ss nutritious, stout new shoes will go less often on the
children's feet, and disease and death will be more imminent in a cheaper
house and neighborhood.

Thus the generous laborer, giving more of a day's work for less return,
(measured in terms of food and shelter), threatens the life of his less
generous brother laborer, and at the best, if he does not destroy that
life, he diminishes it. Whereupon the less generous laborer looks upon
him as an enemy, and, as men are inclined to do in a tooth-and-nail
society, he tries to kill the man who is trying to kill him.

When a striker kills with a brick the man who has taken his place, he has
no sense of wrong-doing. In the deepest holds of his being, though he
does not reason the impulse, he has an ethical sanction. He feels dimly
that he has justification, just as the home-defending Boer felt, though
more sharply, with each bullet he fired at the invading English. Behind
every brick thrown by a striker is the selfish will "to live" of himself,
and the slightly altruistic will "to live" of his family. The family
group came into the world before the State group, and society, being
still on the primitive basis of tooth and nail, the will "to live" of the
State is not so compelling to the striker as is the will "to live" of his
family and himself.

In addition to the use of bricks, clubs, and bullets, the selfish laborer
finds it necessary to express his feelings in speech. Just as the
peaceful country-dweller calls the sea-rover a "pirate," and the stout
burgher calls the man who breaks into his strong-box a "robber," so the
selfish laborer applies the opprobrious epithet a "scab" to the laborer
who takes from him food and shelter by being more generous in the
disposal of his labor power. The sentimental connotation of "scab" is as
terrific as that of "traitor" or "Judas," and a sentimental definition
would be as deep and varied as the human heart. It is far easier to
arrive at what may be called a technical definition, worded in commercial
terms, as, for instance, that _a scab is one who gives more value for the
same price than another_.

The laborer who gives more time or strength or skill for the same wage
than another, or equal time or strength or skill for a less wage, is a
scab. This generousness on his part is hurtful to his fellow-laborers,
for it compels them to an equal generousness which is not to their
liking, and which gives them less of food and shel