Biography
Joe Hill, born Joel Emmanuel Hägglund in Gävle, Sweden, was an itinerant laborer, songwriter, and organizer for the Industrial Workers of the World. After emigrating to the United States in 1902 he traveled the West following construction work and labor disputes, contributing the songs that would define the IWW's culture — among them 'The Preacher and the Slave, ' 'There Is Power in a Union, ' and 'Rebel Girl.' In January 1914 a Salt Lake City grocer named John Morrison and his son Arling were shot to death in their store. Hill, who had arrived a few hours later at a doctor's home with a bullet wound he refused to explain (saying only that it had come from a quarrel over a woman whose name he would not give), was arrested on circumstantial evidence and charged with the murders. The prosecution presented no eyewitness identification of Hill, no direct physical evidence, and no motive. He was convicted in June 1914 and sentenced to death. A worldwide campaign for his clemency drew appeals from AFL President Samuel Gompers, the Swedish minister to the United States, and President Woodrow Wilson, who twice asked the governor of Utah to reconsider. The governor refused. Hill was executed by firing squad at the Utah State Prison on November 19, 1915. His final telegram to IWW general secretary Bill Haywood read: 'Don't waste any time mourning. Organize.' His last words to the firing squad: 'Let it go — fire.' He has remained the most famous martyr of the American labor movement.
