way of labor
legislation. Without a quiver, a member of the capitalist group will run
tens of thousands of pitiful child-laborers through his life-destroying
cotton factories, and weep maudlin and constitutional tears over one scab
hit in the back with a brick. He will drive a "compulsory" free contract
with an unorganized laborer on the basis of a starvation wage, saying,
"Take it or leave it," knowing that to leave it means to die of hunger,
and in the next breath, when the organizer entices that laborer into a
union, will storm patriotically about the inalienable right of all men to
work. In short, the chief moral concern of either side is with the
morals of the other side. They are not in the business for their moral
welfare, but to achieve the enviable position of the non-scab who gets
more than he gives.

But there is more to the question than has yet been discussed. The labor
scab is no more detestable to his brother laborers than is the capitalist
scab to his brother capitalists. A capitalist may get most for least in
dealing with his laborers, and in so far be a non-scab; but at the same
time, in his dealings with his fellow-capitalists, he may give most for
least and be the very worst kind of scab. The most heinous crime an
employer of labor can commit is to scab on his fellow-employers of labor.
Just as the individual laborers have organized into groups to protect
themselves from the peril of the scab laborer, so have the employers
organized into groups to protect themselves from the peril of the scab
employer. The employers' federations, associations, and trusts are
nothing more nor less than unions. They are organized to destroy
scabbing amongst themselves and to encourage scabbing amongst others.
For this reason they pool interests, determine prices, and present an
unbroken and aggressive front to the labor group.

As has been said before, nobody likes to play the compulsorily generous
role of scab. It is a bad business proposition on the face of it. And
it is patent that there would be no capitalist scabs if there were not
more capital than there is work for capital to do. When there are enough
factories in existence to supply, with occasional stoppages, a certain
commodity, the building of new factories by a rival concern, for the
production of that commodity, is plain advertisement that that capital is
out of a job. The first act of this new aggregation of capital will be
to cut prices, t