akers, who as a class
receive large wages, will scab on one another, while scab unions are even
formed to prevent scabbing upon scabs.

There are non-scabs, but they are usually born so, and are protected by
the whole might of society in the possession of their food and shelter.
King Edward is such a type, as are all individuals who receive hereditary
food-and-shelter privileges,--such as the present Duke of Bedford, for
instance, who yearly receives $75,000 from the good people of London
because some former king gave some former ancestor of his the market
privileges of Covent Garden. The irresponsible rich are likewise
non-scabs,--and by them is meant that coupon-clipping class which hires
its managers and brains to invest the money usually left it by its
ancestors.

Outside these lucky creatures, all the rest, at one time or another in
their lives, are scabs, at one time or another are engaged in giving more
for a certain price than any one else. The meek professor in some
endowed institution, by his meek suppression of his convictions, is
giving more for his salary than gave the other and more outspoken
professor whose chair he occupies. And when a political party dangles a
full dinner-pail in the eyes of the toiling masses, it is offering more
for a vote than the dubious dollar of the opposing party. Even a
money-lender is not above taking a slightly lower rate of interest and
saying nothing about it.

Such is the tangle of conflicting interests in a tooth-and-nail society
that people cannot avoid being scabs, are often made so against their
desires, and are often unconsciously made so. When several trades in a
certain locality demand and receive an advance in wages, they are
unwittingly making scabs of their fellow-laborers in that district who
have received no advance in wages. In San Francisco the barbers,
laundry-workers, and milk-wagon drivers received such an advance in
wages. Their employers promptly added the amount of this advance to the
selling price of their wares. The price of shaves, of washing, and of
milk went up. This reduced the purchasing power of the unorganized
laborers, and, in point of fact, reduced their wages and made them
greater scabs.

Because the British laborer is disinclined to scab,--that is, because he
restricts his output in order to give less for the wage he receives,--it
is to a certain extent made possible for the American capitalist, who
receives a less restricted o