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violence.”^ Zinn, however, concludes that repressive powers of the state were
unable to silence the voices of the IWW leadership and organizers. The ideas of
the Wobblies would continue to resonate with Americans during the depression
era, turbulent 1960s, and the contemporary age dominated by the so-called war
on terror.
Zinn believes that popular culture has the power to keep the progressive
Wobblie legacy viable. The historian notes, “Yes, we have in this country,
dominated by corporate wealth and military power and two antiquated political
parties, what a fearful conservative characterized as a ‘permanent adversarial
culture’ challenging the present, demanding a new future.” While neither as
optimistic nor as partisan as Zinn, Bob Batchelor, in an entry on the Wobblies
for the St. James Encyclopedia of Popidar Culture, writes, “The heyday of the
IWW lasted less than twenty years, but in that short span, it took hold of the
nation’s conscience. Nearly forgotten today, the Wobblie spirit still can be found
in novels by John Dos Passos and Wallace Stegner, as well as numerous plays
and movies. By the 1950s and 1960s, IWW songs, collected in the famous Little
Red Song Book, were rediscovered by a new generation of activists fighting for
civil rights and an end to the Vietnam War.”^
In a contemporary culture dominated by celebrity, it is difficult for the
Wobblies to compete for public attention with the likes of Paris Hilton.
Nevertheless, it is true that history and literature, film, and especially music
have kept the legacy of the IWW alive through the twentieth and into the
twenty-first century. In part, this connection between contemporary popular
culture and the Wobblies is due to the fact that the IWW employed popular
literature, art, and music to deliver their message to the masses. And they were
not above exploiting Joe Hill as a martyr to keep the cause before the people.
Historically, the Wobblies used humor, poetry, songs, and cartoons to inspire
working people and sustain the dream of a better world. It is a living, popular
legacy which resonates better with the people than the defeated and
marginalized IWW of history textbooks. Wobblie historian Franklin Rosemont
argues, “The reason why Joe Hill and the old-time Wobblies are still so popular
among young radicals and so profound an influence on so many contemporary
social movements—from Justice for Janitors to micropower radio, from anti
globalization to animal rights, from Earth First! to feminism, from gay liberation
to Critical Mass, and all the various new abolitionisms . . . is because the
Wobblies’ dream of a better world, and the means they imagined and
improvised to realize those dreams, have never ceased to touch the hearts and
minds of those who value freedom above all, and who are now daring to dream
revolutionary dreams of their own.”^
Novelist Wallace Stegner, however, found the IWW to be less
inspiring. In the introduction to his novel The Preacher and the Slave, published
in 1950, Stegner lamented that “no adequate history of the IWW exists.” In this
novel focusing upon the story of Joe Hill, the Western writer maintained that the
IWW was “lacking in the kind of poetic understanding which should invest any