Joe Hill Trial: 1914

As the trial opened on June 17, 1914, prosecutor E.O. Leatherwood admitted that the state had only circumstantial evidence. Thirteen-year-old Merlin Morrison could not positively identify Hill as his father's murderer.

Press interest intensified as Wobbly lawyers Orrin Hilton and Soren Christensen took over the defense. They complained that Hill would rather face death than reveal his exact whereabouts and the identity of those he was with on the night of the murder. They challenged the prosecutor to prove a motive for his killing Morrison, or even for shouting "We have got you now!" before shooting. They tried to prove that Hill was wounded by a steel bullet, while Morrison's gun fired lead.

On June 28, the jury returned a guilty verdict, and Hill was sentenced to die. Attorney Hilton appealed, citing the prosecution's failure to identify Hill as the murderer, the lack of motive, the court's disallowing testimony on previous attempts on Morrison's life, errors in the admission of expert testimony (a newsman had been accepted as a gun expert), and several critical errors by the judge. The appeal was denied.

Hill's attorneys decided that an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court was useless because the case involved no federal considerations. While rallies were held and funds were raised nationwide, execution was set for October 1. Hill's attorneys asked the Utah Board of Pardons to commute his sentence to life imprisonment. Petitions, telegrams, and letters mounted. Hill refused an offer of freedom if he would reveal, with corroboration, where he was during the Morrison murder. The execution date was set repeatedly as the Swedish minister to the United States, American Federation Labor President Samuel Gompers, and the highly respected Helen Keller all appealed to President Woodrow Wilson, who in turn, appealed to Utah governor William Spry. But Spry refused clemency unless Hill satisfactorily explained how he was wounded.

Hours before his execution, Hill wired IWW General Secretary Bill Haywood, "I will die like a true-blue rebel. Don't waste any time in mourning—organize."

At 10:00 P.M., Hill handed a guard his last poem, titled "My Last Will":

… 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

The next morning, November 19, a firing squad shot Joe Hill through the heart. Thousands attended his funeral in Salt Lake City, then another in Chicago. Cremation followed. Joe Hill's ashes, distributed in small packets, were scattered worldwide.

The song, "I Dreamed I Saw Joe Hill Last Night," soon appeared, with its verse,

The copper bosses killed you, Joe,
"They shot you, Joe," says I.

"Takes more than guns to kill a man,"
Says Joe, "I didn't die.

" Says Joe, "I didn't die."

In the years following, such noted authors as Upton Sinclair, Carl Sandburg, John Dos Passos, Eugene O'Neill, and Wallace Stegner, as well as folk singers Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie and millions of workers, have all dreamed they saw Joe Hill last night.

The last of Joe Hill's ashes were scattered in Washington, D.C., in November 1988.