Along the coast in cookshacks flophouses jungles wobblies hoboes bindlestiffs began singing Joe Hill’s songs. They sang ‘em in the county jails of the State of Washington, Oregon, California, Nevada, Idaho, in the bullpens in Montana and Arizona, sang ‘em in Walla Walla, San Quentin and Leavenworth, forming the structure of the new society within the jails of the old.
At Bingham, Utah, Joe Hill organized the workers of the Utah Construction Company in the One Big Union, won a new wage scale, shorter hours, better grub. (The angel Moroni didn’t like labor organizers any better than the Southern Pacific did.)
The angel Moroni moved the hearts of the Mormons to decide it was Joe Hill shot a grocer named Morrison. The Swedish consul and President Wilson tried to get him a new trial but the angel Moroni moved the hearts of the supreme court of the State of Utah to sustain the verdict of guilty. He was in jail a year, went on making up songs. In November 1915 he was stood up against the wall in the jail yard in Salt Lake City.
“Don’t mourn for me organize,” was the last word he sent out to the working stiffs of the I.W.W. Joe Hill stood up against the wall of the jail yard, looked into the muzzles of the guns and gave the word to fire.
They put him in a black suit, put a stiff collar around his neck and a bow tie, shipped him to Chicago for a bangup funeral, and photographed his handsome stony mask staring into the future.
The first of May they scattered his ashes to the wind.
[Dos Passos, toujours. Joe Hill, exécuté le 19 novembre 1915. L'année dernière, James Ensor clic-clic, Ostende plutôt.]
