1s | ii iy On Remembrance Day many of us will mourn for those who died in wars fought to ‘‘save the system,’’ but some dreamers of “Sone big union’’ will pay tribute to labor songwriter/organizer Joe Hill, whose life and tragic death symbolize man’s determin- ation not to knuckle under. ‘“My body? Ah, if I could choose, I would to ashes it reduce, And let the merry breezes blow My dust to where some flowers grow.”” So wrote the legendary troub- adour of the North American la- bor movement as he awaited ex- ecution for murder in Salt Lake City, Utah 65 years ago. His ashes were carried to every state but Utah, and his songs of revolt spread across the land, keeping his spirit alive among working people engaged in the struggle to improve their lives. The popular slogan of today’s trade union activists — “Don’t mourn, organize’’ — was inspir- ed by Hill’s death row telegram to Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) leader “‘Big Bill’ Hay- wood. ‘“‘Goodbye Bill,’’ wrote Hill, ‘‘I will die a true blue rebel. Don’t waste any time mourning. Organize.” : Among Hill’s well-remember- ed ballads are Casey Jones, Pie in the Sky, and The Rebel Girl. During last month’s first fed- eral clerk’s strike, thousands of Canadian ‘‘rebel girls’ enthusi- astically sang ‘‘Solidarity forever, for the union makes us strong,” as they demanded better wages. But few of them probably knew that they were also renewing the living spirit of the Wobblies. Written by Ralph Chaplin, an- By JIM McDOWELL other Wobbly poet and song- writer, ‘Solidarity Forever!’’ be- came the rousing IWW anthem, and it rings out today whereever workers organize and strike. This month a cross-country campaign by union people with a sense of history will climax when they present a petition to Utah _ governor Scott Matheson, de- manding a posthumous pardon for Joe Hill, who was executed by a firing squad on Nov. 19, 1915in Salt Lake City. According to Leslie Orear, president of the Illinois Labor History Society, which launched the petition, more than 20,000 Artist Mary Katham painted this 12 by 12 mural in vivid colors on \ the walls of the Joe Hill Hospitality House in Salt Lake City. signatures from all over the U.S. and Canada (about 5,000 from B.C.) have been collected during the past year as part of the ‘‘Joe Hill centenary.”’ ‘‘Exoneration is the objective,”’ says Orear. ‘‘We owe it to the man whose songs breathed the rebel spirit that we ought never to forget.’’ Joe Hill, born Joel Hagglund, came from Sweden to the U.S. in 1902 at the age of 23. Changing his name to Joseph Hillstrom, he’ worked the rails and waterfronts, and wandered west singing union songs as a member of the fledgl- ing IWW, which had strong sup- port in B.C. In 1914, while visiting Salt Lake City, he was accused of murdering a grocer and his son during a holdup, but he maintain- ed his innocence to the end, refus- ing even the ‘“‘indignity’ of speaking in his own defence. . Although the evidence was flimsy, a hostile judge, a vengeful prosecutor and an inflamed press secured a jury conviction. But many Americans, including Helen Keller and president © Woodrow Wilson, pleaded that he be given another trial. No evi- dence has ever been found to es- tablish firmly his guilt or inno- cence, but few argue he got a fair trial. Earlier this year the Broadway play Salt Lake City Skyline, writ- ten by Thomas Babe, centred around that trial. In Babe’s fic- tionalized version, Joe takes over his own defence when he loses confidence in his three lawyers. The key issue in Babe’s plot turns on an alibi Joe refuses to.use because it would compromise a well-placed Salt Lake City mat- ron with whom he was having an * affair. In one scene, Joe explains how his incriminating gunshot wound was incurred, not during a ‘robbery, but when he and his lover were caught by her hus- band. Believing his manifest in- nocence will win his freedom, Joe withholds the woman’s name, is found guilty and executed. But Babe’s preoccupation with the legal manoeuvring that en- snares the defendant prevents him from developing any major The lasting legacy of Joe Hill A manacled Joe Hill is led to the courtroom where he was — framed on a murder charge. He was executed on Nov. 19, 1915. theme..Salt Lake City Skyline ends up as an erratic work that di- minishes Joe Hill, vulgarizes his predicament, and trivializes his light. Although old ‘‘Wobs’’ and nostalgic poets or folksingers might be encouraged to see their folk hero live again in Babe’s bold stroked portrayal, few will find any new historical insights or in- spiration in this freewheeling courtroom melodrama. ‘i I first heard of Joe Hill from another courageous individualist whose life paralleled Hill’s rabblerousing career in many ways. Ammon Hennacy was an unorthodox Catholic-anarchist whose home base, when he wasn’t on the road, was the Ca- tholic Worker’s hospitality house for Bowery bums deep in Man- hattan’s lower east side (where Hill had once cleaned barroom spittoons). Twenty years ago invited Am- mon, on his next pilgrimage west, to visit a school in Califorma where I was teaching. One day this gaunt, rawboned. vagabond with sparkling blue eyes got off a Greyhound bus and walked into the classroom. Hespent most of thedaytelling }. students about Joe Hill and his . own life as an agitator in a péer- ‘sonal, anecdotal, rambling, gte- garious way. Several years later Ammon moved to Salt Lake City, where union activist Joe Hill had been marched up against a wall and ~ shot. There Ammon added eight chapters to his book, The Autobiography of a Catholic Anarchist, and published it under the present title, The Book of Ammon — a takeoff on The. Book of Mormon. Before he died, Ammon wrote a second book called The One Man Revolution in America — 17 - biographical sketches of radical Americans whom he admired. Among his courageous heroes were Thomas Paine, Mother Jones (an IWW founder), Clarence Darrow, Yukeoma of the Hopi, Bartolomeo Vanzett, Malcolm X and Dorothy Day (of - the Catholic Worker). Joe Hill would have been there too, but Ammon chose to live out Hill’s legacy rather than write about him. Until his own death in 1970, he devoted most of his ehergy, to running the Joe Hill House of Hospitality in the heart of stateside Mormon country. A large mural of the labor martyr’s execution still covers one wall of the refuge. _ Jim McDowell is a Vancou- ver freelance writer. ; Spoof on the CIA and FBI tops for laughs, suspense One of the best written, direct- ed and acted movies to come along in years, this is reminiscent of the finest to come out of England in the ’50s — The Man In The White Suit, The Lavender Hill Mob. Walter Matthau and Glenda Jackson deliver sparkling performances following a script HOPSCOTCH. Starring Ned Beat- ty, Glenda Jackson and Walter Matthau. Directed by Ronald Neame. Screenplay by Bryan Gar- field and Bryan Forbes from Gar- field’s novel. At local theatres. ween Matthau and Jackson civilized and sophisticated and never clumsily or intrusively sexy. that rips and ridicules the Central Intelligence Agency and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, as has rarely, if ever, been seen on film. It is one to see again, once you’re there, for the sheer pleasure of enjoying great talent so skilfully employed. The com- edy is delicious, the love story bet- In this spy chase yarn the spies and counterspies chase from Washington to Hamburg, Austria, England and back, andit is Matthau who leads this merry, revealing, highly political expose of the cruelty, stupidity and vulgarity of the CIA. Fired after 20 years because he failed to kill a KGB man when he had a chance, he protests. He got information from the man, he’s known him for 20 years. He likes him, but more important, he knows him, how he works, his habits, talents and flaws. Kill him and he’d have to spend a year or more learning the ways of. his replacement. No good. He’s dropped from his spot to the bot- tom of the ladder. He quits. It is then he informs the CIA leader (a vulgar, pompous ass named Myerson, played with perfect fatuity by Ned Beatty) that he has started a history of his experiences in the CIA, its crimes, stupidities and bunglings, and encloses his first chapter. Furious — and frightened — Myerson orders Matthau eliminated and the hilarious, always suspenseless chase is on. With the help of Jackson, the idiots in “‘The Company”’ have no chance. I won’t spoil your pleasure by . Glenda. Jackson and Walter Matthau In a scene from Ronald Neame’s satirical film Hopscotch. telling you how and why they have no chance, but would only — add that the way the CIA is put down by British Intelligence, and by the publisher in England who defies the bullying threats of Myerson and his men will delight every conceivable audience — ex- cept perhaps the men in the CIA and the FBI. The Russian KGB agent comes out a calm, intelligent-seeming fellow by comparison. —Lester Cole $e a ae 8 0a 8S a OP ae eS PACIFIC TRIBUNE—NOV. 7, 1980—Page 10° e= see seen ee sme re rs :