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Joe Hill Narrative Script
Written by Ken Verdoia
Continued from Previous Page (3):
Narrator:
Again, the invitation was extended to Hill to tell his full story...and save his life.
Herald Republican Quote:
Joseph Hillsrom still has a chance to escape the execution chair. If Hillstrom will tell to his attorneys in confidence the name of the woman over who he alleges he was shot, so that Arthur Pratt, warden of the state prison, may make an investigation, he may go free. -- The Salt Lake Herald Republican.
Narrator:
Again,Hill refused to provide the information.
Hill Quote:
I have stated the facts as I know them in my own simple way. I did not have a fair and impartial trial, despite what the learned jurists say. I am going to stick to my principles no matter what may come. I am going to have a new trial, or die trying. Yours for fair play, Joe Hill.
Narrator:
In Washington, the Swedish minister turned again to President Wilson to intervene.
Ekengren Quote:
My Dear Mister President. I am more firmly of the opinion that the evidence and course of the trial do not warrant execution of this death sentence. This time I would most respectfully ask whether you could recommend to the board of pardons that the death sentence be commuted. Most respectfully yours, W.A.F. Ekengren.
Wilson Quote:
My Dear Mister Minister. What I have learned about the Hillstrom case has given me a great deal of concern, and I wish most unaffectedly that it had been possible for me to do more. But my slight intervention in the matter aroused resentment on the part of the authorities of Utah. The case is entirely beyond my jurisdiction. Cordially, Woodrow Wilson.
Narrator:
The board of pardons said a new trial was not an option. Hill's execution was rescheduled for November 19th, 1915.
Hill Quote:
October 27, 1915
O.N. Hilton, Denver. Dear Judge. Well Judge, I guess the legal part of the case is done now--and I'm glad of it. With best wishes for your health and welfare, I remain--respectfully--your client, Joe Hill.Sillito:
Why would he let himself become a symbol to the degree he let himself become a symbol? Why would he give up his life if he was really innocent? I mean, it's just a compelling drama. And it's unanswerable in many ways. An unanswerable question.
Narrator
But the pressure to block the execution did not ease. Only days before the execution, the popular leader of the Socialist Party of America made a direct plea to Governor Spry to stop the execution.
Eugene V. Debs:
I am convinced that there is more than reasonable doubt as to the guilt of this unfortunate brother of ours in the cause of labor. Joe Hill is a poet, a writer of songs, a man of soul. Joe Hill is not a murderer, and the great state of Utah, where murder is so abhorred, cannot afford to take his life. Yours very truly, Eugene V. Debs.
Narrator:
The pressure increased in Washington for Wilson as well, with celebrity voices joining the chorus to save Joe Hill. On November 16th a woman who had overcome disabilities to achieve a revered place in American hearts, begged the president to stop the execution.
Helen Keller Quote:
Wrentham Massachusetts. Your excellency. I believe that Joseph Hillstrom has not had a fair trial, and the sentence passed upon him is unjust. I appeal to you as official father of all the people to use your great power and influence to save one of the nation's helpless sons. -- Helen Keller.
Narrator:
Wilson quickly dictated a reply.
Wilson Quote:
My Dear Miss Keller. I was very much touched by your telegram of November 16th. But, unhappily, there is nothing that I can do. With sincere regard, Woodrow Wilson.
Narrator:
No sooner had Wilson dictated the letter to Keller saying there was nothing he could, than another telegram hit the desk of Wilson's special political assistant, Joseph Tumulty.
Smith:
He's a very shrewd guy, like all presidents have around. And a president is usually a shrewd person too, but in Wilson's case and in some other cases, the president could stand above the fray. But Tumulty was in the fray elbowing and doing his job.
Narrator:
Tumulty's job in the Fall of 1915 was to make sure Woodrow Wilson could be re-elected in 1916. It was far from certain, and Tumulty was trying to build a coalition of voting interests to keep Wilson in office. The telegram Tumulty received at 6:30 in the evening of November 16th was addressed to President Wilson from Samuel Gompers, leader of the American Federation of Labor.
Samuel Gompers Quote:
May I not prevail upon you to exercise your great influence to at least help in saving the life of Joseph Hillstrom, when there is so much doubt concerning his case? --Samuel Gompers.
Narrator:
While far from the political power it would one day achieve, the AFL represented organized workers spanning America. Too large of a voting block to ignore. On the morning of November 17th, Tumulty dashed off a return telegram to Gompers.
Tumulty Quote:
The president has received your telegram, and has this morning telegraphed the governor of Utah urging the justice and advisability of a thorough reconsideration of the case. --J.P. Tumulty.
Narrator:
Gompers received word even before the telegram was sent to Governor Spry.
Wilson Quote:
The White House. November 17th. With unaffected hesitation, but with a very earnest conviction of the importance of the case, I again venture to urge upon your excellency the justice and advisability of a thorough reconsideration of the case of Joseph Hillstrom. --Woodrow Wilson.
Narrator:
In Salt Lake City, Governor William Spry was under great pressure. His operatives were filing reports which indicated the industrial workers of the world might conduct an armed assault to free JoeHill...or, even worse, launch an attack against the state if Hill was executed as scheduled in 48 hours. When Wilson's telegram reached his desk, Spry exploded in response.
Spry Quote:
At the eleventh hour, you as the president, without stating any reasons, again wire me urging a thorough reconsideration. Your interference in the case may have elevated it to an undue importance...but the case is important in Utah only for establishing the guilt of one of the perpetrators of one of the most atrocious murders ever committed in this state. I cannot and will not lend myself or my office to such interference. -- William Spry, Governor.
Narrator:
In Washington, Utah Senator Reed Smoot sent a bubbling telegram of congratulations to fellow Republican Spry for his tough response to Democrat Wilson.
Reed Smoot Quote:
Dear Governor. Eastern papers are criticizing Wilson for his attitude. It ought to kill him as far as Utah is concerned...and the only excuse that can be offered is that it was political expediency. He will crawl on his belly to the I-W-W whenever requested. But, if I were you, I would not be too hasty in dismissing the men that have been guarding you and your family. Yours sincerely, Reed Smoot.
Narrator:
once againJoeHill was sending out goodbye letters. one went to elizabeth gurley flynn's son...nicknamed buster...who had sent a picture of himself taken as he sat on a pony in a new york park.
Hill Quote:
I got your picture buster dear, a riding on a pony. your pony was a real one too, you wouldn't have a phony. buster flynn he sure is game, his eyes are full of luster. i think we'd better change his name, and call him bronco buster--with a kind greeting, JoeHill.
Narrator:
Hill also took time to acknowledge the failed efforts of Swedish Minister Ekengren.
Hill Quote:
The case is closed. Now my friends know I am innocent, and I don't care what the rest think. Hearty thanks to you and the whole Swedish nation for your noble support. Joseph Hillstrom.
Narrator:
In a final telegram to Big Bill Haywood, Hill crafted a rallying cry for the I-W-W...and managed to slip in a wry comment about a final resting place.
Hill Quote:
Goodbye, Bill. I die like a true rebel. Don't waste time mourning---organize. (pause) It is a hundred miles from here to Wyoming. Could you arrange to have my body hauled to the state line for burial? I don't want to be caught dead in Utah! -- Joe Hill.
William Haywood Quote:
Goodbye. Joe. You will live long in the hearts of the working class. Your songs will be sung wherever the workers toil, urging them to organize.-- W.D. Haywood.
Narrator:
There was one last telegram to send.
Hill Quote:
Dear Friend Gurley. I have been saying goodbye so much that it is becoming monotonous. But I just cannot help to send you a few more lines because you have been more to me than a fellow worker. You have been an inspiration. And when I wrote the Rebel Girl, you was right there and helped me all the time. Now, goodbye Gurley, dear. I have lived like a rebel, and I shall die like a rebel. --Joe Hill.
Narrator:
Late on the night of November 18th, Joe Hill gave a final interview to a handful of newspaper reporters gathered outside his cell.
Hill Quote:
I die with a clear conscience. I die fighting...not like a coward. But mark my words, the day of my vindication is coming.
Herald Republican Quote:
With the shadow of death slowly creeping across the last sunset his eyes might see, Hillstrom calmly answered questions. He retired last night at 10 o'clock, and went into a peaceful and immediate sleep. -- The Salt Lake Herald Republican.
Narrator:
As Hill slept in his cell, troops surrounded the state prison to ward off an expected wobbly uprising. A machine gun guarded the main gate. The fear of an uprising was fueled by Governor Spry's private corps of spies who were conducting surveillance on local I-W-W figures. The detectives filed dozens of reports--- reporting where wobblies ate dinner, but never able to document the uprising they had predicted. But Hill's supporters were active...going so far as to wake ardent anti-union Senator Reed Smoot with a desperate request for his intervention on Hill's behalf.
Reed Smoot Quote:
At two o'clock this morning the telephone rang and I answered it. The caller, a woman, commenced to argue Hillstrom's innocence. I told her it would be useless to follow that any further. She demanded I telephone Governor Spry requesting a stay of Hillstrom's execution which takes place this morning. I told her I could not, and would not do so. --Reed Smoot
Narrator:
At five o'clock on the morning of November nineteenth, the outward calm of Joe Hill shattered in a last, frenzied, confused struggle for life. Without warning, Hill lashed out at his guards.
Tribune Quote:
At two o'clock this morning the telephone rang and I answered it. The caller, a woman, commenced to argue Hillstrom's innocence. I told her it would be useless to follow that any further. She demanded I telephone Governor Spry requesting a stay of Hillstrom's execution which takes place this morning. I told her I could not, and would not do so. --Reed Smoot.
Narrator:
At five o'clock on the morning of November nineteenth, the outward calm of Joe Hill shattered in a last, frenzied, confused struggle for life. Without warning, Hill lashed out at his guards.
Tribune Quote:
The condemned man had broken off the handle from a broom he had in his cell, and threatened everyone who came near with the sharp, pointed end. Then he placed mattresses in front of the door as a barricade. -- The Salt Lake Tribune.
Narrator:
There are reports that a local doctor administered a large injection of opium to control Hill in the face of his outburst. Like so many of the claims about his life--the drug report is heavily disputed. Blindfolded, Hill was led from his cell to the prison yard. Peeking under the mask and seeing a small crowd assembled for the execution, Hill called out--hoping to find three friends he had invited to witness his death:
Hill Quote:
Goodbye, boys. This is it. I'm going.
Narrator:
But the warden had barred Hill's friends from the execution on the basis of their I-W-W membership. As first light swept the peaks of the nearby Wasatch Mountains, the doctor stepped forward and pinned a paper target over Hill's heart. Five rifles leveled at the target--one loaded with a blank in a traditional, if unnecessary, gesture of absolution to the firing squad. Joel Haagland...also known as Joseph Hillstrom...also known as Joe Hill, fought to have the last word at the end of his life.
Firing Squad Commander:
Ready. . .aim. . .
Hill Quote:
Yeah....fire!
Firing Squad Commander:
. . .fire!
(Telegraph sounds)
Ed Rowan Quote:
To Elizabeth Gurley Flynn. New York. Joe Hill shot at sunrise. He died game. -- Ed Rowan.
Deseret News Quote:
The law has been enforced, and justice has been satisfied. For this result every good citizen should be profoundly grateful. -- The Deseret News.
(over headline coverage, telegram sounds up...hold...then out.
Narrator:
Joe Hill's body was rushed from the prison yard. A required autopsy merely confirmed the obvious. An enterprising photographer captured the end effect that netted each member of the firing squad twenty dollars in gold. Hill's body was shipped to Chicago, where the Industrial Workers of the World staged a funeral. More than 30,000 people turned out. They heard Hill's final attorney, Orrin Hilton, launch a lengthy and blistering attack on Utah:
Hilton Quote:
You can see the trial was unfair, and that some influence was brought to bear upon the Supreme Court to persuade it into an attitude of hostility toward Hillstrom. I do not say that this was done by direct influence, other than the imponderable and undefined but always apparent and dominating fear of the Mormon church!
Narrator:
Hilton never substantiated the charge, but the belief that a conspiracy killed Joe Hill would endure. The charge outraged the Mormon church-owned Deseret News in Salt Lake City:
Deseret News Quote:
Now if Judge Hilton really uttered these venomous and slanderous statements, it is unfortunate that he was able to get away from the state before the officers of the law could compel him to prove his words, or eat them! -- The Deseret News.
Narrator:
Hilton was disbarred from the practice of law in Utah. In response, he said he was honored by the gesture.
Narrator:
Some of the players in the case of Joe Hill found their lives indelibly scarred by the affair. . . others seemed untouched. E.O. Leatherwood rode the notoriety of his prosecution of Hill to a seat in congress, where he would serve until his death in 1929.
William Spry. . .riding a wave of local popularity for his tough stand in the Hill case, would watch his support erode when he refused to back prohibition in Utah. He was dumped by his party in a bid for a third term in 1916.
Woodrow Wilson would win re-election as president in 1916. He received the backing of organized labor. Rather than lose states over the Hill case, Wilson actually carried the state of Utah, a small but critical step in his election victory--much to the chagrin of Republican Reed Smoot who had declared Wilson politically dead because of Joe Hill.
Virginia Snow Stephen paid the price for her tireless advocacy of Hill's innocence. She was fired from her position as art instructor at the University of Utah. . .amid community complaints that the school had become a hotbed for radicals. She moved to California.
And what of Frank Z. Wilson, the man originally identified by police as the prime suspect in the murder of the Morrisons in 1914. He disappeared from Salt Lake City after the Morrison shooting and the arrest of Joe Hill. He turned up in Chicago, where he was arrested. He turned up in Ohio...where he was arrested. He turned up in Minnesota...where he was arrested and eventually disappeared in the late 1920s. In an age when the average male height was near five feet seven inches, Hill and wilson were considered tall at six feet.
They had the same build, and weighed roughly the same weight in January of 1914. Side-by-side, with features obscured as they would be by the presence of a hat and a handkerchief pulled up to the nose, their identities seem to blur. Utah authorities never questioned Frank Z. Wilson.
If Wilson disappeared from the case, others were simply forgotten. The Morrison family was devastated by the crimes, but, after the trial of Joe Hill, they were ignored. Marie Morrison would live another fifty-six years after the brutal slaying of her husband and son. Dying in 1970, just before her 98th birthday, she was laid to rest next to John G. Morrison. Her son, Arling, nearby. . . .next to the graves of three children she had lost in their infancy. Merlin Morrison, the first on the scene, who watched his father and brother die, would cry every time he talked of that night in 1914, until he died at the age of 83.
The Morrisons were forgotten, and the name of Joe Hill lived on.
Thirty years after Hill's execution, Doctor Frank McHugh made a startling claim. In the 1940's McHugh told a historian that Joe Hill had confessed to the Morrison murders while he was being treated for his gunshot wound. Viewed as conclusive evidence by some, it was dismissed as self-promotional grandstanding by others.
Those convinced of Hill's guilt would forever remain convinced. Those convinced of his innocence would use their beliefs to sustain and enhance the legend of Hill. His songs would be sung, his name invoked, in labor struggles throughout the twentieth century. The legend providing a sort of immortality that Hill hinted at as he wrote his last will the night before his execution.
Hill Quote:
My will is easy to decide, for there is nothing to divide. My kin don't need to fuss and moan, moss don't cling to a rolling stone. My body--oh if I could choose, I would to ashes it reduce. And let the merry breezes blow, my dust to where some flowers grow. Perhaps some fading flower then, would come to life and bloom again. This is my last and final will. Good luck to all of you--- Joe Hill.
--down to black--
Narrator:
The ashes of Joe Hill were eventually scattered in every state. . . except Utah.
