyes
says Joe, "What they can never kill
went on to organize,
went on to organize."

From San Diego up to Maine,
in every mine and mill,
where workers strike and organize
it's there you'll find Joe Hill,
it's there you'll find Joe Hill!"

Paul Robeson, Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger all made "Joe Hill" a featured song in their concerts. In his 1939 novel The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck wrote a speech for the character of Tom Joad whose repeated line, "I'll be there" seems to echo "It's there you'll find Joe Hill." Henry Fonda recited it in the 1940 film version. Joan Baez sang the song at the Woodstock concert in 1969. Ken Burns used it in his 1994 miniseries Baseball, whenever the subject turned to the relationship between the players and the team owners.

And the song has become known to millions of people who have no idea about the particulars of who Joe Hill was, or why he died.

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November 19, 1915 was a Friday. Baseball was out of season. There was no NFL, no NBA, and no NHL. And while there were major college football games played on November 20, none were played on November 19. So there were no scores on this historic day.