In your “Utah’s Alternative Pioneers” story from the July 23 issue, you did right by including Big Bill Haywood, but how could you forget Joe Hill? To us Wobblies (members of the IWW), he is nothing less than a true labor hero!
Joseph “Joe Hill” Hillstrom was murdered by the state of Utah in 1915 over a crime he did not commit, over the clemency requests of President Woodrow Wilson, Helen Keller and the international community as a whole at the Utah State Prison— now SugarHouse Park. It’s no accident that SugarHouse Park is where May Day—the real Labor Day—is celebrated each May 1.
I leave you with Joe’s last words to Big Bill Haywood: “Goodbye, Bill. I die like a true blue rebel. Don’t waste any time in mourning; organize. Could you arrange to have my body hauled to the state line to be buried? I don’t want to be found dead in Utah.”
Robert A. Findlay
West Valley