Posted by Dan Smith on June 23, 19101 at 07:46:12:

In Reply to: Help finding " A Scab" posted by Larry on June 23, 19101 at 06:32:58:

: I once read a short piece on the definition of a scab. It speaks of a corkscrew sole and something else about Judas. Please let me know where I might find this again.

You are probably thinking of the following page, widely attributed to Jack London:

"After God had finished a rattlesnake, the toad, and the vampire, He had some awful substance left with which He made a scab. A scab is a two-legged animal with a corkscrew soul, a water brain, a combination backbone of jelly and glue. Where others have hearts, he carries a tumor of rotten principles. When a scab starts coming down the street, men turn their backs, angels weep in Heaven and the Devil shuts the gates of Hell to keep him out. No man has a right to scab so long as there is a pool to drown his carc in or a rope long enough to hang his body with. Judas was a gentleman compared with a scab. For betraying his Master, he had the character to hang himself. A scab has not. Esau sold his birthright for a mess of pottage. Judas sold his Savior for thirty pieces of silver. Benedict Arnold sold his country for a promise of a commission in the British Army. The scab sells his birthright, his country, his wife, his children, and his fellow man for an unfulfilled promise from his employer. Esau was a traitor to himself, Judas was a traitor to God, Benedict Arnold was a traitor to his own country; a scab is a traitor to his God, to his country, to his family, and to his cl"

It is probably not by Jack London; a number of us have tried to find it in his work, unsuccessfully. It definitely does NOT appear in "The Scab," one of his essays in his book _War of the Cles_.

This page ( http://www.imir.iupui.edu/labor/sites.asp?dt58 ) sources it as:

Published in The Bridgeman, official organ of the Structural Iron Workers, which

credits the Elevator Constructor, official journal of the International Union of

Elevator Constructors, which credits the Oregon Labor Press. 1926.

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