WE WON'T BUILD NO MORE RAILROADS FOR OVERALLS AND SNUFF (FRAGMENT) (JOE HILL) (c. 1912)
Tune: "Wearing of the Green" (trad.)

PLAY MIDI FILE (19 KB) IN BACKGROUND

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Louis Moreau, a Wobbly "camp delegate" who helped organize the construction workers [of the Canadian Northern Railroad Company in British Columbia, 1912]... remembers that Joe Hill... appeared in the strikers' camp in Yale, British Columbia.... Moreau remembers seeing Joe Hill often in the office of the Yale strike secretary writing songs. "Where The River Fraser Flows" was written during the first few days Hill was in the camp....

The remaining song Moreau remembers is "We Won't Build No More Railroads for Overalls and Snuff" and is, like "Martin Welch and Stuart," sung to the tune of "Wearing of the Green."

Gibbs M. Smith, Labor Martyr Joe Hill, New York, NY, 1969, pp. 24-26.

Lyrics (one stanza) as remembered by Moreau, reprinted ibid.

We have got to stick together, boys,
And fight with all our might.
It's a case of no surrender
We have got to win this fight.
From these gunnysack contractors,
We will take no more bluff;
And we won't build no more railroads
For our overalls and snuff.
For our overalls and snuff, for our overalls and snuff,
We won't build no more railroads
For our overalls and snuff.

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