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War of the Classes-Part8_JACK LONDON(1876-1916)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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the United States are united, said, "NO CANNON WOULD. . . BE FIRED



ON EITHER HEMISPHERE BUT BY PERMISSION OF THE ENGLISH RACE." It

would seem that England, fronted by the hostile Continental Union



and flanked by the great American scab, has nothing left but to join

with the scab and play the historic labor role of armed Pinkerton.



Granting the words of Cecil Rhodes, the United States would be

enabled to scab without let or hindrance on Europe, while England,



as professional strike-breaker and policeman, destroyed the unions

and kept order.



All this may appear fantastic and erroneous, but there is in it a

soul of truth vastly more significant than it may seem.



Civilization may be expressed today in terms of trade-unionism.

Individual struggles have largely passed away, but group-struggles



increase prodigiously. And the things for which the groups struggle

are the same as of old. Shorn of all subtleties and complexities,



the chief struggle of men, and of groups of men, is for food and

shelter. And, as of old they struggled with tooth and nail, so



today they struggle with teeth and nails elongated into armies and

navies, machines, and economic advantages.



Under the definition that a scab is ONE WHO GIVES MORE VALUE FOR THE

SAME PRICE THAN ANOTHER, it would seem that society can be generally



divided into the two classes of the scabs and the non-scabs. But on

closer investigation, however, it will be seen that the non-scab is



a vanishing quantity. In the social jungle, everybody is preying

upon everybody else. As in the case of Mr. Rockefeller, he who was



a scab yesterday is a non-scab today, and tomorrow may be a scab

again.



The woman stenographer or book-keeper who receives forty dollars per

month where a man was receiving seventy-five is a scab. So is the



woman who does a man's work at a weaving-machine, and the child who

goes into the mill or factory. And the father, who is scabbed out



of work by the wives and children of other men, sends his own wife

and children to scab in order to save himself.



When a publisher offers an author better royalties than other

publishers have been paying him, he is scabbing on those other



publishers. The reporter on a newspaper, who feels he should be

receiving a larger salary for his work, says so, and is shown the



door, is replaced by a reporter who is a scab; whereupon, when the

belly-need presses, the displaced reporter goes to another paper and



scabs himself. The minister who hardens his heart to a call, and

waits for a certain congregation to offer him say $500 a year more,



often finds himself scabbed upon by another and more impecunious

minister; and the next time it is HIS turn to scab while a brother



minister is hardening his heart to a call. The scab is everywhere.

The professional strike-breakers, 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




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