Background Statement
Carlos Cortez volunteered illustrations for the IWW - Industrial Workers of the World. Joe Hill was an organizer for the IWW. He was an arbetarsangaren, which means a "labor songwriter" in Swedish. He wrote "Casey Jones, the Union Scab" and "Eye in the Sky." He is a martyr in the labor movement. Industrialists hauled him into court in Utah on trumped-up charges and executed him. Joe was a union organizer, cartoonist, poet, musician composer, and itinerant worker. Across the bottom of the print is the Swedish phrase "Don't mourn, organize! which was taken from one of the last letters Hill wrote. His words proclaim the IWW's guiding principle of the general strike for industrial freedom. Instead of a revolution to take over the machinery of government, the workers advocate a strike to take over the machinery of production because they feel that is where the real power exists.