Chapter III: Part 3

This state of affairs proves that the work of 1776 and 1787 was limited practically to one phase of democracy, namely, the political. Washington and Jefferson lived in a day when political equality was the passionate ideal. This they and their associates achieved in ample measure. They gave the waiter or the barber or the bootblack an equal voice in government with themselves.

Let those Americans who think that the abolition of tipping would be too radical a step toward social democracy consider how repulsive the attitude of Washington and Jefferson was to the aristocratic thought of their day. No matter what arguments the aristocrats presented against political democracy, their real objection was just this granting of voting equality to persons whom they rated as socially submerged.

But having founded our government upon political democracy, the straight line of development is toward social and industrial democracy, in order to complete the ideal entertained by Washington and Jefferson. That both of these idealists tipped servants and that Washington owned slaves is indisputable, but they left records that prove that they merely "suffered it to be so now." Washington clearly foresaw the trouble in which slavery would involve his country, and would have freed his slaves if he could have done so without precipitating what to him appeared a greater evil in view of all the circumstances of his day.

The Revolutionary period did all that can be asked of one generation when political equality was established. It remains for our generation to finish the work of democracy by establishing social and industrial democracy. The prospect of a street cleaner or your valet being your social and industrial equal may seem either utopian or undesirable, but it must be remembered, as stated, that two centuries ago the thought of granting an equal vote to such persons was precisely as distasteful to the aristocratic mind.

EQUALITY AND UNIFORMITY

Much loose thinking along these lines would be obviated if every one could learn clearly the distinction between "equality" and "uniformity." It is the thought of uniformity that makes most persons belligerent toward democratic impulses in industry or society. They dislike the idea of a dead level of compulsory uniformity. A bootblack and a banker are "equal" in the right to vote, but they are not "uniform" in function or culture. Social democracy will abolish an aristocratic custom like tipping so that every citizen will stand upon an equality of self-respect. It will delete the adjective "menial" from any form of service so that a garbage collector will stand in as honorable a relation to society as a lawyer. But social democracy will not and cannot make naturally uncongenial minds live in a relation of compulsory fellowship.

Thus in the United States we have only one-third of a democracy. The other two-thirds--social and industrial democracy--must be attained before we can consider our government as ideal. The tipping custom stands squarely in the path of this attainment. The slavery system is not worse in competition with free labor than is the tipping system of compensation. In neither system are values determined by merit or production.

In the list of the 5,000,000 Americans with itching palms were national or city government employees like mail carriers, garbage collectors and policemen. In the larger cities a system of giving gratuities to these and other government employees has grown up that emphasizes the distance we have to travel to attain true democracy.

Any one of these three classes of government employees is paid well for the service he renders. Yet there are mail carriers who will lose a courteous, friendly bearing toward those who fail to "remember" them at Christmas, or at more frequent intervals, or who will actually curtail the service they are paid to render.

MISGUIDED GENEROSITY

There seems to be something about the continual contact of a person serving and a person served that makes the one think the other owes him something on the side. A mail carrier will bring your mail once, twice or several times a day for a period and then enters the feeling that he is entitled to some substantial token of appreciation of his faithful, cheerful service, other than the compensation paid by the government. Often the person being served feels a generous appreciation of good service and bestows a token of it without the person serving having expected or wanted it. The tipping custom is not wholly the outgrowth of greed. It is frequently misguided generosity. Where the error creeps in is in expressing appreciation in terms of money. Self-respect is satisfied with verbal appreciation.

As an employer the government, of all employers, should set an example of true democracy, should practice sound economics and ethics in the relations it permits between its employees and the public. There is no justification from any viewpoint for giving gratuities to public servants. If garbage collectors render slipshod service to citizens who fail to tip them--and they do this regularly--a complaint should bring immediate relief. It does not now because the higher officials are under the same illusion about tipping that envelopes the subordinates.

An inspector of street cleaning in Philadelphia was investigating a complaint against a street sweeper in a residence district. The sweeper told him that he felt the complaint must be ill-founded and that the people in the neighborhood must be satisfied with his sweeping, because he had recently received from residents in one block twenty-one dollars in Christmas tips.

How many public servants in your own neighborhood did you tip last Christmas?

It should not be assumed that the indictment here read is against all mail carriers or garbage collectors, or policemen. With tipping, as with many other abuses "there are more than seven thousand who have not bowed the knee to Baal."

THE GOLDEN RULE

At Christmas the spirit of generosity finds many curious and misdirected expressions. Policemen on certain traffic corners are remembered by many gifts of money and cigars from persons who have no other contact with them than a nod from a limousine as they pass the corner daily. Why should the feeling of appreciation run to thought of money as a token of expression? It is because the persons who give entertain the idea that the policeman is in a stratum of society under them and that, being an underling, his self-respect will not be hurt by offering money. The same persons would not think of offering a friend money and would be insulted if any one offered them money. The golden rule is a dead letter to them.

Some clubs have handled the tipping custom by forbidding gratuities during the year and then allowing the members to contribute to a fund to be divided among the servitors at Christmas. This is a great improvement over the tipping custom but it is still short of the democratic ideal. A servant who is adequately paid for his work throughout the year has no more call upon the generosity of patrons at Christmas than a clerk in a shoe store from whom you purchase shoes four or six times a year.

GOVERNMENT HOTELS

The Government operates hotels in the Canal Zone, and tipping is permitted. Guests who fail to tip are treated by the servitors precisely like they are treated in private hotels, but the writer, who boarded three months in one of the Government hotels in the Canal Zone, during which time he did not tip the waiter, found that a complaint to the manager about poor service would result in the prompt discipline of the offending servitor. This is more than can be said of many privately operated hotels.

In this connection, it is noteworthy that the only whisper of graft in the building of the $400,000,000 canal was the charge made against the purchasing agent of the Commissary that he split commissions with the houses from which he purchased supplies. Splitting commissions is the itching palm in commerce.

It would seem that before passing laws to regulate tipping among citizens, the Government, state and national, should be able to come into court with clean hands. Until the Government rids its service of the spirit of graft the law-makers are beating around the bush.

XV

LAWS AGAINST TIPPING

Efforts to abolish or regulate the custom of tipping have been made in the Legislatures of practically all of the States. Often after passing legislative barriers the laws have fallen before Executive vetoes, so that scarcely half a dozen States now have statutes on the subject.

The State of Washington adopted a law prohibiting tipping, but it was so generally ignored that the Legislature of 1913 repealed it. This shows that, at first blush, a social custom of long standing has a stronger influence upon the people than a conscientious conviction registered in a new law.

Yet, as abortive as the legal campaign against tipping has been thus far, the constant recurrence of the issue in the Legislatures, and the voluntary attempts at regulation being made by hotels and other public service enterprises, show that the propaganda is making headway and that there are great moral resources in the people ready to be called into action.

CUSTOM ABOVE LAW

The opposition to tipping is unorganized, undisciplined and inarticulate, while the beneficiaries of the custom, with a munificent tribute to nerve activity, are upon a highly efficient basis of operation. Even with a law at his back to stiffen his moral resolution, the average citizen feels more afraid of violating the custom than of violating the law. It is because of the intangible nature of the custom from his viewpoint. A waiter can do so many things to annoy a non-tipping patron that the patron cannot present in the form of a concrete complaint, yet which are quite real and irritating. The upshot is that the patron swallows his conscientious objection to the custom and pays the tribute for fair service.

He knows that a failure to tip means a struggle three times a day in the dining room for his rights and the same struggle at every point of contact with the itching palm. Rather than have his efficiency interfered with by the mental disturbance such rows create, he pays the price. But this type of man will make excellent material in the regular ranks even if he lacks the initiative of a lone hand against big odds. When the movement against tipping reaches the stage where a spokesman and leader is produced, all the latent opposition will spring into effective cooeperation.

THE IOWA LAW

Some of the laws are aimed exclusively at the takers of tips and others at the givers as well. The Iowa law is in the first class, as follows:

Sec. 5028-u. Accepting or Soliciting Gratuity or Tip. Every
employee of any hotel, restaurant, barber shop, or other public
place, and every employee of any person, firm partnership, or
corporation, or of any public service corporation engaged in the
transportation of passengers in this state, who shall accept or
solicit any gratuity, tip or other thing of value or of valuable
consideration, from any guest or patron, shall be guilty of a
misdemeanor, and upon conviction thereof shall be fined not less
than five dollars, or more than twenty-five dollars, or be
imprisoned in the county jail for a period not exceeding thirty
days.

This law makes the mere acceptance of a tip illegal and it also heads off any attempt to circumvent the law on a technicality by prohibiting the acceptance of "other thing of value or of valuable consideration."

THE WISCONSIN BILL

The Wisconsin bill, which the Governor vetoed on the ground that it curtailed "personal liberty" was intended to penalize the giving of the tip, and was worded as follows:

Sec. 45751. Every employee of any hotel, restaurant or public
place and every employee of any person, firm or of any public
service corporation engaged in the transportation of passengers
or the furnishing of food, lodging and other accommodations to
the public in this state who shall receive or solicit any
gratuity or tip from any guest or patron shall be guilty of a
misdemeanor. Every person who shall give or offer any gratuity
or tip to any person or employee prohibited from receiving or
soliciting the same by the provisions of this section shall also
be guilty of a misdemeanor.

"Every hotel, restaurant, firm and public service corporation
engaged in the transportation of passengers or in furnishing
food or lodging or other accommodations to the public shall keep
a copy of this law posted in a conspicuous place in such hotel
and restaurant and in the dining or sleeping cars of any firm
or public service corporation mentioned in this section. Any
persons violating any of the provisions of this section shall be
guilty of a misdemeanor and upon conviction shall be fined not
less than five dollars, nor more than twenty-five dollars, or by
imprisonment in the county jail not to exceed thirty days."

The demand for this bill was so strong among the members of the Legislature that it almost was passed over the Governor's veto. The provision that a copy of the law must be posted in the places where the public comes into contact with the itching palm is a most essential one. It reassures patrons to see it and gives them a present stimulus for standing upon their right to good service for one payment.

THE COURTS AND TIPPING

The courts, in declaring such laws unconstitutional have proceeded upon the common law right of one citizen to give away his goods or property in the form of money to any other citizen. A tip, the judges say, represents a gift within the meaning of this common law right. But the instances of such altruism are exceedingly rare.

Even the judges who so decide know that the tips they give are not bona fide gifts out of the goodness of a generous heart. Tips are given, by the devotees of the custom, from a sense of obligation. They pretend to feel that the servitor actually has rendered a service for which the tip is payment. The proof of this is found in the fact that such persons never go about giving money gifts indiscriminately. Their gifts are exclusively to the employees of public service enterprises, showing that no thought of charity or generosity enters their minds.

The courts some day will come to the conclusion that a gift of money to any serving person is a special relation that is subject to the police power of the State. The special circumstances surrounding the gift will be taken into consideration. Then it will be seen that the gift was made for something the patron did not receive; for something for which he is required to pay twice and that the motives of the gift were pride, or fear or a sense of obligation falsely aroused.

While the courts are so scrupulous in preserving the common law right to make gifts, they might give consideration to the equally indubitable right of a patron to receive full value for his money, and to receive such value for one payment.

It may be, that to write an anti-tipping law that will stand the test of judges educated in the old school of thought about gratuities, legislators will have to approach the subject from this viewpoint of preserving a patron's common law right to satisfactory service for one payment. For instance, a law specifically defining the right of a patron to have food served, or to use a hotel room or sleeping car facilities, in short to patronize any public service place, with only one charge, and that to be paid exclusively to the proprietor, might strike an effective blow at "the universal heart of Flunkyism."

The courts will assert that the foregoing right exists without a special statute, and it does. Still the average citizen does not think of instituting a suit against a hotel, or swearing out a warrant against the manager or an employee to enforce his common law right to service at one price. If there is a specific statute against tipping there is a more tangible inducement to stand up for one's rights and there is more likelihood that redress will be granted. The defense of tipping on the "personal liberty" plea, like the defense of the liquor business on the same plea, will grow feebler and feebler until judges cease to take the aristocratic viewpoint.

THE SOUTH CAROLINA LAW

The South Carolina law goes a step ahead of either the Iowa law or the Wisconsin bill in the provision that the employer shall not permit the custom of tipping, in addition to provisions prohibiting the giving or receiving of tips by patrons or employees. The law follows:

"It shall be unlawful in this State for any hotel, restaurant,
cafe, dining car company, railroad companies, sleeping car
company or barber shop to knowingly allow any person in its
employ to receive any gratuity commonly known as a tip, from any
patron or passenger, and it shall be unlawful for any patron of
any hotel, restaurant, cafe, dining car or for any passenger on
any railroad train or sleeping car to give any employee any such
gratuity and it shall be unlawful for any employee of any hotel,
restaurant, cafe, dining car, railroad company, sleeping car
company or barber shop to receive any such gratuity.

"By 'gratuity' or 'tip' as used in this Act, is to mean any
extra compensation of any kind, which any hotel, restaurant,
cafe, dining car, railroad company, sleeping car company or
barber shop manager, officer or any agent thereof in charge of
the same, allows to be given to any employee and is not a part
of the regular charge of the hotel, restaurant, cafe, dining
car, railroad company, sleeping car company or barber shop, for
any part of service rendered, or a part of the service which by
contract it is under duty to render. No company or incorporation
shall evade this Act by adding to the regular charge, directly
or indirectly, anything intended for or to be used or to be
given away as a gratuity or tip to the employee. All charges
must be made by the company or proprietor in good faith as a
charge for the service it renders, inclusive of the service
which it furnishes through employees.

"Each hotel shall post a copy of this Act in each room and each
restaurant, cafe and barber shop shall post at least two copies
of this Act in two conspicuous places in their places of
business, and each railroad company shall post two copies of
this Act in their waiting rooms and passenger rooms at passenger
stations in cities of three thousand inhabitants or more, and
each sleeping car and dining car shall have posted therein at
least one copy of this Act.

"Any person or corporation failing to post as required shall be
fined not less than ten dollars for such failure and each day of
failure shall constitute a separate and distinct offense and any
person violating any of the other provisions of this Act shall
be subject to a fine of not less than ten dollars or more than
one hundred dollars, or be imprisoned for not exceeding thirty
days."

This South Carolina law was an evident effort to cover the custom of tipping in a manner that would permit of no evasions. It defines a "tip" and prohibits surreptitious gratuities and makes employer, employee and patron equally liable to prosecution. Yet, it falls short of an ideal law because its operations are limited to seven places frequented by the public and does not cover private places where the itching palm flourishes, such as apartment houses and boarding houses.

To stop tipping in hotels, restaurants, cafes, dining cars, railroad stations and cars, sleeping cars or barber shops will be a long stride in the right direction, but the need of stopping tipping to messenger boys, janitors and other employees of apartment houses, maids and waitresses in boarding houses, garbage collectors, mail carriers and policemen among government employees, trunk transfermen, guides, steamship employees and others too numerous to cite, is fully as urgent.

THE IDEAL LAW

The ideal act will be evolved through these repeated approximations and through experience. In a broad outline it must include (1) a clear definition of a tip, (2) a statement of a patron's right to service for one payment exclusively to the proprietor, (3) a prohibition against subterfuges in the charges whereby patrons may give tips, (4) the wages paid by an employer to be considered as presumptive evidence of his attitude toward tipping, (5) a requirement that employers shall give patrons a definite understanding of the service to which they are entitled, (6) any actual extra service to be compensated for direct to employer after being appraised and charged for by the employer, (7) the giving of money or gifts to employees to be taken out of the class of "charity" and "personal liberty," (8) the employer, the employee and the patron to be subject to the same penalty for violating the law and the conviction of any one of the three to be followed automatically by the conviction of the other two for the same offense, (9) the law to be applicable to any employer and any employee in any relation with the public or with individuals, in private home or public place, (10) a prohibition against operating any convenience for the public in which the rate of payment shall be left to the whim of the patron, such as cloak rooms, the tariffs to be displayed and exacted impartially of every patron if the employer assumes that patrons must pay extra for the service, (11) an adequate provision for acquainting patrons with the law through posting it or otherwise directing their attention to it, (12) the granting of licenses to operate public service places only upon condition that gratuities are not to be permitted, directly or indirectly, (13) the granting to a patron who has been denied fair service of redress in addition to the punishment of the guilty employee and employer, (14) an adequate scale of penalties, fine or imprisonment for any violation of any part of the law.

It is not presumed that if a law were drawn to embody the foregoing provisions that the tipping custom would be strangled. Only actual tests in the courts will produce the ultimate intent. Of course, if employers and employees and patrons were actuated by a desire to maintain their relations upon a basis of self-respect so circumstantial a law would be unnecessary, but many of them are not thus actuated and a minute restraint will be imperative at the outset and until a normal ideal of democracy is cultivated.

THE NEBRASKA ACT

The bill introduced in the 1915 session of the Nebraska Legislature does not penalize the patron for giving gratuities and seems to be aimed at the practice of "split commissions" as well as at tipping. It has a maximum fine of one hundred dollars, or imprisonment of sixty days and the employers only are specified for conviction. The act follows:

"No employee or servant shall accept, obtain or agree to accept,
or attempt to obtain, from any person, for himself or for any
other person, any gift, gratuity or consideration as an
inducement to perform or as a reward for having performed any
duty or service for which such employee or servant has been
employed or is to be paid by the employer or master, firm or
corporation of such employee or servant.

"No employer or master, firm or corporation shall permit or
allow any of his or their employees or servants to solicit or to
accept any gift, gratuity or consideration as an inducement to
perform or as a reward for having performed any duty or service
for which such employee or servant has been or is to be paid by
such employer or master, firm or corporation.

"Each and every employer or master, firm or corporation who
carries on business as the keeper of a hotel, inn, restaurant,
cafe, place for the sale of alcoholic beverages, barber shop or
place for polishing boots and shoes, or who operates a railroad
dining, buffet, sleeping or parlor car, shall post up or cause
to be posted up in at least two conspicuous places in the
premises in which such business is carried on, or in such car, a
notice that tipping, or the giving of any gift or gratuity to
any servant or employee, is forbidden under penalty of fine or
imprisonment.

"No employer or master, firm or corporation shall give or agree
to give or offer to any employee or servant any gift, gratuity
or consideration as an inducement to perform or as a reward for
having performed any duty or service for which such employer or
servant has been or is to be paid by the employer, master, firm
or corporation employing such servants.

"Each and every employer, master, firm or corporation who shall
violate any of the provisions herein made shall be deemed guilty
of a misdemeanor and upon conviction shall be liable in each and
every case to a fine of not less than ten dollars nor more than
one hundred dollars, or to imprisonment in the county jail of
the proper county not less than ten nor more than sixty days, or
to both such fine and imprisonment, at the discretion of the
court."

THE TENNESSEE LAW

The Tennessee law was adopted upon the especial solicitation of the traveling salesmen of the State. These men live constantly in touch with the itching palm and find the tribute not only burdensome to themselves but to their employers. The act is much like the South Carolina law, and a notable feature is Section 6:

"That it shall be the duty of the circuit judges and the courts
of like jurisdiction to especially call the attention of the
grand jury to the provisions of this act at each term of the
court."

The foregoing provision makes it certain that, even if patrons are timid about obeying the law and if employers and employees disregard it, the fight against the custom will go right on, just as does the fight against bootlegging after saloons have been banished from a city. The Tennessee law also has a more elaborate scale of fines, as the following section shows:

"Be it further enacted that any hotel, restaurant, cafe, barber
shop, dining car, railroad or sleeping car company, and the
manager, officer or agent of the same in charge, violating this
act or wilfully allowing the same to be violated in any way,
shall each be subject to a penalty of not less than $10 nor more
than $50 for each tip allowed to be given. If any person shall
give an employee any gratuity or tip each person shall be
subject to a fine of not more than $25 and not less than $5 for
each offense. If any of the above employees shall receive a
gratuity or tip he or she shall be subject to a fine of not more
than $25 nor less than $5 for each offense. Should any hotel,
restaurant, cafe, barber shop, dining car, railroad company or
sleeping car company fail, neglect or refuse to post notice of
this act as required herein, such hotel, restaurant, cafe,
barber shop, dining car, railroad or sleeping car company shall
be subject to a fine not to exceed $100 for each day it shall
fail."

Naturally if this law is enforced with any fidelity by the grand juries, not to mention such actions as may be instituted by the public, tipping in Tennessee in the specified public service place will become extinct, or assume a guise not covered by the law. But if tipping is restrained only in the seven places enumerated and allowed to be practiced unrestrained everywhere else, only a limited industrial democracy will be attained, and the part of the custom left alive will spread by its own insidious processes to the places preempted.

THE ILLINOIS COMPROMISE

When the public conscience is fully aroused to the need of stifling this custom, the legal mind will be able to draw up a law that will prevent tipping anywhere and under any circumstances. The Illinois law is a particular example of a half-way measure in that it seeks only to prohibit the practice of leasing tipping concessions to employees.

"That it shall be unlawful for the owner, proprietor, lessee,
superintendent, manager or agent in any hotel, restaurant,
eating house, barber shop, theatre, store building, office
building, factory, railroad, street railroad, fair ground,
baseball or football ground, hall used for public meetings or
entertainments, or any other building, office, or space which is
a place of public accommodation or public resort, to rent, lease
or permit to be used any part, space or portion thereof, for any
trade, calling or occupation, or for the exercise of any
privilege by any person, company, partnership or corporation for
the purpose of accepting, demanding or receiving, directly or
indirectly, from the customers, patrons or people who frequent
such places of public accommodation or public resort, gratuities
or donations, commonly called tips, in addition to the regular,
ordinary and published rate of charge for work performed,
materials furnished or services rendered, _provided_, that
nothing in this section contained shall be construed to prohibit
any employee or servant from accepting or receiving gratuities
or donations commonly called tips, if such gratuities or
donations are not accounted for, paid over, or delivered,
directly, or indirectly, in whole or in part, to any person,
company, partnership or corporation, but are retained by such
employee or servant, as and for his absolute and individual
property.

"Any lease, contract, agreement or understanding entered into in
violation of the provisions of section 1 of this act shall be
absolutely void.

"Any person, company, partnership or corporation or any officer
or agent thereof, violating the provisions of this act shall be
deemed guilty of a misdemeanor and upon conviction shall be
fined in any sum not exceeding ten thousand dollars for each and
every offense, and, in addition thereto such person, officer or
agent, in the discretion of the court, be sentenced to the
county jail not less than three months and not more than one
year."

LEGALIZED ROBBERY

This Illinois law is an instance of an American Commonwealth specifically and deliberately recognizing tipping as legal and right. It turns loose the tip-pirates upon the public with full governmental sanction, but stipulates that in their piracy they shall not organize into a trust, as they had done in Chicago and in all large cities.

The Illinois law can be commended to the extent that it seeks to break up the organized traffic in tips, but its recognition of tipping on an unorganized basis is equivalent to the action of some European governments in paying out of their treasuries tribute to the Barbary pirates for the privilege of sailing the high seas. Thomas Jefferson's democracy rebelled at this and he freed the whole world from the outrageous custom.

IN MASSACHUSETTS

Massachusetts has a law to prohibit the corrupt influencing of agents, employees or servants, but it is aimed specially at the practice of "splitting commissions" and does not operate to restrain tipping in the State. A salesman sometimes will offer to give a buyer a bonus or part of his commission if an order is placed, and this practice is causing the business world considerable thought, as employers realize that a buyer who will accept favors from salesmen will not exercise unbiased judgment. It is the itching palm a plane above tipping owing to the larger amount involved, and is akin to the graft of public officials. The law follows:

"Whoever corruptly gives, offers or promises to an agent,
employee or servant any gift or gratuity whatever, with intent
to influence his action in relation to his principal's,
employer's or master's business; or an agent, employee or
servant who corruptly requests or accepts a gift or gratuity or
a promise to make a gift or to do an act beneficial to himself
under an agreement or with an understanding that he shall act
in any particular manner in relation to his principal's,
employer's or master's business; or an agent, employee or
servant, who, being authorized to procure materials, supplies or
other articles either by purchase or contract for his principal,
employer or master, or to employ service or labor for his
principal, employer or master receives, directly or indirectly,
for himself or for another, a commission, discount or bonus from
the person who makes such sale or contract, or furnishes such
materials, supplies or other articles, or from a person who
renders such service or labor; and any person who gives or
offers such an agent, employee or servant such commission,
discount or bonus, shall be punished by a fine of not less than
ten dollars nor more than five hundred dollars, or by such fine
and by imprisonment for not more than one year."

Although the Arkansas and Mississippi laws against tipping are not mentioned, a comprehensive idea of the extent and nature of the opposition to the custom in the United States is presented in the review of the bills introduced in or enacted by the Legislatures of Iowa, Wisconsin, South Carolina, Nebraska, Tennessee, Illinois, and Massachusetts. All the other States have no laws against tipping. Considering the fact that no organization has been formed to agitate for this reform, these spontaneous State efforts are significant.

XVI

SAMUEL GOMPERS ON TIPPING

Labor has the strongest interest of any element of citizens for seeing the 5,000,000 men, women and children with itching palms elevated to a normal plane of self-respect. For nothing in America more certainly promotes class distinctions than tipping. It is essentially aristocratic, and labor has attained its widest development in democracy.

WAITERS AGAINST THE TIP CUSTOM

Occasionally waiters and some other workers in a serving capacity have attempted to organize and place their work upon the wage-system, rather than the combination wage-and-tip system, or the strictly tip system, now existing. In New York in 1913 the waiters struck for higher wages and serious riots occurred before they capitulated to the old system. The hotels preferred the tipping system because it throws the cost of waiter hire upon the public, whereas, an adequate wage system would necessitate a readjustment of their business.

Even where the waiters and barbers have organized they have not always shown aggressive efforts to abolish or regulate the tipping custom. The barbers, for instance, are highly organized, and any real desire upon their part to abolish the custom would be followed by immediate reform. But it is evident that the tipping system of compensation is attractive to many persons who serve the public because it yields more pay than a wage system. In the higher strata of workers particularly the tips are so large as to stupefy moral sense, and this minority dominates the majority by setting a standard of "proper" social usage.

A LABOR LEADER ON TIPS

Mr. Samuel Gompers, president of the American Federation of Labor, has opposed tipping as an irregular form of compensation, and in response to an inquiry for his opinion he inclosed a letter he had written to the manager of the Hotel Stowell, in Los Angeles, where a non-tipping rule is enforced.

"_Hotel Stowell, Los Angeles, Calif._

"Replying to your letter of November 28th I beg to say that I
found your hotel and service eminently satisfactory and was
particularly pleased with the rule you have enforced as to no
tipping.

"While, of course, I have followed the usual custom of giving
tips, yet I have maintained the principle of tipping to be
unwise and that it tends to lessen the self-respect of a man who
accepts a tip.

"Very truly yours,
"(Signed) SAMUEL GOMPERS,
"American Federation of Labor."

This letter is interesting as revealing the attitude of many prominent Americans, namely, that while they conform to the custom rather than be subjected to insults, annoyance and poor service, they really consider it inimical to self-respect.

EUROPEAN TIPS

Mr. Gompers in his letter said: "You have my permission to quote my opinion upon this subject in any way that you may desire," and gave permission to have reproduced here the chapter in his book, "Labor In Europe and America," which deals with tipping in Europe, as he encountered it in his investigations of labor conditions. The chapter is entitled "Nuisances of European Travel" and is as follows:

"Having in previous letters given my impressions with regard to
matters of more serious import, I wish to say something about
the almost hourly sufferings of American travelers in Europe
from mosquito bites. To the sharp probes from these insects,
with the resultant pain, fever and disgust, the traveler is
obliged to submit continually--at hotels and restaurants, on the
railroad and often elsewhere--as he goes seeing the sights. To
illustrate: our party on arriving at The Hague engaged two
mosquitoes in the form of station porters to carry our
hand-baggage to the bus of the Hotel Blank, waiting at the curb
of the station exit. The station porters passed the valises over
to the hotel bus porter at a point just within the station door.
Nip! nip! by the two station porters.

NIP! NIP!

"When we arrived at the hotel door both the bus porter and the
bus driver asked me for what they regarded as their due drop of
blood. Nip! nip! Within the door of the hotel the manager
informed us that all his rooms had been engaged by telegraph,
but that he could give us good rooms at a clean hotel near by,
and we took them. Two hotel porters who had carried our bits of
hand-baggage into the hotel lobby asked me, as soon as the hotel
manager had turned his back, for their tribute. Nip! nip! Yet
another porter, after taking the things a few steps down the
street to the other hotel stood by in the hallway and waited to
give us his nip. Seven gouges of silver change out of my pocket
before we reached our rooms! But the probes of the mosquito
swarms of this hotel reached even further. The little hotel
charged us Hotel Blank rates for our rooms, about double what
would have been asked had we gone there direct and bargained for
accommodations. And the dinner at the Hotel Blank cost us half a
florin apiece more than the price set down in the guide-book. In
this incident the reader sees some, but not all, of the methods
of stinging which the hotel mosquitoes practice.

"In Berlin, just at the moment of our departure, the porter, the
gold-laced and brass-buttoned dignitary who browbeats lamblike
guests at European hotel entrances, handed us our laundry bill,
every article of which was charged double to treble New York
prices. In Vienna, tired of blood-letting to each mosquito
separately in the group of servants always assembled about the
door upon our departure--'the review' they themselves call this
evolution--I drew the manager aside and said: 'I understand
that there is a way of giving tips to all hands through the
management.' (One bleeding as it were.) 'How much extra shall I
give you?' He replied: 'Twenty per cent. of your bill.'

"BRIBE AND BE HAPPY"

"I was rather tickled than bitten the first time I got a nip in
a European railway train. One of our party suggested that as the
second-class places were crowded we should go into a first-class
compartment and await results. When the conductor, in his
jim-dandy uniform, came along, he was handed our second-class
tickets and a mark--a silver coin worth a paltry twenty-five
cents. And he took our tickets and passed on without seeing for
what class they called. The vast possibilities of cheaply
purchased privileges on future trips acted as a palliative to
this little sting. And the thought of what might happen if the
traveler in America should try to overcome the virtue of one of
our express-train conductors with a 'quarter' brought all our
party to see the circumstance from a humorous point of view.
Truth to relate, it marked the beginning of a custom we
followed--since we learned that it was general--of buying our
way past any obstacle that appeared to interrupt the smoothness
or comfort of our daily progress. With a little silver we
henceforth obtained concessions from grand-looking policemen,
soldiers on guard, vergers in churches, museum custodians. It is
a common custom for conductors on street cars in Continental
Europe to hold out their hands to receive as a tip any small
change due, but first handed over to the passenger. You may have
your choice in European travel: Bribe and be otherwise happy and
free, or virtuously decline to bribe and be snubbed, ordered
about and forbidden to see things.

BORDERS ON BLACKMAIL

"The tipping system, bad as it is becoming in America, is in
Europe universal and accepted by all classes of travelers as an
inevitable nuisance. It often borders on blackmail. Tippers go
raving mad in recounting their wrongs under the tyrannies of the
system, the newspapers by turn rail or make merry over it, the
hotel keepers and other employers of the class have their excuse
that they pay wages to their servants--but the tipping goes on
forever. Why is it? Who is to blame?

"These questions I have asked representative waiters--for
representatives these men have, many of them being organized
into benefit societies and a small proportion in a sort of trade
union. But one answer was given. The system is detestable to
every man and woman of the serving class possessing the least
degree of self-respect. It is demoralizing to all who either
give or receive tips. The real beneficiaries of the system are
the employers. An end to it, with a fair standard of wages,
would be a boon of the first order to employees, a means of
compelling hotel proprietors to put their business on a basis of
fair dealing, and an incalculable aid to the tranquillity and
pleasure of the general public.

MORAL PIRATES

"I have often talked over the system of tipping with my fellow
waiters," said an educated man of the calling, when I brought up
the subject to him. (Parenthetically, perhaps, I should say here
that since this man speaks fluently and writes correctly four
languages, has traveled much and observed well on the great
tourist routes of the world, has studied some of the serious
works of writers on sociology, and has, withal, acquired
agreeable manners, he may be called educated. Without doubt, had
he a few thousands of vulgar dollars he might buy himself a
title as Baron and marry in our best society; but he is above
that; he has a craving for walking in the light of truth.) "All
of us would like to see the system abolished," he assured me,
"except a small minority who in their moral make-up resemble
pirates, and who cruise in places where riches abound. But the
whole situation is one in which reform is most difficult.

"Among the people who patronize hotels and restaurants there is
a considerable element that, either for a week of frolic or
during their lifelong holiday, are regardless of the value of
their tips, and through their vanity enjoy throwing away a
percentage of their ready money. Then, also, are those grateful
for the little kindly attentions which a good waiter or porter
knows how to bestow. As for the proprietors and managers, their
business is based on tips as one of the considerable forms of
revenue. For instance, in many German hotels the waiters are
obliged to give the cashier five or more marks additional on
every hundred marks of checks. In Austria, at the larger
restaurants the customers tip three persons after a meal--the
head-waiter who collects the payments, the waiter who serves and
the piccolo or beer-boy. The hotel management sells to the
head-waiter the monopoly privilege of the tips. The head-waiter
then provides the newspapers and magazines on file, the city
directories, time-tables and other books of reference called for
by patrons, and a part of the outfit of the waiters. Of course,
it is an old and true story, that in the big restaurants of
Paris, and to-day of other cities and fashionable
watering-places, the waiters pay so much cash a day for their
jobs. The pestering of guests to buy drinks comes, not so much
from commissions, as from orders of the management that the
custom of drinking at meals must be encouraged. In Germany it is
usual at the larger restaurants to add half a mark to the cost
of a meal if the guest drinks plain water only.

TOO MANY SERVANTS

"European hotels generally take on more servants than are
necessary. It makes a showing of being prepared for big
business. Then the servants must redouble their artful moves to
extort tips. Porters not infrequently work without salary at
all. Chambermaids, who are paid by the month, receive absurdly
low pay. Financing a hotel or restaurant is based on the tips as
a margin yielding on the average a fixed amount. To make them
reach the required sum all the employees are obliged to maneuver
so as to put up a showing of earning the traveler's extra silver
pieces. Coppers rarely are expected as tips now. It has become
common for railway station porters to demand half a franc for
what once brought them a few sous or pfennigs.

"One outcome of running a hotel on the tipping system developed
to the point of bamboozling or worrying the guests out of petty
extras at every turn is that each year there is an emigration of
European waiters to America to get places in hotels taken by
European managers, who, depending upon their servants to work
the system at its worst for the guests, can make a business pay
both manager and landlord, where an American manager, paying
wages, would fail. While shop-keepers have in the course of time
been forced to adopt the one-price system, the drift in the
hotel business has been continuously away from the per diem
rate. Another point--the big tourist agencies for European
travel are certainly in some sort of partnership with the hotels
for which they sell coupon tickets. Those on the inside of the
hotel business in Europe know that these hotels are patronized
largely by Americans, spendthrifts on their trip staying a few
days at a time and usually speaking English only, and therefore
disinclined to hunt up stopping-places for themselves. Hence at
such hotels there is a harvest for everybody--a situation which
eventually leads to bad food, bad cooking, bad service, and a
hold-up at every turn of the guest."

A SORRY BUSINESS

In going over the possible method of a change for the better in
this sorry business, my waiter friend said that first of all he
believed that a big trade union must be formed of hotel help.
Tipping must give way to fair wages. The public could give its
share of assistance. He recommended that the guests at either
hotels or restaurants should follow these rules, notes of which
were taken on the spot. "Patronize, whenever possible, the
hotels and eating houses where tips are forbidden; there are
such places in England and on the continent. Refuse
importunities for tips, either through words or 'hanging
around,' where there has been no service. Where, for your own
comfort you feel constrained to tip give the bare minimum.
Whenever possible do not tip at all."

He added, and I felt that he had me also in mind, "Some
easy-going natured people believe that they tip the nearest
itching palm to them because of their sympathy with the poor.
Reflection should teach them that there can sometimes be real
charity without public demonstration."

True, church people might, with this purpose, give through their
own congregational agencies. In London, the American traveler
wishing to do the best with his withheld tip-appropriation,
might send it to the Westminster Children's Aid Society; In
Rome, to the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals;
In Berlin, to the semi-public lodging houses. Everywhere,
trade-unionists can always give first to the genuine and
pressing claims of their own organizations. But, of course, if
the tipper, gives, not from motives of good-heartedness, but
mere vanity, all advice is thrown away on him. The hotel keeper
will continue growing rich on him and despising him. Other
folks in Europe may have good reason to tell him, what a plain
spoken Swiss citizen told a friend of mine: "You Americans with
your dirty dollars are ruining my country."

VANITY, ALL IS VANITY!

Mr. Gompers in this chapter from his book has shed much light on the ethics, economics and psychology of tipping. The deliberate, shameless exploitation of the public by employers and employees is revealed. No ground to stand upon is left to the tip givers except vanity, and the pernicious influence of the custom, to patron, employee and employer, is so unmistakable that the doom of the custom is as certain as was slavery, when the American conscience once squarely faces the issue.

Hotel and restaurant managers in our cities have employed European waiters upon the theory that the native American has too much independence and self-respect. The European waiters have multiplied the tip-giving propensity in America and have established their undemocratic sovereignty over our public hospitality. Inasmuch as a certain element of Americans think that the last word in social propriety originates in Europe, when these European servitors are transplanted, gold lace and all, to America, they hasten to enlarge their tips to the point which they assume these servitors consider "proper."

The astonishing feature of the European situation is that the European patrons of hotels do not themselves tip within a tenth of the largess bestowed by American tourists. The American tourist is fair game to the European hotel, which trebles its regular rates the moment he appears. A native of the country, however, can have identically the same accommodations for one-third of the American's bill, and his tips are a bagatelle in comparison.

The situation may be changed by an organization of employees, but reform will come most speedily whenever the public, which pays the bill, decides to withhold the tribute.

XVII

THE WAY OUT

Summarizing the case against tipping, the following facts stand out prominently:

1. Flunkyism is rampant in the American democracy and this
aristocratic influence is undermining republican ideals and
institutions.

2. Flunkyism, in the form of tipping, is kept alive by the
courts on the plea of "personal liberty."

3. Tipping nowadays is of precisely the same morality as paying
tribute to the Barbary Pirates was in Jefferson's day, which the
American conscience finally abolished.

4. On the economic side, tipping is wrong because it is payment
for no service, or double payment for one service; thereby
causing the exchange of wealth without a mutual gain.

5. Tipping is ethically wrong because one person accepts payment
for a service not rendered, or for a service which the employer
already has paid to have performed. And because gratuities
destroy self-respect.

6. The hold which tipping has upon the public is due to
unscrupulous appeals to generosity, pride and fear of violating
conventional social usage.

7. The public is exploited deliberately through books on social
propriety which emphasize the custom, or which advise conformity
thereto for the sake of peace and comfort.

8. The exploitation of the public is aided by the visualization
of the custom in moving pictures and on the stage where it is
treated humorously.

9. Employees defend tipping upon the ground that it compensates
them for extra services not covered in their wages. An
examination of individual instances shows this contention to be
false in a vast majority of the number examined.

10. Employers defend the custom on the ground that the public
insists upon giving gratuities and they must face competition
based upon that condition. But it is shown that employers openly
profit by the custom and secretly encourage it.

11. One metropolitan hotel has blazed the way to reform by
guaranteeing that its guests will not be annoyed or neglected if
tips are not given. This partial step toward the abolition of
the custom is possible everywhere if employers are sincere in
their profession of antipathy for the custom.

12. Our democratic government permits its officers and employees
to accept gratuities, thereby stultifying the spirit of the
Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.

13. The conscience of the people as reflected in the laws
adopted or offered against tipping is sound and needs only to be
led to an adequate expression. There are abundant indications of
a widespread distaste for the custom but the sentiment is
unorganized and inarticulate.

14. The head of the labor movement in America declares that
tipping is undesirable as a system of compensation for employees
and destroys the self-respect of those who give or receive the
gratuities.

15. A national organization of those interested in this reform
should be brought into being with effective state auxiliaries.

BETTER ORGANIZATION NEEDED

The last proposition constitutes "the way out" of the present undesirable situation. When it is remembered that the anti-tipping propaganda heretofore has lacked organization and direction it is not surprising that the laws adopted against the custom and the spasmodic public irritation over it have fizzled out. With the same organization behind this movement that has been given to the anti-saloon movement, or the suffrage movement, tipping would be vanquished in an astonishingly short time.