This year is the centenary of the death of Joe Hill. He was executed by firing squad in Utah on November 19, 1915, accused of murdering two shopkeepers. A member of the firing squad claimed that the command "Fire!" came from Hill himself.

And yesterday Utah Governor Gary Herbert signed a measure making Utah the only US state to use a firing squad as a method of execution. It isn't so very long ago that a 'liberal' state was one that gave condemned men the choice of the means of their execution.

Joe Hill wrote to Bill Haywood, the former president of the Western Federation of Miners and the best-known leader of the IWW,
"Goodbye Bill: I die like a true rebel. Don't waste any time mourning, organize! It is a hundred miles from here to Wyoming. Could you arrange to have my body hauled to the state line to be buried? I don't want to be found dead in Utah."

My Last Will written by Joe Hill

My will is easy to decide
For there is nothing to divide
My kin don't need to fuss and moan -
Moss does not cling to a rolling stone

My body? Oh! If I could choose
I would want to ashes it reduce
And let the merry breezes blow
My dust to where some flowers grow

Perhaps some fading flower then
Would come to life and bloom again
This is my Last and Final Will
Good luck to all of you, Joe Hill

To which I've added a codicil;

We watch as seasons come and go
But hard times always stay, we know
A hundred years long you've been gone
Your song, Joe Hill, still carries on