by Kornbluh, Joyce L. , Rosemont, Franklin, Thompson, Fred, Gross, Daniel
Into a great big union grand
And when we all united stand
The world for workers we’ll demand
If the working class could only see and realize
What mighty power labor has
Then the exploiting master class
It would soon fade away.
Chorus
Come all ye toilers that work for wages,
Come from every land,
Join the fighting band,
In one union grand,
Then for the workers we’ll make upon this earth a paradise
When the slaves get wise and organize.
We want the sailor and the tailor and the lumberjacks,
And all the cooks and laundry girls,
We want the guy that dives for pearls,
The pretty maid that’s making curls,
And the baker and staker and the chimneysweep,
We want the man that’s slinging hash,
The child that works for little cash
In one union grand.
Chorus
We want the tinner and the skinner and the chamber-maid,
We want the man that spikes on soles,
We want the man that’s digging holes,
We want the man that’s climbing poles,
And the trucker and the mucker and the hired man,
And all the factory girls and clerks,
Yes, we want every one that works,
In one union grand.
10
Joe Hill set these verses to the popular Civil War song, “Tramp, Tramp, Tramp, the Boys Are Marching.” It was published in the Industrial Worker (May 22, 1913), and included fourteen years later in Sandburg’s The American Songbag.
THE TRAMP*
By JOE HILL
(Tune: “Tramp, Tramp, Tramp, the Boys Are Marching”)
If you all will shut your trap,
I will tell you ‘bout a chap,
Sheet music of Joe Hill’s song, “Don’t Take My Papa Away from Me.”
That was broke and up against it, too, for fair;
He was not the kind that shirk,
He was looking hard for work,
But he heard the same old story everywhere.
Chorus:
Tramp, tramp, tramp keep on a-tramping,
Nothing doing here for you;
If I catch you ‘round again,
You will wear the ball and chain,
Keep on tramping, that’s the best thing you can do.
He walked up and down the street,
‘Till the shoes fell off his feet.
In a house he spied a lady cooking stew,
And he said “How do you do,
May I chop some wood for you?”
What the lady told him made him feel so blue.
(Chorus)
‘Cross the road a sign he read,
“Work for Jesus,” so it said,
And he said, “Here is my chance, I’ll surely try,”
And he kneeled upon the floor,
‘Till his knees got rather sore,
But at eating time he heard the preacher cry—
(Chorus)
Down the street he met a cop,
And the copper made him stop,
And he asked him, “When did you blow into town?
Come with me up to the judge,”
But the judge he said, “Oh, fudge,
Bums that have no money needn’t come around.”
(Chorus)
Finally came that happy day,
When his life did pass away,
He was sure he’d go to heaven when he died.
When he reached the Pearly Gate,
Santa Peter, mean old skate,
Slammed the gate right in his face and loudly cried:
(Chorus)
In despair he went to Hell,
With the Devil, for to dwell,
For the reason he’d no other place to go.
And he said, “I’m full of sin,
So for Christ’s sake let me in!”
But the Devil said, “Oh beat it, you’re a ‘bo.”
(Chorus.)
11
Joe Hill set these verses to the gospel hymn tune, “There Is Power in the Blood.” The song was printed in the fifth edition of the I.W.W. song-book.
THERE IS POWER IN A UNION*
By JOE HELL
(Tune: “There Is Power in the Blood”)
Would you have freedom from wage slavery,
Then join in the grand Industrial band;
Would you from mis’ry and hunger be free,
Then come! Do your share, like a man.
Chorus:
There is pow’r, there is pow’r
In a band of workingmen,
When they stand hand in hand,
That’s a pow’r, that’s a pow’r
That must rule in every land—
One Industrial Union Grand.
Would you have mansions of gold in the sky,
And live in a shack, way in the back?
Would you have wings up in heaven to fly?
And starve here with rags on your back?
If you’ve had “nuff” of “the blood of the lamb”
Then join in the grand Industrial band;
If, for a change, you would have eggs and ham,
Then come! Do your share, like a man.
If you like sluggers to beat off your head,
Then don’t organize, all unions despise,
If you want nothing before you are dead,
Shake hands with your boss and look wise.
Come all ye workers, from every land,
Come join in the grand Industrial band,
Then we our share of this earth shall demand.
Come on! Do your share, like a man.
12
These verses appeared in the Industrial Worker (May 29, 1913).
STUNG RIGHT*
By JOE HILL
(Air: “Sunlight, Sunlight”)
When I was hiking ’round the town to find a job one day,
I saw a sign that thousand men were wanted right away,
To take a trip around the world in Uncle Sammy’s fleet,
I signed my name a dozen times upon a great big sheet.
Chorus
Stung right, stung right, S-T-U-N-G,
Stung right, stung right, E. Z. Mark, that’s me;
When my term is over, and again I’m free,
There will be no more trips around the world for me.
The man he said, “The U.S. fleet, that is no place for slaves,
The only thing you have to do is stand and watch the waves.”
But in the morning, five o’clock, they woke me from my snooze,
To scrub the deck and polish brass and shine the captain’s shoes.
One day a dude in uniform to me commenced to shout,
I simply plugged him in the jaw and knocked him down and out;
They slammed me right in irons then and said, “You are a case,”
On bread and water then I lived for twenty-seven days.
One day the captain said, “Today I’ll show you something nice,
All hands line up, we’ll go ashore and have some exercise.”
He made us run for seven miles as fast as we could run,
And with a packing on our back that weighed a half a ton.
Some time ago when Uncle Sam he had a war with Spain,
And many of the boys in blue were in the battle slain,
Not all were killed by bullets, though; no, not by any means,
The biggest part that died were killed by Armour’s Pork and Beans.
13
“Nearer My Job to Thee” was printed in the sixth edition of the I.W.W. songbook and set to the tune, “Nearer My God to Thee.”
NEARER MY JOB TO THEE
Words by J. H. of the I.W.W.
Nearer my job to thee,
Nearer with glee,
Three plunks for the office fee,
But my fare is free.
My train is running fast,
I’ve got a job at last,
Nearer my job to thee
Nearer to thee.
Arrived where my job should be,
Nothing in sight I see,
Nothing but sand, by gee,
Job went up a tree.
No place to eat or sleep,
Snakes in the sage brush creep.
Nero a saint would be,
Shark, compared to thee.
Nearer to town! each day
(Hiked all the way),
Nearer that agency,
Where I paid my fee,
And when that shark
I see You’ll bet your boots that he
Nearer his god shall be.
Leave that to me.
14
This article by Joe Hill was published in the International Socialist Review (December 1914).
HOW TO MAKE WORK FOR THE UNEMPLOYED
By JOE HELL
Much has been written lately about various new ways and tactics of carrying on the class struggle to emancipate the workers from wage slavery.
Some writers propose to “organize with the unemployed”; that is, to feed and house them in order to keep them from taking the jobs away from the employed workers. Others again want to organize a Gunmen Defense Fund to purchase machine guns and high powered rifles for all union men, miners especially, that they may protect themselves from the murderous onslaughts of the private armies of the master class. Very well; these tactics MAY be perfectly good, but the question arises: Who is going to pay for all this?
Estimating the unemployed army to be about five millions in number and the board bill of one individual to be five dollars a week, we find that the total board bill of the whole unemployed army would be twenty-five million dollars per week.
The price of a machine gun is about $600 and a modern high-power rifle costs from $20 to $30. By doing a little figuring we find that fifty million dollars would not be sufficient to buy arms for the miners, let alone the rest of the organized workers. Every workingman and woman knows that, after all the bills are paid on pay day, there is not much left to feed the unemployed army or to buy war supplies with.
What the working class needs today is an inexpensive method by which to fight the powerful capitalist class and they have just such a weapon in their own hands.
This weapon is without expense to the working class and if intelligently and systematically used, it will not only reduce the profits of the exploiters, but also create more work for the wage earners. If thoroughly understood and used more extensively it may entirely eliminate the unemployed army, the army used by the employing class to keep the workers in submission and slavery.
In order to illustrate the efficacy of this new method of warfare, I will cite a little incident. Some time ago the writer was working in a big lumber yard on the west coast. On the coast nearly all the work around the water fronts and lumber yards is temporary.
When a boat comes in a large number of men are hired and when the boat is unloaded these men are “laid off.” Consequently it is to the interest of the workers “to make the job last” as long as possible.
The writer and three others got orders to load up five box cars with shingles. When we commenced the work we found, to our surprise, that every shingle bundle had been cut open. That is, the little strip of sheet iron that holds the shingles tightly together in a bundle, had been cut with a knife or a pair of shears, on every bundle in the pile—about three thousand bundles in all.
When the boss came around we notified him about the accident and, after exhausting his supply of profanity, he ordered us to get the shingle press and re-bundle the whole batch. It took the four of us ten whole days to put that shingle pile into shape again. And our wages for that time, at the rate of 32c per hour, amounted to $134.00. By adding the loss on account of delay in shipment, the “holding money” for the five box cars, etc., we found that the company’s profit for that day had been reduced about $300.
So there you are. In less than half an hour’s time somebody had created ten days’ work for four men who would have been otherwise unemployed, and at the same time cut a big chunk off the boss’s profit. No lives were lost, no property was destroyed, there were no law suits, nothing that would drain the resources of the organized workers. But there WERE results. That’s all.
This same method of fighting can be used in a thousand different ways by the skilled mechanic or machine hand as well as by the common laborer. This weapon is always at the finger tips of the worker, employed or unemployed.
If every worker would devote ten or fifteen minutes every day to the interests of himself and his class, after devoting eight hours or more to the interests of his employer, it would not be long before the unemployed army would be a thing of the past and the profit of the bosses would melt away so fast that they would not be able to afford to hire professional man-killers to murder the workers and their families in a case of strike.
The best way to strike, however, is to “strike on the job.” First present your demands to the boss. If he should refuse to grant them, don’t walk out and give the scabs a chance to take your places. No, just go back to work as though nothing had happened and try the new method of warfare.
When things begin to happen be careful not to “fix the blame” on any certain individual unless that individual is an “undesirable” from a working class point of view.
The boss will soon find that the cheapest way out of it is to grant your demands. This is not mere theory; it has been successfully tried more than once to the writer’s personal knowledge.
Striking on the job is a science and should be taught as such. It is extremely interesting on account of its many possibilities. It develops mental keenness and inventive genius in the working class and is the only known antidote for the infamous “Taylor System.”
The aim of the “Taylor System” seems to be to work one-half the workers to death and starve the other half to death. The strike on the job will give every worker a chance to make an honest living. It will enable us to take the child slaves out of the mill and sweat-shop and give their unemployed fathers a chance to work. It will stop the butchering of the workers in time of peace as well as in time of war.
If you imagine “Making Work for the Unemployed” is unfair, just remember Ludlow and Calumet and don’t forget Sacramento where the men who were unable to get work had their brains beaten out by the Hessians of the law and were knocked down and drenched to the skin with streams of ice-cold water manipulated by the city fire department, where the unemployed were driven out of the city and in the rain only to meet the pitchforks of the farmers. And what for? For the horrible crime of asking the governor of California-for A JOB!
This is the way the capitalist class uses the working class when they can no longer exploit them—in the name of Law and Order. Remember this when you MAKE WORK FOR THE UNEMPLOYED!
15
Joe Hill composed the words and the music to this song, which appeared in the ninth edition of the I.W.W. songbook.
WORKERS OF THE WORLD, AWAKEN!*
By JOE HILL
Workers of the world, awaken!
Break your chains, demand your rights.
All the wealth you make is taken
By exploiting parasites.
Shall you kneel in deep submission
From your cradles to your graves?
Is the height of your ambition
To be good and willing slaves?
Refrain:
Arise, ye prisoners of starvation!
Fight for your own emancipation;
Arise, ye slaves of every nation
In One Union Grand.
Our little ones for bread are crying,
And millions are from hunger dying;
The means the end is justifying,
‘Tis the final stand.
If the workers take a notion,
They can stop all speeding trains;
Every ship upon the ocean
They can tie with mighty chains;
Every wheel in the creation,
Every mine and every mill,
Fleets and armies of the nation
Will at their command stand still.
Join the union, fellow workers,
Men and women, side by side;
We will crush the greedy shirkers
Like a sweeping, surging tide.
For united we are standing,
But divided we will fall;
Let this be our understanding—
“All for one and one for all.”
Workers of the world, awaken!
Rise in all your splendid might;
Take the wealth that you are making,
It belongs to you by right.
No one will for bread be crying,
We’ll have freedom, love and health
When the grand red flag is flying
In the Workers’ Commonwealth.
16
These verses set to the popular tune “Ta-Ra-Ra Boom De-Ay” appeared in the ninth edition of the I.W.W. songbook. Prosecuting attorneys in some of the federal and state trials used the song as evidence of I.W.W. intent to commit acts of sabotage if the workers’ requests for better working conditions were not granted.
TA-RA-RA BOOM DE-AY
By JOE HILL
I had a job once threshing wheat, worked sixteen hours with hands and feet.
And when the moon was shining bright, they kept me working all the night
One moonlight night, I hate to tell, I “accidentally” slipped and fell.
My pitchfork went right in between some cog wheels of that thresh-machine.
Chorus:
Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay!
It made a noise that way,
And wheels and bolts and hay,
Went flying every way.
That stingy rube said, “Well!
A thousand gone to hell.”
But I did sleep that night,
I needed it all right.
Next day that stingy rube did say, “I’ll bring my eggs to town today;
You grease my wagon up, you mutt, and don’t forget to screw the nut.”
I greased his wagon all right, but, I plumb forgot to screw the nut,
And when he started on that trip, the wheel slipped off and broke his hip.