Very moving post , Joe . If Woody hadn't written the song, how many people would have heard of the crash today?
I wrote on Mudcat some time ago that I see the song's lyric being inspired in part by The Bold Robert Emmett .Compare:


The crops are all in and and the peaches are rotting,
oranges packed in their creosote bins

The battle is over and the boys are defeated
Ireland surrounded by sorrow and gloom.

Farewell to companions in Emmett chorus
adios mis amigos in deportees chorus

drive us outlaws like rustlers like outlaws like thieves -deportees
Tried as a traitor, a rebel, a spy - Emmett

Or am I just projecting things Irish onto Guthrie's lyric? Deportees could be sang to the same tune as The Bold Robert Emmett .