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~~ SONGS OF AMERICAN PROTEST, FROM JOE HILL TO BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN By Roger Karny “I saw how the poor folks lived and then I saw how the rich folks lived, and the poor folks down and out and cold and hungry, and the rich ones out drinking good whiskey and celebrating and wasting handfuls of money… and I got to thinking about what Jesus said, and what if he was to walk into New York City and preach like he used to. They’d lock Him back in jail… ‘Even as you’ve done it unto the least of these little ones, you have done it unto me.’ - Woody Guthrie “God intended the great to be great and the little to be little… I do not say that a dollar a day is enough to support a working man. But it is enough to support a man!... the man who cannot live on bread and water is not fit to live.” - Henry Ward Beecher “Woody is just Woody… He sings the songs of a people… and there is nothing sweet about the songs he sings. But there is something more important for those who will listen. There is the will of a people to endure and fight against oppression.” - John Steinbeck on Woody Guthrie America’s rich heritage of protest music is almost as old as she is. It’s one of the instruments for the underclasses to gain attention and unify themselves. The rich always hold not only the purse strings, but the legal system and the force to carry out their agenda, even unto oppression. Miners, textile workers, migrant workers, auto and steel workers – all these and more have felt the lashes of injustice. Poverty can create rootlessness, especially for men. Searching for work, they have hit the roads, rails and far fields… but there’s never enough to go around. They may make enough to send a few dollars back home; often excess has been spent on quick, simple pleasures, all too easily found. Such a footloose laborer at the turn of the prior century was Swedish immigrant Joel Hagglund, who like many immigrants trying to gain acceptance, shortened his name… to Joe Hill. America in the early 1900’s was a land of opportunity – for the wealthy. It was also the land of the very poor, without much opportunity. So-called “Robber Barons” like Andrew Carnegie, J.P. Morgan, John D. Rockefeller and others, it was said, robbed from the poor and gave to the rich – themselves. The efforts of virtual wage slaves fattened their coffers. These worked for pennies an hour, or worse, for the weight and measure of what they could dig or pick, hoping the weigh scales were not rigged. The eight-hour day and the forty-hour week were almost unknown; health insurance, unemployment compensation, workman’s compensation, non-existent; vacations only a dream. Hungry families were forced to send under-aged children to work; unions were forcibly beaten down by company owners, their hired goons and strikebreakers, and most politicians who supported them. And if you were African-American, forget it. You weren’t even this well-off. Lynching of blacks in the South was legal well into the 1930’s. As so many before and since have done, Joe Hill came to America looking to improve his lot in life. Back in Sweden he had gleaned some musical know-how, which he soon put to use. But the conditions that he and others met in the U.S. were not what they had expected. Hill, and others like him, traveled throughout the country by hopping onto freight trains. Transients like these would congregate a while in shanty towns near the tracks for the strength and company found in numbers. Soon the I.W.W., the Industrial Workers of the World, would find them and offer the hope of the “One Big Union.” The I.W.W. told them that by banding together across occupational, sectional and racial lines they could fight the bosses and win. The I.W.W. constitutional preamble, then and now, states in part: “The working class and the employing class have nothing in common. There can be no peace so long as hunger and want are found among millions of working people and the few, who make up the employing class, have all the good things of life. Between these two classes a struggle must go on until the workers of the world organize as a class, take possession of the means of production, abolish the wage system… These conditions can be changed and the interest of the working class upheld only by an organization formed in such a way that all its members in any one industry, or all industries if necessary, cease work whenever a strike or lockout is on… … we are forming the structure of the new society within the shell of then old.” Joe Hill joined. In between whatever work he could find, he supported their organizing efforts. But one January day in 1914, in Salt Lake City, Utah, Hill was arrested for the murder of a store owner and his son. Then after twenty-two months of incarceration, a conviction and a denied appeal, Hill was executed by firing squad on November 19, 1915. He wrote on one of his last notes: “Don’t waste any time in mourning. Organize.” Historian Philip Foner researched Hill’s trial and in his 1965 book The Case of Joe Hill described what he called “one of the worst travesties of justice in American labor history.” Foner suggests that Hill’s conviction on flimsy, circumstantial evidence was because he was a transient and an I.W.W. union organizer. But Hill’s legacy lives on in a rich collection of I.W.W. protest songs. Many are still in the current edition of the I.W.W.’s Little Red Songbook subtitled To Fan the Flames of Discontent. His most famous is “The Preacher and the Slave,” some lines of which follow: “Long-haired preachers come out every night, Try to tell you what’s wrong and what’s right; But when asked how ‘bout something to eat They will answer with voices so sweet: You will eat, bye and bye, In that glorious land above the sky; Work and pray, live on hay, You’ll get pie in the sky when you die. If you fight hard for children and wife – Try to get something good in this life – You’re a sinner and bad man, they tell, When you die you will sure go to hell.” Another vintage Hill song is “Workers of the World, Awaken,” some of which follows: “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? ... Workers of the world, awaken! Rise in all your splendid might; Take the wealth that you are making It belongs to you by right.” Before he died, Hill befriended fellow I.W.W. agitator Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, whom the Los Angeles Times called one of the “She-Dogs of Anarchy.” But Joe Hill composed “The Rebel Girl” to compliment her and those women like her: “Yes her hands may be hardened from labor, And her dress may not be very fine; But a heart in her bosom is beating That is true to her class and her kind. And the grafters in terror are trembling When her spite and defiance she’ll hurl; For the only and thoroughbred lady Is the Rebel Girl.” Also around this time, there was an African-American sharecropper and songwriter for the Southern Tenant Farmer’s Union named John Handcox. He wrote and sang a song “There Are Mean Things Happening in This Land”: “The union called a strike, But the planters and the bosses Throwed the people out of their shacks … The planters throwed the people off the land, Where many years they spent … The planters throwed the people out, Without a bite to eat; They cursed them and they kicked them, And some with axe-handles beat.” After the strike the sharecroppers marched. Handcox related, “As we were marching, we were asking, like somebody asked in the Bible, “What you mean that you crush my people and grind the face of the poor?” (Isaiah 3:15). Particularly cruel were conditions for mine workers in the early 1900’s. Owners violently subdued strikes and unrest with deputies, hired detectives, and even state militia. Woody Guthrie’s “The Ludlow Massacre” describes some of the culminating events of the bloody southern Colorado mine strike that went on during 1913-14: “They drove us miners out of doors, Out from the houses that the company owned; We moved into tents up at old Ludlow … Carried our young ones and a pregnant woman Down inside the cave to sleep … You struck a match and the blaze it started; You pulled the triggers of your gatling guns; I made a run for the children but the fire wall stopped me, 13 children died … We took some cement and walled the cave up, Where you killed these 13 children inside; … I hung my head and cried. The National Guardsmen and hired detectives shot and killed a number of strikers as well. While the I.W.W. was severely muzzled after World War I due to the “Red Scare” anti-Bolshevik activity, one of their most enduring songs (written by Ralph Chaplin) was “Solidarity Forever,” promoting the vision of the One Big Union: “… Is there aught we hold in common with the greedy parasite, Who would lash us into serfdom and would crush us with his might? Is there anything left to us but to organize and fight? For the Union makes us strong. It is we who ploughed the prairies, built the cities where they trade, Dug the mines and built the workshops, endless miles of railroad laid; Now we stand outcast and starving, ‘mid the wonders we have made, But the Union makes us strong … We can bring to birth a new world from the ashes of the old, For the Union makes us strong.” This was how things were in America, not all that long ago. Noted author and scholar Helen Keller decried these conditions with the following words: “When one of them [union members] is dragged from his bed and hung to a railroad trestle, a great horror of darkness falls upon my spirit, and from the depths of my heart I cry out against those who persecute the weak and unfriended.” An anonymous coal miner of this era wrote these verses to “Miner’s Flux”: “They are shooting starving miners here, And framing men to jail. They cheat us in the company store, And cheat us at the scale! And the bosses spend a million bucks, On jewels and on silk While our children die of bloody flux Because they have no milk. They are clubbing men and women here, Because they ask ‘more bread.’ The bosses’ justice orders cops And thugs to give them lead.” These people spoke and sang of what they witnessed. Woody Guthrie, during the Great Depression of the 1930’s, joined the hoboes and transients he sang about as he left home to ride the rails looking for work too. He picked up singer and ex-Harvard student Pete Seeger along the way. Later on, back in New York City, Huddy Ledbetter (Lead Belly), African-American ex-convict from the Deep South, joined some of their singing sessions as well. The dust storms in the Midwest Dust Bowl at this time created more hardship. How did it feel to see your farm, your life, literally blown away by violent wind and dust storms? John Steinbeck tells it in his aching novel The Grapes of Wrath. Oklahoma “Okies” and migrant workers just like the fictional Tom Joad of Grapes swarmed to California hoping to just scratch out an existence. Gut-wrenching poverty can make you do things you wouldn’t ordinarily do. Guthrie’s song “Tom Joad” summarizes Steinbeck’s story of Tom, Preacher Casey, and the Joad family as they head to California: “Tom Joad got out of the old McAlester pen; There he got his parole … Now a Deputy Sheriff fired loose at a man, Shot a woman in the back. Before he could take his aim again Preacher Casey dropped him in his tracks … Another deputy clubs Casey to death, then Tom does the same to the deputy. Tom goes back to say goodbye to his mother before the law comes for him. He says: “Wherever little children are hungry and crying, Wherever people ain’t free, Wherever men are fighting for their rights That’s where I’m a-gonna be, Ma.” While Steinbeck’s story is just that, it represents real situations and attitudes in our country’s past. “Pastures of Plenty” is a Guthrie ode to migrant workers who: “Out of your dustbowl and westward we rolled … We come with dust and we go with the wind … Dig beets from your ground, cut the grapes from your vine To set on your table your light sparkling wine …” Other Guthrie songs of outrage include: “Dead from the Dust,” that relates how miners and their family members would die from constant inhalation of coal dust. “Pretty Boy Floyd” outlines how the famed outlaw of the Depression Era killed a deputy sheriff for insulting his wife. Floyd used some of his stolen bank money to help starving farmers and neighbors losing their homes. Guthrie’s lyrics maintain that while some rob with a “six-gun,” others do it with a “fountain pen.” You’ll never see an outlaw evict a family from their home, he bristles. And “Jesus Christ” presents the scenario of a real Savior who in modern times would have spoken up for and helped those who were down and out… but would have been “laid in his grave” by rich folks as a result. Pete Seeger, Guthrie’s “understudy,” repeated some of Woody’s tunes and added his own. Some of his favorites were “Hobo’s Lullaby,” “1913 Massacre,” “Pretty Boy Floyd,” “Draft Dodger Rag,” the well-known and oft-repeated “John Henry,” and his famous “Where Have All the Flowers Gone,” a favorite of the Hippy Generation. (“Where have all the young men gone… gone for soldiers every one… gone to graveyards every one. When will they ever learn? When will they ever Learn?”) And his “Talking Union” was sung at union rallies: “Now if you want higher wages let me tell you what to do… You got to build you a union, got to make it strong… ‘Cause if you wait for the boss to raise your pay, We’ll all be a waitin’ til Judgment Day… “ Lead Belly was described by the New York Herald Tribune as “a powerful knife-toting Negro, a saturnine singer of the swamplands, who has killed one man and seriously wounded another.” From deeply segregated Louisiana, he also “toted” a large 12-string guitar. He was acquainted with racism and oppression. He did kill at least one man, claiming self-defense, and did several prison stints. But he sang with an incredible range, and eventually even performed at intellectual colleges like Bryn Mawr, Swarthmore, and Harvard. Many of the “Who’s Who” of the subsequent folk, rock and blues era pay tribute to his musical influence; he died in 1949 of Lou Gerhig’s Disease. Lead Belly’s most famous protest against the racial discrimination he experienced was “The Bourgeois Blues,” written while he was in the North. Portions follow: “Me and my wife run all over town, Everywhere’s we’d go people would turn us down. Home of the brave, land of the free, I don’t want to be mistreated by no bourgeoisie… White folks in Washington, they know how Chuck a colored man a nickel just to see him bow. Tell all the colored folks, listen to me, Don’t try to buy no home in Washington, D.C.” Later, protest singers of the 1960’s and 1970’s sought peace in Vietnam as well as racial justice. Folk singer Joan Baez said, “I went to jail for disturbing the peace; I was trying to disturb the war.” Battles to establish the right to strike and form unions were largely over by then. The Woodstock Era saw huge crowds with large gates for well-known performers. Baez sang her rendition of “We Shall Overcome” at concerts and rallies. Her husband, David Harris, was imprisoned for resisting the draft. Before she met Harris, Baez and Bob Dylan sang together. She encouraged Dylan to do protest music. Among Baez’ melodies was a tribute in Spanish, “Comandante Che Guevara,” to the famous Latin American revolutionary. She also revived the ode “I Dreamed I Saw Joe Hill Last Night” arranged in 1936 by Alfred Hayes and Earl Robinson: “I dreamed I saw Joe Hill last night Alive as you and me Says I, ‘But Joe, you’re ten years dead’ ‘I never died’ says he… ‘Takes more than guns to kill a man’ Says Joe ‘I didn’t die’… From San Diego up to Maine In every mine and mill Where working folks defend their rights It’s there you’ll find Joe Hill.” Bob Dylan, for his part, popularized “Blowin’ in the Wind”: “How many roads must a man walk down Before you call him a man?... Yes ’n’ how many times must the cannonballs fly Before they’re forever banned? Yes ‘n’ how many times can some people exist Before they’re allowed to be free?... Phil Ochs, during his brief, 1940-1976, life produced numerous songs along these lines as well. His ballad “Joe Hill” also lauded the life, death and legacy of the I.W.W. troubadour. “A Toast to Those Who Are Gone” by Ochs remembered the fallen members of the anti-fascist American Abraham Lincoln Brigade that fought in the 1930’s Spanish Civil War. He linked them to the martyred union-organizing coal miners of Harlan County, Kentucky before them and the murdered or jailed civil rights marchers of the 1960’s in Alabama and Mississippi. His “Spanish Civil War Song” recalls how the fascist general Francisco Franco butchered a half-million people and eliminated democracy in that country for four decades. Ochs points out that the U.S. sent Franco, a former ally of Hitler and Nazi Germany, planes and arms for many years after World War II. In “I Ain’t Marchin’ Anymore,” Ochs laments: “… ‘Cause it’s always the old to lead us to war It’s always the young to fall Now look at all we’ve won with the sabre and the gun Tell me, is it worth it all? ... In “Outside of a Small Circle of Friends” he vexes: “…. Sweating in the ghetto with the colored and the poor The rats have joined the babies who are sleeping on the floor Now wouldn’t it be a riot if they really blew their tops?” One of the surprising heirs to folk-style protesting of late has been Bruce Springsteen. In 1995, Springsteen produced a haunting, mostly one-man album called “The Ghost of Tom Joad”. His ballads are in the Guthrie/Dylan style and draw from the characters and premises of Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath. They’re set mostly in the southwest U.S., dealing with migrant workers, immigrants, border guards, drug-smugglers and rail-riders. They all, in their own way, are looking for the better life, trying to leave the old one behind. Oklahoma “Okies,” Dust Bowlers, those like the Joad family, all were on the run as well, looking to stay alive, looking for desperately-needed hope. Springsteen’s title song ties the old Tom Joad-types with their newer counterparts: “Men walkin’ ‘long the railroad tracks Goin’ someplace there’s no goin’ back Highway patrol chopper comin’ up over the ridge … Hot soup on a campfire under the bridge Shelter line stretchin’ ‘round the corner Welcome to the new world order Families sleepin’ in their cars in the Southwest No home no job no peace no rest The highway is alive tonight But nobody’s kiddin’ nobody about where it goes I’m sittin’ down here in the campfire light Searchin’ for the ghost of Tom Joad He pulls a prayer book out of his sleeping bag Preacher lights up a butt and takes a drag Waitin’ for when the last shall be first and the first shall be last In a cardboard box ‘neath the underpass …” Then Springsteen echoes the Joad of Steinbeck and Guthrie: “Now Tom said ‘Mom, wherever there’s a cop beatin’ a guy Wherever a hungry newborn baby cries Where there’s a fight ‘gainst the blood and hatred in the air… Wherever there’s somebody fightin’ for a place to stand Or decent job or a helpin’ hand Wherever somebody’s strugglin’ to be free Look in their eyes Mom you’ll see me.” A few years after “The Ghost of Tom Joad,” Springsteen followed suit with the CD “Where Have All the Flowers Gone: The Songs of Pete Seeger” later re-done as “We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions.” It features such Seeger-popularized classics of discontent as “John Henry,” “Eyes on the Prize,” “We Shall Overcome,” and “How Can a Poor Man Stand Such Times and Live?” So there are still socially conscious voices that join with the Joe Hills, Lead Bellies, and Woody Guthries of past years. Yet popular singers today who perform the melodies of dissent and disaffection can make good money doing so. Old-time minstrels like Hill received little more than notoriety, if that. But is the message, the cry for justice, equality and decency, any different? Some social issues and conditions may alter as times change. But by and large, people don’t: oppression, greed, hatred, all remain and must be continually fought against. Do those who sing about righting wrongs do it with less conviction or urgency when they’re paid well? Can being at variance with the established order just become like a job, like earning an ordinary living? Maybe, but you can’t say the old days, the old ways were better than now. Times do change and dissenters have to confront the new challenges with new methods. Perhaps the reason that protest music seems to be less “in your face” now is that the hard-won battles of our forebears have bought some gains. Working conditions have vastly improved over the last hundred years; the lot of African-Americans, while not great, has bettered; immigrants have assimilated with less violence. Franklin Roosevelt reformed capitalism just enough to prevent a revolution – and that was his intention according to Richard Hofstadter’s The American Political Tradition. And now, are today’s conservatives and capitalists using the same idea, i.e., giving the working class just enough to keep it quiet, pacified and thinking about other things besides equality and justice… and revolution? Perhaps a little money and the few comforts it can buy have become the new “opiate of the people,” now that religion is losing its draw. Lastly, what is the future of unions? Surely Jimmy Hoffa and his types have subverted the unions almost as much as Scott Walker and his. As the workforce becomes more atomized, policies calling for united action, like the strike, have less meaning or feasibility. Marxism has had to adapt to the realities of international corporations, economic imperialism and the blurring of national borders. One can see here the role protest singing has played in the past, pointing out injustice and stirring up emotions to continue the struggle for dignity, equality and the right to decent work conditions and wages. History helps us see that we’re not alone in the struggle. And while the past is past, we can glean some truth and direction from it and discover ways that will work for our ends now. Woody Guthrie said: “They made me see why I had to keep going around and around with my guitar making up songs and singing… I never did really know that the fight had been going on so long and so bad. I never had been able to look out over and across the slum section nor a sharecropper farm and connect it up with the owner and the landlord and the guards and the police… and the vigilante men with their black sedans and their sawed-off shotguns.” Sometimes we just have to remind ourselves where we’ve been… and where we need to go yet.