HAT IS A Madden Library No. 1 Published Occasionally and Entered at the Postotiice, Chicaso, as Third-Class Matter Two Cents a Copy , 15c a Dozen, $1 per Hundred Postpaid • To stockholders 50c a Hundred Postpaid ► PUBLISHED BY ARLES H. KERR & COMPANY (Coo^r^ve) 56 Fifth Avenue, Chicago. •rctt/d WHAT IS A “SCAB?” No word in the English language is held in more abhorrence than the word “scab.” No other cry will so quickly rouse all the * fierce passions of a worker. No other name : carries so deep disgrace. Why is this? 2 What has the man to whom it is applied r done that renders him a creature of such contempt? “Only taken a chance to work,” says the average newspaper. “Acting like a free man,” says the capi- talist apologist. Judge, police and public f press rush to defend him. Ministers of the gospel justify him. All the enginery by W which “public opinion” is ordinarily made, declares that he is an honorable man. Nevertheless the trade-unionist, who is . usually all too willing to let these people make up his mind for him in other things, persists that of all the creatures that cum- - ber this earth the scab is the most con- temptible, the most despicable, the most to 4 WHAT IS A “SCAB?” be hunted out. Cross-questioned he will admit in theory that the scab has a right to hunt for a job, but the next time he sees the scab trying to exercise that privilege he fires a brick at him. And he is more nearly right in the last than the first in- stance. For the scab is truly the most damnable object our present civilization has produced. But while down in the depths of his mind the laborer who is worthy of the name, recognizes this fact, it would puzzle him to give a “reason for the faith that is in him.” Let us look at it this way. Society is to- day divided into two great classes, between whom there is and must continue to be, while capitalism shall last, eternal and bit- ter war. The one class who own and con- trol all the means of life, the government, press and platform, are compelled by com- petition to seek continuously to reduce the other class to the point of mere existence. There is no room for philanthropy in busi- ness. The capitalist who buys his raw ma- terial, his machinery and his labor power the cheapest can alone survive. The laboring class, who perform the WHAT IS A “SCAB?” 5 work of the world, must sell themselves to the ruling class. They cannot produce in- dependent of the owners of the machines, mines, and factories, because under com- petition only the cheapest producer can exist and cheap production demands the best, most expensive and complicated ma- chines. They are compelled, because of the fact that social progress and private prop- erty in improved machines is making vast numbers of them unnecessary in the pro- cess of production, to fight among them- selves for any opportunity to live. If they are to rise an atom above the slaves' por- tion, they must unite and fight side by side against the class of exploiters. Every man, therefore, who is not born into the class of capitalists is born into the army of wage-workers. He is forced from the day of his birth to become a part of a mighty army arrayed in this bitter, never ending, CLASS STRUGGLE. He does not enlist as a volunteer. He does not even have the chance of the lottery drawing to escape the draft. He is enrolled by the very fact of birth. His entrance into the world without property, carries with it the 6 WHAT IS A “SCAB?” articles of enrollment among the class of wage-slaves. Here then is war into which the com- batants are drafted by the inevitable law of birth. The gage of battle is life and death to the workers, their wives, and their chil- dren. But in this battle one straggler can ruin the cause. All must stand together or the battle is lost, for wages are fixed by what the weakest can be forced to take, not by what the strongest may demand. A de- sertion from this army then is the most deadly of treason. It is as if every man had the key to the fortress within which all were fighting. If then death is recognized as the proper penalty for the traitor in every army the world has ever known, what shall we say of the penalty due him who plays the trai- tor to the army of industry? In any ordi- nary soldiery, the private can carry little assistance to the enemy. He has generally entered the army of his own free will. He never has such tremendous interests at stake as in the industrial struggle. On the contrary he is generally fighting some quar- rel of his economic masters and enemies. WHAT IS A “SCAB?” 7 the decision of which is of no consequence whatever to him or his class. Does it not now become plain why the scab is, of all the traitors the world has ever known, the most damnable? He betrays an army whose members are his fellow workers and whose cause is his own. He betrays men and women and babes to a lingering death in city slums and factory dens. He curses unborn generations with the slave’s portion. He damns a race to continued bondage and fastens fetters upon babes yet unborn. Yes, the trade-unionist is right who vents upon the scab the fiercest punishment with- in his power. And yet stop a moment. Who is there that has not seen the strong- est and sturdiest of trade-unionists forced to act the part of the character he loathed with every fiber of his body ? Why is this ? Let us look a little closer into this strug- gle. It is a guerrilla fight. At times all the forces of capitalism are concentrated upon single divisions of the workers. Again the ranks of labor are scattered by some act of social advance. A new machine destroys an entire trade. A change in production 8 WHAT IS A “SCAB?” causes an industry to disappear. Then it Is that men find themselves cut loose from the old ties that have bound them. Their union and the trade it represents are alike a thing of the past. Wife and babes are clamoring for food. It is easy to say that a man had better die than scab. Many a man has said this and meant it too. But how about the little ones ? When they are starving, that is another matter. And so another man finds himself between these two horrible alternatives. Shall he betray his class or his family? And who shall judge him if the cries of those who are nearest to him sound louder than the ap- peals of class interests and trade loyalty? Look again at this CLASS STURG- GLE. What is there in it that forces these horrible choices upon men? Is there no place where all can unite? Is there no bat- tle ground where the fight can be waged without offering such frightful temptations to treason? If all the workers have a common inter- est against the possessing enemy, why is there not some point where that interest can be expressed? At the ballot box the it WHAT IS A “SCAB?” 9 line can be drawn clear and distinct. Here the fight can be fought to a finish, and HERE IS THE ONLY PLACE WHERE COMPLETE VICTORY IS POSSIBLE. Here there is no excuse for deserters. No alternative of starvation confronts them. It is the strategic point where desertion is the most dangerous and treachery the most despicable. It is the place where the most telling blows can be struck, the place where the worst treason can be perpetrated. Here alone can a victory worthy of the name be achieved for labor. But a single battle need be won upon the political field to end the whole long, horrible war. A vic- tory for labor at the polls would mean that the workers would then take possession col- lectively of the things necessary to produce wealth. All would then be part owners of capital. None could live by shutting others away from the sources of life. There are only two ways in which the struggle between capital and labor can end. Either capitalists must own laborers or la- borers must own capital. The first was chattel slavery, the last vestiges of which were wiped out in the bloody torrent of the 10 WHAT IS A “SCAB?” Civil War. The second is the co-operative commonwealth, the next stage of social evolution, when capital, now grown too complex to be owned individually, will be owned by all laborers collectively. Capitalists have long recognized the much greater importance of the political struggle, and spend infinitely more energy in securing traitors here than what they will expend at the work-shop. But strange as it may seem, the laborers have not yet come to recognize the treachery of the “po- litical scab.” A man may still vote for sla- very and be accepted with honors among union men. But if he attempts to accept that slavery for which he has voted, at terms against which his fellow slaves are in revolt, he is at once the target for all possible man- ner of attacks. Is it not about time that union laborers got over this inconsistency? Is it not al- most time that the greater crime is seen as well as the less ? When laborers once come to realize that by ceasing to play the trai- tor at the ballot box they can abolish all scabs in the work-shop, then there will be some consistency in their attacks upon the WHAT IS A “SCAB?” 11 poor devil who sells out his fellow slaves for a chance to eat and live. But when they do come to their senses in this regard they will find no scabs to attack anywhere. A. M. SIMONS. The International Socialist Review. This magazine is admitted to be the best expo- nent of Socialism in the English language, and excelled by few, if any, of those printed in other languages. Practically all the prominent Socialist writers of the world are numbered among its con- tributors. It has no competitor in America as an educator in the Socialist philosophy and a scien- tific exponent of Socialist thought. Here are a few of the writers whose articles have appeared in recent numbers : H. M. Hynd- man, C. S. Harrow, Ernest Crosby, E. V. Debs, Keir Hardie, Charles H. Vail, Emile Vandervelde, Leonard D. Abbott, Herman Whittaker, W. T. Brown, J. Stitt Wilson, “ Mother” Jones, Paul Lafargue. Special efforts are made to gather reliable infor- mation on problems of American social life and to discuss the facts of American history and current events in the light of Socialist philosophy. At the same time care is taken to make each number interesting and to include in it much matter which meets the wants of the popular reader. Another main feature of the Review is the news and information which it gives of the Socialist THE SOCIALIST PARTY. 1 3 , movement of other countries. Articles are pub- lished nearly every month by the leading Socialist writers and workers of other lands, telling of the marvelous progress of the Socialist movement everywhere. The International. Socialist Review is thus a continuous, accurate and complete history of the Socialist movement of the world by those best able to write it. The Foreign Department, edited by Prof. E. Untermann, an accomplished linguist, gives a connected, condensed history of the international Socialist movement. All leading Socialist publica- tions, including several dailies, are received, while* a European clipping bureau sends us each month all articles dealing with Socialism appearing in any of the journals of Europe. In this field the Inter- national Socialist Review is without a rival, and many readers declare this department alone to be worth many times the subscription price. Max. S. Hayes, one of the best known writers on Trades Unionism and Socialism in America* edits a department on “ The World of Labor/’ that gives each month an interesting summary of the economic development and trades-union movement of the world. Current books and periodicals are reviewed each month in he light of Socialist philosophy. 14 THE SOCIALIST PARTY. The regular editorial department contains each month discussions of current topics. The events in the field of world politics are reviewed from the point of view of the only philosophy that has heen broad enough to grasp and explain interna- tional relations in their sociological aspect. No one who wishes to understand Socialism for any purpose whatever can afford to be without The International Socialist Review. If you are not a Socialist it is the one periodical that will tell you what Socialism is and what Socialists are doing. If you are a Socialist it is the one publica- tion that will fit you to make other people under- stand and accept Socialism. Send one dollar for a year’s subscription or ten cents for a single copy to Charles H. Kerr & Co., publishers, 56 Fifth avenue, Chicago. COLLECTIVISM And Industrial Evolution By EMILE VANDERVELDE. Emile Vandervelde, the Belgian economist, has brought together so many facts, figures and theories in his work on “ Collectivism and Industrial Evolution,” that one won- ders at the intellectual grasp of the man. Vandervelde is a young man and a brilliant member of the Belgian Chamber of Deputies, active in carrying out the policy of the Socialist Party, which is making the history of Bel- gium to-day. In this recent publication the author considers the present conditions of the great movement toward con- centration of capital, and then discusses the problem of the socialization of property, its advantages and the objections to it. Vandervelde takes up in turn the advantages of a col- lectivist system and then the objections, which he meets by facts rather than by theoretical argument, showing either the inconsistency of current conceptions or disprowl ing the assertions of those who indorse the ideals but' declare their practice out of the question, and in predicting an inevitable change, he says: “The immediate reforms which can be and which ought to be resized to increase the advantages and decrease the disadvantages of the operation of public services are evidently only the key and the starting point to much more complete transforma- tions in the present organization of the State. Peace- fully or through revolution by a series of insensible modi- fications, or by more or less sudden eliminations, the authoritative functions of the State will go on decreasing while its economic functions will take on an importance ever greater and greater.” Charles H. Kerr, the publisher, has done the transla- tion of the work and thus made it possible for American students of social and political economy to follow the investigations and conclusions of the Belgian economist, who ranks among the leading economic thinkers in Europe . — Chicago Tribune. Cloth, 50 cents; paper, 25 cents, postpaid. CHARLES H. KERR 4 CO., Publishers, 56 Fifth Ave., Chicago. The American Farmer, In no other country is the “ farmer question ” of such paramount importance as in America and nowhere else are the farmers so powerful industrially and politically; nowhere else are they so intelligent, alert and full of initiative. The cooperation of the farmers is absolutely essential to the success of Socialism. The success of Socialism is the only hope of the farmer. Bearing these facts in view, A. M. 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V. — The Farmer and the Industrial Wage* Worker. Book III. — The Coming Change. Chap. I. — The Line of Future Evolution. Chap. II. — The Socialist Movement. Chap. III. — Socialism and the Farmer. Chap. IV. — Steps Toward Realization. Cloth, 50 cents, postpaid. EARLES H. KERR 4 CO., Publishers, 56 Fifth Ave., Chicago.