2005
Writing Contest: Semifinalist
Song: "The Preacher and the Slave," known as "Pie in the Sky" (Joe Hill)
From the advent of civilization, music has sustained the story of mankind's perseverance.
As empires rise and fall, the songs and operas and ballads of a society record its highest values
and transmit them to the next. The annals of history are rife with stories of long-dead heroes and
governments and lovers and villains that have been quieted by the passage of time. However,
what the progression of time wipes away is preserved forever in song. The saga of America's
radical union movement, which culminated in the years just before World War I, is one such
historical phenomenon. Although lost to the majority of Americans as a significant economic
movement, the history, thoughts, and philosophies of those early twentieth century socialists,
Marxists, and syndicalists are preserved through a unique body of literature. Although the
radical labor movement--fronted by the immensely influential but short-lived "lost cause"
known as the Industrial Workers of the World--effected immediate changes in securing union
recognition, better work hours, better wages, and an end to violent strikebreaking, it also birthed
a political and economic weapon so strong that it could not be fashioned of iron or steel: the
protest song. The voice that rose higher than the rest of the I.W.W. (known as "Wobblies") in
the precarious race to organize the unorganized, unskilled workers of the nation was that of a
young immigrant named Joe Hill (Seeger 104). He traveled the nation penning songs--songs of
protest, of discontent, and ultimately of hope--and organized the rabble of the nation into a
human wall of labor solidarity. Joe Hill and his martyr's death have largely faded into the
cobwebs of cultural anachronism. However, he left a canon of more than a thousand Wobbly
anthems behind him. As a commemorative folk song by Earl Robinson proclaims, "Joe Hill
ain't never died. Where working men are out on strike, Joe Hill is at their side!" (Krull 65). The
fundamental economic and spiritual message that made up the heart of the I.W.W. resounds as
strongly today as it did a century ago because it was preserved so flawlessly in the protest songs
of socialism's "singing bard" (Kornbluh 127). Joe Hill's most widely recognized song, the
poignant and ironic "The Preacher and the Slave" (known as "Pie in the Sky"), continues to sing
of the struggles and virtues of the proletariat long after the epoch of class conflict has waned.
The songs of the Industrial Workers of the World, most notably Joe Hill's "The Preacher
and the Slave," reflect the great economic tension in turn-of-the-century American industrial
society. The advance of socialist, syndicalist, and Marxist thought in early twentieth century
America was carried forth on the strength of a wave of enduring folk songs, but reflected the
almost century-long struggle between industrial classes. After half a century of horrific fires,
squalid working conditions, unbearably low wages, and exhausting and repetitive work
schedules, the American working class jumped to the forefront of the train of progressive
thought and began to demand significant reforms. Although several concessions were granted to
large union organizations like the American Federation of Labor--which recognized and
conscripted skilled craftsworkers--no organization existed to rally the abilities and to look out
for the interests of America's unskilled and unorganized masses. Thus, in 1905, the Industrial
Workers of the World was born. The Wobblies were far more radical than any other
unionization effort born on American soil. The Wobbly Constitution was drawn from radical
European economic thought, grounded in Karl Marx's Communist Manifesto, and held that labor
should collectively own the means of production. The I.W.W. set out to abolish production for
profit and wished to inaugurate a world in which trade unions controlled the government (Colin
3). The organization differed greatly from the American Federation of Labor, for it employed
direct, provocative methods--the boycott, the general strike, and musical, theatrical, and printed
propaganda--to make its demands on the American economy. At its zenith, the I.W.W. drew
some 100,000 members from the otherwise ignored migratory and unskilled workers of
America's West and South. A Swedish immigrant named Joe Hill rose to the forefront of the
I.W.W at the peak of its Golden Age. The songs that he wrote as the Wobblies' tireless
troubadour and fearless spokesperson reflect his belief not only in the essentiality of a workingclass
revolution, but in the innate goodness and dignity of the common worker.
Joe Hill penned "The Preacher and the Slave" in reaction to the gentle assurances made
by the world to the working class. The song is a parody of a popular Salvation Army hymn
("Sweet Bye and Bye"), which was sung by well-meaning preachers to Wobblies who demanded
the wealth of the world for the working class. Hill's vicious parody conveys popular attitudes
toward the unrelenting and idealistic economic demands of the I.W.W. and also encapsulates a
unique and adamant spirit of hope. The first chorus rises in mockery of the Salvation Army's
patient rhetoric: "You will eat, by and by, in that glorious land above the sky. Work and pray;
live on hay. You'll get pie in the sky when you die. (That's a lie!)" (Joe Hill's "Pie in the Sky,"
qtd. in Seeger 105). Hill, like the rest of the Wobblies, was unable to sit and wait for
government agencies to make conditions better for the working class. He fiercely believed that
man should look to the model of nature for guidance; Hill noted that when an animal was
starving, it found a way to get food. He believed that the unskilled American proletariat, if
properly organized, could have the same immediate effect. Hill's hope for the future was not
infected with the questionable, long-term idealism of other socialists and syndicalists: he aspired
not toward a vague and unattainable goal, but summoned the workers of the world to unite in
seizing a goal that was wholly within reach. "Workingmen of all countries unite," sang the
Wobblies at many of their strikes, like the Southern Pacific Railroad Strike of 1911. Hill's final
refrain continues and builds a sense of camaraderie and solidarity previously missing from
unionization movements. Where other unions failed because of ingrained racial, cultural, and
career differences, Hill's song proclaims that "...side by side in freedom we fight; when the
world and its wealth we have gained, to the grafters we'll sing this refrain!" (Seeger 105).
The spirit of "Solidarity Forever!" (as another popular Wobbly song ran) that Joe Hill's
"Pie in the Sky" inspired long outlived him and long outlived the I.W.W. The I.W.W. quickly
gained notoriety with the local and state governments of the age of Wilson. When their
leadership was confronted by vicious "scabs," the business-dispatched strikebreakers who
attacked strikers and took their jobs, walls of unified Wobblies would reply: "...we have no
leaders. WE'RE ALL LEADERS!" (Seeger 112). Despite such an assertion, the conviction of
Joe Hill in early 1915 for the murder of a Salt Lake City grocer established him forever as both
the de facto leader of the I.W.W., and the de facto leader of the hearts and minds of America's
working class (Kornbluh 128). Despite pleas from notables like Woodrow Wilson and the
daughter of the president of the Mormon Church, Utah refused to give Hill a fair trial and refused
to revoke his death sentence. Hill's last few months were spent writing letters to William "Big
Bill" Haywood, fonder of the I.W.W., and to children's choirs who would provide the future of
working class reform (Bird 142). In his final letter to Haywood, Hill modestly wrote "I have
nothing to say for myself, only that I have always tried to make this earth a little bit better" (Joe
Hill, qtd. in Seeger 110). Joe Hill, a rebel spirit to the end, gave the command to his firing
squad. His ashes were divided and spread in every state of the nation and every country of the
world.
In sparking America's protest song movement, Joe Hill and his "Pie in the Sky" brought
the "pie" down to the working men of America. He understood the hardships of the working
class, and devoted his life to securing real and tangible advancements for the radical unionist
movement. The last words that "Big Bill" Haywood ever bequeathed to his passionate friend
are eerily prophetic: "Goodbye, Joe. You will live long in the hearts of the working class"
(Haywood, qtd. in Kornbluh 130). Although he was not directly responsible for major
legislation, Joe Hill's "The Preacher and the Slave" unified and inspired a generation--and all
subsequent generations--to take a stand for economic equality and to fight silence and
oppression with song.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Primary Sources: Quoted from Secondary Sources, Listed Below.
Secondary Sources:
Bird, Stewart, et al. Solidarity Forever: An Oral History of the I.W.W. Chicago: Lake View
Press, 1985.
Conlin, Joseph Robert. Bread and Roses Too: Studies of the Wobblies. Westport: Greenwood
Publishing Corp., 1969.
Gonna Sing My Head Off!: American Folk Songs for Children, ed. Kathleen Krull, New York:
Scholastic Inc., 1992.
Kornbluh, Joyce L., Rebel Voices: An I.W.W. Anthology. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan
Press, 1964.
Seeger, Pete and Reiser, Bob. Carry It On! A History in Song and Picture of the Working Men
and Women of America. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1985.