Dreamed I Saw Joe Hill Last Nighf ^
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especially religious songs. In the fall of 1941, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, the
inspiration for Hill’s “Rebel Girl,” visited the Almanac Singers, and, admiring
Guthrie’s work, she gave the folksinger a collection of Hill’s papers.'^ After
perusing the Hill materials, Guthrie was inspired to compose “Joe Hillstrom.”
Assuming the voice of Hill, Guthrie proclaimed his innocence. He could not
provide an alibi for his whereabouts during the murder of Merlin Morrison
because it would compromise the. reputation of a lady he was courting. He is
framed because he is a union organizer and the copper bosses want him dead.
“Joe Hillstrom” concludes.
Hey Gurley Flynn, 1 wrote you a song
To the dove of peace. It’s coming along.
I lived like a rebel, like a rebel 1 die.
Forget Me. Organize these copper mines.
They march me out to the baseball park
Tie me down in a chair, and the Doctor marks my heart
With a little white rag against the back robe
Goodbye Joe Hillstrom you done a pretty good job."^
Guthrie would also immortalize aspects of Wobblie history in his 1946
recording Stmggle for Moses Asch. According to Asch, Guthrie wanted “a
series of records depicting the struggle of working people in bringing to light
their fight for a place in the America that they envisioned.” In his introduction to
“Ludlow Massacre,” commemorating the violent suppression of a Colorado coal
mining strike under Wobblie leadership, Guthrie wrote,
Ludlow Massacre was one of the hundred of battles fought to
build trade unions. I want to sing a song to show our soldiers
that Ludlow Massacre must not ever come back to us or kill
13 children and a pregnant woman, just to force you to work
for cheap wages.
In “ 1913 Massacre,” Guthrie tells the story of the death of 73 children in
Calumet, Michigan, when the IWW was attempting to organize the copper
mines. In his notes Guthrie writes, “Copper boss thugs yelled ‘fire’ in the door
and 73 children smothered to death on the stairs.” The song concludes with the
refrain
The parents they cried and the miners they moaned,
“See what your greed for money has done!”^”
Like Joe Hill, Guthrie was a martyr. But rather than the quick death of
a firing squad, Guthrie’s body wasted away from Huntington’s chorea, a
degenerative disease of the central nervous system. Guthrie, however, was
dissimilar to Hill on the topic of religion. Rather than perceiving religion as the
opiate of the masses, Guthrie believed there was no fundamental conflict
between Marx and Jesus. Guthrie insisted that communism and Christianity both