Interview: Thomas G. Alexander Thomas G. Alexander is a Professor of History at Brigham Young University. The author of numerous books on Utah and the West, he is also the author of Utah's official statehood centennial history. In the production of Joe Hill Professor Alexander addresses the social and political climate in Utah at the time of the Hill trial. Continued from previous page... Q: Is it important, as we look at this era, for the church leadership to have the church perceived as being loyal, as being patriotic American citizens? A: This issue was thrown out over and over again during the nineteenth century. A, by the federal judges, by the presidents of the United States in their annual speeches, their State of the Union addresses that they gave and things of that sort. A, the church had to show that it was loyal to the United States, that it was not a subversive organization. Q: By 1912, the Republican party in Utah is Reed Smoot's party. True or false? A: Well that's partly true. Now, Smoot controlled the Republican party through the Federal Bunch. His political machine essentially. And that's another indication that things here in Utah were about like every place else. Because the political system was organized as a machine, political machine. Smoot's lieutenant, William Spry, was elected governor in 1908. The party organization, the Federal Bunch, had its own newspaper, the Salt Lake Herald, and then the Herald-Republican. They had control of the appointment of federal offices here in Utah, that's where the name federal bunch comes from. They had their own office here in in the state associated with the Herald-Republican, and Edward H. Callister headed that. Q: American newspapers at the turn of the century were much different than they are today in a lot of respects. They often represented view points or groups or interests and were very proud and very clear in representing the voice of that institution. A: The Tribune was a Republican newspaper, but it was an independent Republican. So it would criticize the Federal Bunch on occasion, partly because it was aligned with the American party during this period, and was during part of the period an anti- Mormon newspaper. Now, that's not the case after 1911. But it was a Republican newspaper. The Herald-Republican of course was the organ of the federal bunch, so it was a Republican newspaper. The Deseret News was independent during this period, but interestingly, it tended to align itself with a kind of conservative Democratic position, and the reason for that was that the editor of the newspaper was Charles W. Penrose who was a Democrat, a conservative Democrat to be sure, but a Democrat nevertheless, and this angered Reed Smoot. He was upset that the church's newspaper wouldn't support him on all of the issues that he stood for. That it opposed his position on a some things, and he would complain about this to Joseph F. Smith and President Smith then would talk to Charles W. Penrose about that issue and then Penrose would go back and do what he wanted to! Q: William Spry emerges as an important figure in our attempts to chronicle the case of Joe Hill. How do we characterize William Spry in his approach to the office of governor? A: Well, I think Spry was essentially a conservative in the same sense that Reed Smoot was conservative. He was interested in protecting Utah property interests. You see this in the way he handled the strike in 1912. Q: Can you illustrate what actions he took during that strike in 1912? A: Well essentially he was trying to stop the violence that was taking place at the Bingham Canyon Mine of Utah Copper Company. The strikers had moved up onto the mountainside and were firing at the company guards. They were trying to prevent strike breakers from coming in. Officials from the Greek Orthodox Church were involved in this, and Spry wanted to settle the issue without calling out the national guard. That had caused a great deal of bad press for Governor Wells, Heber Wells, in 1903 when the national guard was called out in the Carbon County strike, the gold strike. So what Spry did was to come over and talk with the strikers. He talked with the company officials and then he made a speech to both groups in which he said - look the strikers have a right to go out and strike. The company, though, has a right to a bring in people who want to work. Well that's a no-win situation for the strikers essentially. It means that the company doesn't have to a bargain with them if it doesn't choose to do so. You didn't have anything like the Wagoner Act at that point, that required them to to bargain. And it means essentially that he's taking the position that the workers don't have any property interest in their jobs. Their job is essentially a contract between a worker and a property owner. Q: And if they walk away from it, they have absolutely no rights. A: That's right, they have no rights under that a situation. And of course that's what or part of what the strike was about. Was to a get some recognition for the union. They weren't successful in doing that. They got a partial recognition of their rights. By the agreement that they wouldn't have to go through labor contractors any more to work. Q: But is the Governor making a pretty clear statement that he's coming down on a side in this impasse? A: Yeah. There's no question about it. He's coming down on the conservative position. Which is that this is a contract between the company and individual workers, and the company can hire other workers to come in if they choose to do so. Q: Was Spry a figure that might have been considered susceptible to control by the large mining interests like Utah Copper? A: I'm not sure whether you consider that control or not, or whether it's a matter of his disposition. He's actually a conservative person, and I think the position that he represented was probably the majority position in utah. You need to remember that this was a time when most people in Utah were not employees. Most people were independent entrepreneurs, most of them farmers to be sure. That was probably the largest single occupation of people in Utah at that time. But they weren't working for somebody else. If you have your own business of one s-sort or another, whether its farming or whatever it is, you may not be particularly sympathetic to the idea of a workers going out on strike. And I don't think there was a lot of sympathy for strikers in Utah during this period. Q: Is there an ethnic aspect as well? A: Well I think there is to some extent, this cuts in a number of different ways. After earlier strikes the Greeks and Italians had come into the mines in Bingham and out in Carbon county. After the 1912 strike you have Mexicans coming in taking the place of the Greek strikers who'd gone out on strike, though a lot of them retained their jobs during this period because the strike's not successful and they get certain agreements from the other companies. You have native Americans, Euro-Americans, the people from northern Europe particularly who were working in the mines. T- they are replaced by people from southern and eastern Europe, especially Greeks and Italians who come into the mines. And they're the ones that go out on strike in 1912. That's one of the reasons that representatives of the Greek orthodox church were successful in dealing with some of these problems, because these people were active in the Greek orthodox church and respected Greek orthodox clergy. Q: This was a different era in terms of conflicts of interest. You look at Senator Smoot's diary, Smoot makes annotations of selling interest in mines, and yet he's speaking out about radical labor unions, fearful of their impact on the economy. Were there what we would consider now days conflicts of interest in public officials? A: Oh, I think there's no question about that. Utah didn't have any corrupt practices legislation. You could get money from anybody that you wanted to during this period. And in some cases those donations, political contributions were a little more than bribes that were given to a to people. They probably wouldn't have been considered such by the people who were receiving them, but a there t-the situation was a great deal different then. Conditions were a great deal different in the political arena than they are currently. Q: Utah, demonstrates a certain discomfort even hostility towards this notion of radical labor organizers. A: Oh, I think there's no question about that. The Western Federation of Miners and the IWW, the Industrial Workers of the World, were extremely controversial. The Federation was successful in organizing a number of workers, the workers at Bingham for instance in 1912. But it was not successful in getting union contracts or agency contracts with the various mines. That was not successful until during the 1930s. They were perceived as a threat to the status quo. They were perceived as anarchists. They were perceived as people who are not adverse to using violence to achieve their ends. And the public thought - well that's exactly what's happening because you have what's essentially an industrial war going on out at Bingham in 1912. Workers who've moved up, set up barricades on the side of the mountain shooting at company guards, stopping the workers who want to a to go to work. I mean the revolution's here. The reds are out. Q: Let's move into the consideration of the Joe Hill case. William Spry is inundated with communiques, telegrams, letters from every corner of the nation and even international. Do you know how Spry reacts to this public outpouring that's telling Utah it's wrong to have convicted this man, it's wrong to consider executing this man. A: Well I think Spry reacts in essentially two ways. It stiffens his back. He thinks that what's what's happened here is fair. That Joe Hill got a fair trial. And so he responds that way and continues to do that right down to the end. He also is afraid for his family. Because there have been threats made against him and he has guards that help with his children, taking them to school and various things of that sort, so he's concerned about what the effect might be on his family, that they might be in danger. So he responds in those two ways. He also responds to the public outcry by responding to the Swedish Minister and particularly to President Wilson who has written him twice about this issue asking him to reconsider the question. Q: And in those responses, what does Spry say to Wilson? A: He says this: This was a fair trial, that we went through the judicial process the way it ought to have been carried out. There was an appeal to the state supreme court and they upheld the lower court decision. He's convinced that Joe Hill is guilty and that Wilson is interfering in something that's not his affair because this is a state matter, not a federal matter. Q: It's easier for Spry, a Republican, to tell the Democrat Wilson to butt out. A: Well I think there's no question about that. In addition to this of course, Theodore Roosevelt who was a former Republican president had written to him and told him that he thought he was absolutely right on this question. Q: How did Spry view this man, Joseph Hillstrom, and the murders. It seems to me he makes very strong statements that these were heinous crimes. And this guy's getting only what he deserves. A: Well I think that's essentially right. Spry was convinced that the trial was fair and he was convinced that Hill was guilty and that this story of having been wounded in a fight over a girl was absolute nonsense. And that Hill was the one who pulled the trigger. I don't think he knew who the other man was. There were two people who came in to the grocery store. But he was convinced that Joe Hill was one of them. Q: As we look at the future of William Spry. . .after the execution in 1915. What comes next for Spry? A: Well what comes next is the question of whether the Republican party's gonna be successful in the 1916 election and what affect this is gonna have on his career. I don't think that the position that Spry took in the Joe Hill case hurt him here in Utah. I think most of the people in Utah agreed with his decision because you're dealing with a radical labor organization that most people didn't like in the state. And I think the thing that hurt Spry in the 1916 election is his veto of the prohibition bill in 1915, not the Joe Hill case. Q: Reed Smoot in in writing Governor Spry and congratulating him on his strong stance and strong response to Woodrow Wilson's attempt to intervene in the Hill case, congratulates him for the courage of that stand and predicts that Wilson has cut his own political throat if you will, in Utah with the looming presidential election. A: Well, that's not the case. Woodrow Wilson carries Utah in 1916. He got more votes than Warren Harding did in 1920 or a Calvin Coolidge did in 1924 in Utah. He doesn't kill himself here in the campaign of 1916 because of his intervention in the Hill case. Q: One of the written about Joe Hill said - the copper bosses killed you Joe and then there were statements of O.N. Hilton at Hills funeral. He was killed by the Mormon Church as surely as if they put a noose around his neck. The theorists believe there is a conspiracy at work between the Mormon church and the industrial giants of the community to get this man. In your reading of the situation, have you found such conspiracy? A: No, I don't think that existed at all. I think the situation was rather more serious than that. And I think it was more serious because the entire community was behind I think what happened during this period. There was very little sympathy generally I think for Joe Hill and for his position in Utah or for the IWW or the Western Federation of Miners. And I think most people approved of what happened in this case. Thats a much more serious situation than saying that this was a conspiracy of the mining companies and Utah Construction Company and the LDS church, because it's the whole community that feels this way about that situation. Q: If you look on both sides of this issue, be it this small group of Wobblies or the rank and file Utahn, be they Mormon or non-Mormon, both sides believe they have the very interest of the nation at stake. That they're fighting for the future of America, for justice, for what is right and decent. A: I think that they're both right. Because they both have different visions of what the United States ought to be. Should the United States be a worker's paradise or should it be something else. Should it be a sort of Horatio Alger country where you move to the top and where you might become the president of the mining company, or president of United States sometime in the future. Or should you expect that you're going to be a worker for all of your life and you ought to make those working conditions as good as they possibly can be. But it's different visions I think. It's two different visions of the United States and the United States' future.                   About the Program || Joe Hill Home || PBS Home