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_The Itching Palm_
A STUDY OF THE HABIT
OF TIPPING IN AMERICA
_By_
WILLIAM R. SCOTT
_Author of_
_"The Americans in Panama,"
"Scientific Circulation Management," Etc._
THE PENN PUBLISHING
COMPANY PHILADELPHIA
1916
COPYRIGHT 1916 BY
THE PENN PUBLISHING COMPANY
The Itching Palm
THE AUTHOR WILL BE PLEASED TO CORRESPOND WITH ANY READER WHO
APPROVES OF, OR HAS COMMENTS TO MAKE UPON, THE ATTITUDE TAKEN
IN THIS BOOK TOWARD THE TIPPING CUSTOM.
WILLIAM R. SCOTT.
PADUCAH, KENTUCKY.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I FLUNKYISM IN AMERICA 7
II ON PERSONAL LIBERTY 10
III BARBARY PIRATES 15
IV PERSONNEL AND DISTRIBUTION 19
V THE ECONOMICS OF TIPPING 26
VI THE ETHICS OF TIPPING 36
VII THE PSYCHOLOGY OF TIPPING 47
VIII THE LITERATURE OF TIPPING 58
IX TIPPING AND THE STAGE 68
X THE EMPLOYEE VIEWPOINT 73
XI THE EMPLOYER VIEWPOINT 88
XII ONE STEP FORWARD 97
XIII THE SLEEPING-CAR PHASE 105
XIV THE GOVERNMENT AND TIPPING 113
XV LAWS AGAINST TIPPING 122
XVI SAMUEL GOMPERS ON TIPPING 144
XVII THE WAY OUT 158
INDEX 169
THE ITCHING PALM
I
FLUNKYISM IN AMERICA
"Oliver Cromwell struck a mortal blow at the universal heart of
Flunkyism," wrote Carlyle of the execution of Charles I.
Yet, Flunkyism is not dead!
In the United States alone more than 5,000,000 persons derive their
incomes, in whole or in part, from "tips," or gratuities. They have the
moral malady denominated The Itching Palm.
Tipping is the modern form of Flunkyism. Flunkyism may be defined as a
willingness to be servile for a consideration. It is democracy's deadly
foe. The two ideas cannot live together except in a false peace. The
tendency always is for one to sap the vitality of the other.
The full significance of the foregoing figures is realized in the
further knowledge that these 5,000,000 persons with itching palms are
fully 10 per cent of our entire industrial population; for the number of
persons engaged in gainful occupations in this country is less than
50,000,000.
Whether this constitutes a problem for moralists, economists and
statesmen depends upon the ethical appraisement of tipping. If tipping
is moral, the interest is reduced to the economic phase--whether the
remuneration thus given is normal or abnormal. If tipping is immoral,
the fact that 5,000,000 Americans practice it constitutes a problem of
first rate importance.
Accurate statistics are not obtainable, but conservative estimates place
the amount of money given in one year by the American people in tips, or
gratuities, at a figure somewhere between $200,000,000 and $500,000,000!
Now we have the full statement of the case against tipping--five million
persons receiving in excess of two hundred millions of dollars
for--what?
It will be interesting to examine the ethics, economics and psychology
of tipping to determine whether the American people receive a value for
this expenditure.
II
ON PERSONAL LIBERTY
The Itching Palm is a moral disease. It is as old as the passion of
greed in the human mind. Milton was thinking of it when he exclaimed:
"Help us to save free conscience from the paw,
Of hireling wolves whose gospel is their maw."
Although it had only a feeble lodgment in the minds of the Puritans,
because their minds were in the travail that gave birth to democracy,
enough remained to perpetuate the disease. In Europe, under monarchical
ideals, a person could accept a tip without feeling the acute loss of
self-respect that attends the practice in America, under democratic
ideals. For tipping is essentially an aristocratic custom.
TIPPING UN-AMERICAN
If it seems astounding that this aristocratic practice should reach such
stupendous proportions in a republic, we must remember that the same
republic allowed slavery to reach stupendous proportions.
IF TIPPING IS UN-AMERICAN, SOME DAY, SOMEHOW, IT WILL BE UPROOTED LIKE
AFRICAN SLAVERY
Apparently the American conscience is dormant upon this issue. But this
is more apparent than real. The people are stirring vaguely and uneasily
over the ethics of the custom. Six State Legislatures reflected the
dawning of a new conscience by considering in their 1915 sessions bills
relating to tipping. They were Wisconsin, Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska,
Tennessee and South Carolina.
The geographical distribution of these States is significant. It is
proof that the opposition to the practice is not isolated, not
sectional, but national. North, Central, South, the verdict was
registered that tipping is wrong. The South, former home of slavery,
might be supposed to be favorable to this aristocratic custom. On the
contrary the most vigorous opposition to it is found there. Mississippi,
Arkansas, Tennessee, and South Carolina simultaneously had laws against
tipping--with the usual contests in the courts on their
constitutionality.
The Negro was servile by law and inheritance. The modern tip-taker
voluntarily assumes, in a republic where he is actually and
theoretically equal to all other citizens, a servile attitude
for a fee. While the form of servitude is different, the slavery
is none the less real in the case of the tip-taker.
Strangely enough, bills to prohibit tipping often have been vetoed by
Governors--notably in Wisconsin--on the ground that they curtailed
personal liberty. That is to say, a bill which removed the chains of
social slavery from the serving classes was declared to be an abridgment
of liberty! "Oh, Liberty, how many crimes are committed in thy name!"
The Legislature in Wisconsin almost re-passed the bill over the
Governor's veto. In Tennessee and Kentucky bills have been vetoed for
the same given reason, though Tennessee in 1916 finally had such a law
in force. In Illinois, the law was framed primarily with the object of
preventing the leasing of privileges to collect tips in hotels and other
public places, and not against the individual giver or taker of tips.
SHORT-LIVED LAWS
The courts have negatived such laws on much the same grounds, so that
anti-tipping laws thus far have been, generally, short-lived. The reason
is, of course, that popular sentiment has not been behind the laws in an
extent sufficient to give them power. Judges and executives simply have
yielded to their own class impulses, and the pressure from organized
interests, to suppress the legislation. When the public conscience finds
itself and becomes organized and articulate, they will have no
difficulty in finding grounds for declaring regulatory laws
constitutional. The history of the prohibition of the liquor business is
a parallel.
PERSONAL LIBERTY
Personal liberty is a phrase that is being redefined in America in every
decade. In its broadest sense it is interpreted to mean that a man has
the right to go to perdition if he so elects without neighbors or the
government taking note or interfering.
Anti-liquor laws in the early days of the temperance movement fared
badly from this interpretation, just as anti-tipping laws fare to-day.
But as public sentiment crystallized, and judges and executives began to
feel the pressure at the polls, a new conception of personal liberty
developed. In its present accepted sense, as regards liquor, it is
interpreted to mean that no citizen may act or live in a way that is
detrimental to himself, his neighbor or his government, and his
privilege to drink liquor is abridged or abolished at will.
The right to give tips is not inalienable. It is not grounded on
personal liberty. If the public conscience reaches the conviction that
tipping is detrimental to democracy, that it destroys that fineness of
self-respect requisite in a republic, the right will be abridged or
withdrawn.
III
BARBARY PIRATES
The American people became fully aroused on one occasion to the iniquity
of tipping--on an international scale.
In 1801 President Jefferson decided that the United States could
tolerate no longer the system of tribute enforced by the Barbary States
along the shores of the Mediterranean.
Before our action, no European government had made more than fitful,
ineffectual attempts to break up a practice at once humiliating to
national honor and disastrous to national commerce. Candor requires the
admission that we, too, submitted for years to this system of paying
tribute to Barbary pirates for an unmolested passage of our ships, but
the significant fact is that American manhood did finally and
successfully revolt against the practice.
By 1805 our naval forces had brought the pirates to their knees and all
Europe breathed grateful sighs of relief. Even the Pope commended the
American achievement. The practice was contrary to every dictate of
self-respect.
TRIBUTE
These pirates of Algiers, Tunis, Morocco and Tripoli did not pretend to
have any other right behind their demands for tribute than the right
they could enforce with cutlass and cannon--a right ferociously
employed. It was not robbery in the ordinary sense of the word. They
demanded a fee based on the value of the cargo for the privilege of
sailing in the Mediterranean, and this being paid, the ship could
proceed to its destination. Ship-owners soon began to figure tribute as
a fixed expense of navigation, like insurance, and passed the added cost
along to the ultimate consumer.
This practice of paying tribute was a system of international tipping.
The Barbary pirates granted immunity to those who obeyed the custom, but
made it decidedly warm and expensive for those who dared to protest
against it--just as do our modern pirates in hotels, sleeping cars,
restaurants, barber shops and elsewhere.
If a ship refused to pay tribute it was sunk, and the sailors went to
slavery in the desert, or to death by fearful torture. President
Jefferson could not see any basis of right in the position of the
Barbary States that the Mediterranean was their private lake through
which ships could not pass without paying toll. He sent Decatur to
register our protest.
With the Pinckney slogan: "MILLIONS FOR DEFENSE--NOT ONE CENT FOR
TRIBUTE!" the American naval forces made good our position. The tips
that skippers of our nation had been paying to the pirates were saved
and the custom soon was abandoned by other nations.
* * * * *
To-day, the old battle cry is reversed to read: "Millions for
tribute--not one cent for defense!"
It is certain that a greater tribute is paid in one week in the United
States in the form of tips, than our merchantmen paid during the whole
period that they knuckled to the Barbary pirates.
In New York City alone more than $100,000 a day is paid in gratuities to
waiters, hotel employes, chauffeurs, barbers and allied classes. But
New York has reached a subserviency to the tipping custom that is
amazing in a democratic country.
This vast tribute is paid for not more real service than the Barbary
pirates rendered to those from whom they exacted tribute. It is given to
workers who are paid by their employers to perform the services enjoyed
by the public. If the Barbary pirates could see the ease with which a
princely tribute is exacted from a docile public by the tip-takers, they
would yearn to be reincarnated as waiters in America--the Land of the
Fee!
IV
PERSONNEL AND DISTRIBUTION
The Itching Palm is not limited to the serving classes. It is found
among public officials, where it is particularized as grafting, and it
is found among store buyers, purchasing agents, traveling salesmen and
the like, and takes the form of splitting commissions. There are varied
manifestations of the disease, but whether the amount of the gratuity is
ten cents to a waiter or $10,000 to a captain of police, the practice is
the same.
This is a partial list of those affected:
Baggagemen
Barbers
Bartenders
Bath attendants
Bellboys
Bootblacks
Butlers
Cab drivers
Chauffeurs
Charwomen
Coachmen
Cooks
Door men
Elevator men
Garbage men
Guides
Hatboys
Housekeepers
Janitors
Maids
Manicurists
Messengers
Mail carriers
Pullman porters
Rubbish collectors
Steamship stewards
Theater attendants
Waiters
The foregoing list is not offered as a complete roster of those who
regularly or occasionally receive tips. Nearly every one can think of
additions, and at Christmas the list is extended to include money gifts
to policemen, delivery men and numerous others.
THE TIP-TAKING CLASSES
At the last Census, in 1910, there were 38,167,336 persons in the United
States, out of a total population of ninety-odd millions, who were
engaged in gainful occupations, that is, who worked for specified wages
or salaries. Of this number, 3,772,174 persons were engaged in domestic
or personal service, or practically ten per cent. of the industrial
population.
This means that in round numbers 4,000,000 Americans of both sexes and
all ages were engaged in the lines of work specified in the foregoing
list, with certain additions as mentioned. These are the citizens who
profit by the tipping practice.
Since 1910 the growth in population to one hundred millions, and the
steadily widening spread of the tipping practice will increase the
beneficiaries of tipping to 5,000,000. An idea of the relative
distribution of the total may be obtained from the statistics of fifty
leading cities. The numbers represent the tip-taking classes in each
city.
CITY NUMBER
Albany 8,000
Atlanta 23,000
Baltimore 48,000
Birmingham 16,000
Boston 61,000
Bridgeport 5,200
Buffalo 25,000
Cambridge 7,500
Chicago 135,000
Cincinnati 30,000
Cleveland 31,000
Columbus 14,000
Dayton 6,500
Denver 17,000
Detroit 26,000
Fall River 4,000
Grand Rapids 5,500
Indianapolis 19,000
Jersey City 14,000
Kansas City 24,000
Los Angeles 26,000
Lowell 5,500
Louisville 23,000
Memphis 19,000
Milwaukee 22,000
Minneapolis 19,000
Nashville 15,000
New Haven 9,000
New Orleans 37,000
New York 400,000
Newark 17,000
Oakland 11,000
Omaha 10,000
Paterson 5,000
Philadelphia 105,000
Pittsburgh 41,000
Portland 17,000
Providence 14,000
Richmond 15,000
Rochester 13,000
St. Louis 56,000
St. Paul 16,000
San Francisco 44,000
Scranton 6,000
Seattle 19,000
Spokane 7,000
Syracuse 9,000
Toledo 9,500
Washington 43,000
Worcester 9,000
In all other cities, towns and hamlets there are proportionate quotas to
bring the grand total to 5,000,000. Any estimate of the daily tipping
tribute for the whole country necessarily is only an approximation, but
$600,000 is a conservative figure. At this rate the annual tribute is
around $220,000,000.
IN NEW YORK ALONE
Taking New York with its 400,000 persons who profit from tipping, the
leading classes of beneficiaries are as follows:
Barbers 20,000
Bartenders 12,000
Bellboys 2,500
Bootblacks 3,500
Chauffeurs 12,000
Janitors 25,000
Manicurists 4,500
Messengers 1,500
Porters 15,000
Waiters 35,000
The tipping to these and other classes varies both in amount and
regularity. Waiters and manicurists in the better-class places receive
no pay from their employers and depend entirely upon tips for their
compensation. Barbers and chauffeurs are classes which receive wages and
supplement them with tips. Sometimes the employer will pay wages and
require that all tips be turned in to the house.
It is a common feature of the "Help Wanted" columns to state that the
job is desirable to the workers because of "good tips." Thus the
employers are fully alert to the economic advantage of tipping, and
wherever it is practicable they throw upon their patrons the entire cost
of servant hire.
The extent to which employers are exploiting the public is realized
vaguely, if at all. The vein of generosity and the fear of violating a
social convention can be worked profitably, and they are in league with
their employees to make it assay the maximum amount to the patron.
In a restaurant where the employer has thus shifted the cost of waiter
hire to the shoulders of the public, the patron who conscientiously
objects to tipping has not the slightest chance in the world of a square
deal in competition with the patron who pays tribute, although he pays
as much for the food.
A waiter, knowing that his compensation depends upon what he can work
out of his patron, employs every art to stimulate the tipping
propensity, from subtle flattery to out-right bull-dozing. He weaves a
spell of obligation around a patron as tangible, if invisible, as the
web a spider weaves around a fly. He plays as consciously upon the
patron's fear of social usage as the musician in the alcove plays upon
his violin.
This is a particularly bad ethical and economic situation from any
viewpoint. The patron, getting only one service, pays two persons for
it--the employer and the employee. The payment to the employer is fixed,
but to the employee it is dependent upon the whim of the patron. To make
this situation normal, the patron should pay only once, and this should
cover both the cost of the food and the services of the waiter.
Theoretically this is the present idea under the common law, but
actually the patron is required, through fear of well-defined penalties,
to pay twice.
Naturally, if the $200,000,000 or more annually given to those serving
the public should be withdrawn suddenly, employers would face the
necessity of a radical readjustment of wage systems. In many lines wages
would be increased to a normal basis, either at the expense of the
employer's profits, or through additional charges to patrons. Before
going further into the employer phase of the practice, the economics of
tipping in individual instances will be an interesting study.
V
THE ECONOMICS OF TIPPING
The basic question is, does tipping represent a sound exchange of
wealth? Do the American people receive full value, or any value, for the
$200,000,000 or more given in tips?
Values, of course, may be sentimental as well as substantial and, so far
as tipping is concerned, it can be demonstrated that if any values are
received they are sentimental. The satisfaction of giving, the balm to
vanity, the indulgence of pride, are the values obtained by the giver of
a tip in exchange for his money.
It is a stock argument for tipping that the person serving frequently
performs extra services, or displays special painstaking, which deserve
extra compensation. Only an examination of individual instances can
determine whether this is true. The proportion of the tipping tribute
which really pays for extraordinary service is negligible. A brief
inquiry into a few of the more prominent instances of tipping follows.
THE WAITER
If food is sold undelivered, then the waiter in bringing it to the
patron and assisting him in its consumption does perform an extra
service for which payment is due.
But this is not the fact, any more than that a shoe clerk should be
tipped for assisting a customer in the selection of his employer's
footwear. In both instances, the cost of the service is included in the
price of the article--food or shoes.
The prices on the bill of fare have been figured to include all costs of
serving it, such as cook-hire, waiter-hire, rent, music, table ware, raw
materials and overhead charges. If a sirloin steak costs seventy-five
cents a definite part of that amount represents the wages of the waiter
serving it.
Thus the waiter has no claim upon the patron for compensation, because
the patron, in paying for the food, provides the proprietor with funds
from which the waiter's wages will be paid. If the patron, in addition,
gives the waiter a tip it is clearly a gift for which no value has been
returned. The waiter is paid twice for one service.
ECONOMIC WASTE
The question then recurs, is this gift to the waiter a sound economic
transaction? Economists teach that no transaction is industrially sound
which does not involve an equal exchange of values. The exchange of five
dollars for a pair of shoes is a sound transaction because the dealer
and the customer each receive a value. But the gift of a quarter to a
waiter as a tip is an unsound transaction because the patron receives
nothing in return--nothing of like substantiality.
The patron may justify the gift from sentimental considerations, of
pride, generosity or fear of violating a social convention, but no
sophistry of reasoning can prove that a substantial value has been
received.
Of course, a waiter may give a patron more than the proprietor agrees to
give in the bill of fare, and this undoubtedly is an extra service--_but
it is also a dishonest service_. Every extra service to one patron means
a deficiency of service to other patrons. It is a common experience
that liberal tipping obtains special attentions which non-tipping
patrons miss, but, being dishonest, such a condition is outside the
scope of this inquiry. When a patron pays for food he is entitled to
adequate and equal service, and no largess by other patrons should
interfere with this basic right.
On its economic side, then, tipping is wrong. Wealth is exchanged
without both parties to the transaction receiving fair values. The
psychology and ethics of the transaction will be considered in other
chapters.
THE BARBER
No tipping is so inexcusable as that which is done to a barber. The
trade is highly organized and the workers are well-paid under good
working conditions. There is not the slightest chance for the barber to
serve a patron in a way for which the patron does not pay in the shop
tariffs.
If a haircut costs thirty-five cents, the patron is entitled to just as
good a hair-cut as the barber can give. The patron enters the shop upon
the assumption that he is entitled to a satisfactory service. Hence, in
tipping a barber a patron is yielding in a peculiarly timid way to the
mesmeric influence which the tipping custom exerts over its devotees.
It is a wanton waste of wealth, an unsound business transaction, because
money is given where charity is unnecessary and where absolutely nothing
is given in return. "But my barber takes lots of pains with my hair,"
the patron exclaims in justification of the tip. As in the instance of
the waiter, if he takes more than a normal amount of pains with your
hair he is dishonest to his employer and to other patrons whom he must
neglect to pay you special attention. Your right is to a satisfactory
service, and this you pay for in the regular charge. Any extra
compensation is unearned increment to the barber.
The unctuous manner he employs to arouse a sense of obligation in a
patron, when stripped of disguises, is a plain hold-up game. This will
be shown in the consideration of the psychology and ethics of tipping.
THE HOTEL
The attitude that hotel employees have been allowed to develop toward
the public is a blot upon professional hospitality.
Every one of them takes the hotel patron for fair game. And the hotel
proprietor, with a few notable exceptions, encourages this despicable
attitude. The assumption is that the patron pays at the desk only for
the privilege of being in the building.
Hence, they will not cheerfully move his baggage to his room unless he
pays to get it there. He cannot have a pitcher of ice water without
being made to feel that he owes for the service. The maid who cares for
his room exacts her toll. The head waiter demands payment for showing
him to a seat. The individual waiters at each meal (and they are changed
each meal by the head-waiter so that the patron has a new tip to give
each time he dines) require fees. If he rings a bell, asks any
assistance, goes out the door to a cab, in short, whichever way he
turns, an itching palm is outstretched!
Just think for a moment of the real significance of this state of
affairs. Hotel hospitality? Why, the Barbary pirates would have been
ashamed to go it that strong!
To ignore this grafting spirit means insulting annoyance. The suave
hotel manager listens to your complaint and smiles assurance that his
guests shall have proper service, but underneath the smile he has a
contempt for the "tight-wad," and instructs the cashier always to give
the waiters small change so as to make tipping easy for the patrons.
In truth, what does a hotel guest pay for when he registers? Certainly
for the service of the bell-boy who carries his suit-case to his room;
for the keeping of the room in order; for water, clean towels and other
necessities for his comfort; for the privilege of finding a seat in the
dining room; for the right to use the doors--all without extra charge.
But the hotel manager admits this in theory and outrageously violates it
in practice. All tipping done to bell-boys, porters, maids, waiters,
door men, hat-boys and other servitors in a hotel is sheer economic
waste. When the guest pays his bill at the desk he pays for all the
service they perform.
The hotel manager protests that the money that passes between his guests
and his employees is not his affair. But he proves his insincerity by
adjusting his wage scale on the estimate that the guests will pass
money to his employees!
Professional hospitality as "enjoyed" by Americans is a travesty on
democracy. That Europe should have such a system and spirit is
historically understandable. Tipping, and the aristocratic idea it
exemplifies, is what we left Europe to escape. It is a cancer in the
breast of democracy.
THE CHAUFFEUR
It would be possible to run through all the classes tipped and prove
that the extra compensation is unearned. The chauffeur is a latter-day
instance of the itching palm. Like the barber, the chauffeur is paid
well for his work. He does nothing for which the patron should give him
a tip. The taxi-meter charges the patron roundly for all the service
given, yet tipping chauffeurs is as common in the larger cities as
tipping barbers or waiters. It simply shows the spread of the practice
to workers who have no other claim upon it than their own avaricious
impulses--and the extreme docility of the public. Every tip given to a
chauffeur is so clearly a bad economic transaction that further argument
is unnecessary.
So widespread has the practice become that tipping is, individually, a
problem, as well as collectively. The traveler has a formidable cost to
face in the tipping required. When the total passes $200,000,000 a year,
it becomes a problem which the American people will find more difficult
of solution the longer it continues unchecked.
The whole argument is summed up in this. Tipping is an economic waste
because it is double pay for one service--or pay for no service. It
causes one person to give wealth to another without a fair return in
values, or without any return. The pay that employers give to their
employees should be the only compensation they receive. All the money
given by the public on the side is unearned increment.
The best condition for a fair exchange of wealth is where standards are
known and prices are definite. Self-respect and sound economics flourish
in such an atmosphere, whereas, if values are hazy and compensation is
indirect and irregular, as it is under the custom of tipping, the
bickering that follows degrades manhood.
From an economic viewpoint, all businesses are on an abnormal basis
which figure minimum wages, or no wages, to their employees on the
assumption that the public will, through gratuities, pay for this item
of service.
"One service--one compensation" is the only right relation of seller and
buyer, of patron and proprietor.
VI
THE ETHICS OF TIPPING
The moral wrong of tipping is in the grafting spirit it engenders in
those who profit by it; in the rigid class distinctions it creates in a
republic; in the loss of that fineness of self-respect without which men
and women are only so much clay--worthless dregs in the crucible of
democracy.
In a monarchy it may be sufficient for self-respect to be limited to the
governing classes; but the theory of Americanism requires that every
citizen shall possess this quality. We grant the suffrage simply upon
manhood--upon the assumption that all men are equal in that fundamental
respect.
THE PRICE OF PRIDE
Hence, whatever undermines self-respect, manhood, undermines the
republic. Whatever cultivates aristocratic ideals and conventions in a
republic strikes at the heart of democracy. Where all men are equal,
some cannot become superior unless the others grovel in the dust.
Tipping comes into a democracy to produce that relation.
Tipping is the price of pride. It is what one American is willing to pay
to induce another American to acknowledge inferiority. It represents the
root of aristocracy budding anew in the hearts of those who publicly
renounced the system and all its works.
The same Americans who profit by this undemocratic practice exert as
much influence, proportionably, in the government of the republic, as
those who give tips, or those whose sense of rectitude will not allow
them to give or accept gratuities. Is a man who will take a tip as good
a citizen, is his self-respect as fine, as the one who will not accept a
tip, or who will not give a tip? Is the one as well qualified to vote as
the other?
What is a gentleman? What is a lady?
Can a waiter be a gentleman? Can a maid be a lady?
Would a gentleman or a lady accept a gratuity?
What would happen if a tip should be offered to the average "gentleman"
who patronizes restaurants, and taxicabs and barber shops? He would have
a brainstorm of self-righteous wrath!
THE TEST OF DEMOCRACY
And there is the test. If a "gentleman" would not accept a tip, is it
gentlemanly to give a tip? If a "gentleman's" self-respect would rebel
at the idea of accepting a gratuity, why should not a waiter's
self-respect rebel at the idea?
"Oh, but there's a difference!"
The difference is there indeed. It is the difference between aristocracy
and democracy. In an aristocracy a waiter may accept a tip and be
servile without violating the ideals of the system. In the American
democracy to be servile is incompatible with citizenship.
Every tip given in the United States is a blow at our experiment in
democracy. The custom announces to the world that at heart we are
aristocratic, that we do not believe practically that "all men are
created equal"; that the class distinctions forbidden by our organic law
are instituted through social conventions and flourish in spite of our
lofty professions.
Unless a waiter can be a gentleman, democracy is a failure. If any form
of service is menial, democracy is a failure. Those Americans who
dislike self-respect in servants are undesirable citizens; they belong
in an aristocracy.
TIPS DISLIKED BY RECIPIENTS
Fortunately, conditions are not as rotten as the extent of the tipping
practice would indicate. The vast majority of Americans who give tips do
so under duress. At heart they loathe the custom. They feel that it is
tribute exacted as arbitrarily and unrighteously as the tribute paid to
the Barbary pirates. Some day this majority will rise up and deal as
summarily with the tipping practice as our forefathers dealt with the
Mediterranean tribute custom!
A great number of servants and workers in such lines as barber shops,
restaurants and other public service positions are equally opposed to
the custom. They are caught up, however, in a system where they must
conform to the custom or lose their employment. Many a barber or waiter
or chauffeur whose self-respect rebels at taking a tip is forced to do
so in order not to offend patrons. For nothing so stirs up a "gentleman"
as for the person serving to decline a tip. The reason is that he feels
the rebuke implied in the refusal and knows in his conscience that the
practice is wrong. We always grow more indignant at a just accusation
than at an unjust one!
CONSCIENCE IS STIRRING
The constant re-appearance of laws to regulate tipping, in every section
of the country, proves that the conscience of the people is stirring.
The daily and periodical press now and then condemn the practice
editorially in unmeasured terms and persons prominent in the public eye
occasionally flare-up at some particularly flagrant manifestation of the
itching palm. Governor Whitman, of New York, in an address to the
Society for the Prevention of Useless Giving, said (as District Attorney
then):
"It is a brave thing, a womanly thing and a courageous thing for
you to band together to combat an evil. And I hope you will
stand pat. We are all growing to tolerate a kind of petty
grafting that is not right, that is un-American. I object to
having a man take my hat and hang it up for me and then accept
a coin. I am strong and big enough to hang up my own hat. And I
also prefer to carry my own bag to having a boy half my size
carry a bag that is half his size and be paid with a coin. If he
honestly earns the money he should have it as an earning, not as
a gratuity. It is this giving of gratuities that is unlike us,
it is a custom copied from a foreign country where conditions
are different from ours."
Where one person has the courage to speak out against this deep-rooted
social convention, unnumbered thousands feel dumbly the same opposition
to it. Harry Lauder, the Scotch comedian, a citizen of a monarchy, on
one of his tours in America, was reported by the newspapers as being
disgusted with the development of so aristocratic a custom as tipping in
America, the cradle of democracy. The press will yield many such
evidences of condemnation for the practice in high places. They are
cited to prove that opposition to tipping is not a mere distaste among
persons of limited means who cannot afford to tip generously.
The cost of following the custom is an important item; but those who
consider it morally wrong gladly would pay any increase in charges that
might follow the abolition of the custom. If the Pullman company should
agree to abolish tipping if each patron would pay a quarter more for his
berth it would be a long step in advance--though the custom should be
abolished without additional charges to the public.
HUSH MONEY
The United States went through a period of muck-raking against graft
among politicians and big business men. It was found that the idea of
"honest graft" was shockingly prevalent. The especially odious
manifestations were dealt with, but the little springs and rivulets that
combine to make the main stream were allowed to trickle along, unite,
and become a torrent! Tipping is the training school of graft.
Will a messenger boy who thinks that the public owes him gratuities
develop into a man with sound morals? Will the bell-boy who works for
tips grow up to be a policeman who accepts hush-money from the corner
saloon-keeper? What is the difference between a tip to a bell-boy for
doing what the hotel pays him to do and the hush-money to a policeman
for overlooking the offence he is paid to detect?
The tipping practice has created an atmosphere of petty graft, the
constant breathing of which breeds all other forms of dishonesty. It is
small wonder that with so much avarice in low places that we have been
shocked by graft in high places. The tipping custom is educating the
grafting spirit much faster than the prosecuting arm of the government
can destroy it.
There is a direct connection between corruption in elections and the
custom of tipping. The man who lives upon tips will not see the
dishonesty of selling his vote, so readily as if he discerned the
immorality of gratuities. Of course, not all tip-takers sell their
votes; but the moral laxity in one direction predisposes toward laxity
in other directions.
SPLITTING COMMISSIONS
When a gratuity gets above a small amount, it is known as splitting
commissions, or plain graft. Salesmen in their anxiety to sell goods
will divide their commissions with the buyers. Frequently buyers or
purchasing agents will demand this concession when it has not been
offered. One New York department store found that its piano buyer was
accepting money for placing all orders with a particular manufacturer.
This store discharged its buyer, and yet the proprietor of the store
doubtless tipped the waiter at lunch the same day he so acted! He failed
to see that a waiter (paid to serve patrons) who accepts tips, is
precisely on the same level as a buyer (paid to purchase in the whole
market), who concentrates his orders with one house for a fee.
A clipping from The New York _Times_ shows the attitude that employers
are taking toward split commissions:
"Several wholesalers in this market received a letter yesterday
from a prominent dry goods retailer in the middle West saying
that their buyers would be in this city to-day and that each one
had signified her acceptance of a rule against taking petty
'graft.' The retailer asked that the salesmen try not to make
this rule difficult to observe. The rule follows: 'You must not
accept entertainment of any kind, even luncheon or dinner, from
any one in New York. We will make an allowance, sufficient to
cover all expenses, including entertainment.'"
This retail merchant had discovered that a free theater ticket or dinner
could create such a sense of obligation that his buyers would not be
able to exercise the freedom of choice that was necessary. The New York
salesmen offered the tickets and dinners in the form of gracious
hospitality, but knew all the while that their real intent was to bind
the buyers to them through a sense of obligation without regard to the
merits of the goods.
Thus the spirit of "honest graft" is spreading out in America. It grows
with what it feeds upon. It is a moral miasma, the fumes of which are
permeating all strata of society.
THE BIBLE AGAINST TIPS
Following are only a few of the many citations in the Bible against
tipping, gifts, gratuities, greed and like practices and impulses:
Exodus 23:8. And thou shalt take no gift; for the gift blindeth
the wise, and perverteth the words of the righteous.
Ecclesiastes 7:7. Surely oppression maketh a wise man mad; and a
gift destroyeth the heart.
Proverbs 15:27. He that is greedy of gain troubleth his own
house; but he that hateth gifts shall live.
I Samuel 12:3. Behold here I am: witness against me before the
Lord, and before his anointed: whose ox have I taken? or whose
ass have I taken? or whom have I defrauded? whom have I
oppressed? or of whose hand have I received any bribe to blind
mine eyes therewith? and I will restore it you.
Isaiah 33:14-15. Who among us shall dwell with the devouring
fire?... He that walketh righteously and speaketh uprightly ...
that shaketh his hands from holding bribes.... He shall dwell on
high....
Job 15:34. For the congregation of hypocrites shall be desolate,
and fire shall consume the tabernacles of bribery.
Luke 12:15. And he said unto them, Take heed and beware of
covetousness: for a man's life consisteth not in the abundance
of the things which he possesseth.
VII
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF TIPPING
Why the custom of tipping should be followed so generally when it is
palpably a bad economic practice and ethically indefensible is a
psychological study with the same aspects that the slavery issue
presented before the Civil War.
The Puritan conscience allowed that institution to grow to formidable
proportions before arousing itself decisively, and it has allowed this
equally undemocratic custom to attain national ramifications.
CASTE AND CLASS
In its broadest statement, the psychology of tipping presents the two
antipodal qualities of pride and pusillanimity. The caste system is not
based upon the superiority of one class over another, but upon the
_pride_ that one stage of human development feels over another stage of
human development.
A democracy cannot do away with different stages of development in the
human mind. But it does do away with the belief of one stage of
development that it is worthy of homage from another stage of
development. Democracy does not concede that one man working with his
brain is superior to another man working with his brawn. Democracy looks
beyond the accident of occupation, or the stage of human development,
and sees every man as originating in the same divine source. "We hold
these truths to be self-evident, that _all_ men are created equal."
In a monarchy, the craving of the human mind for approbation--the
quality of pride--is cultivated into the class or caste system. Those
citizens who have attained a larger measure of culture than their
fellow-men allow the false sense of pride in that culture to creep into
their ideals and actions. They seek for some method of visualizing this
assumed superiority, of obtaining the acknowledgment of it from their
fellow-men. With an unerring instinct of human nature they play upon the
cupidity of those whom they desire to place in a servile relation. A
gift of money wins the social distinction they covet.
Thus the tipping custom has its origin in pride, and it necessarily
involves humility as a correlative condition. If all men are created
equal, as we aver in our basic political creed, they cannot become
unequal except artificially, except by an agreement of one set of
citizens to play the role of servitors for a consideration from another
set of citizens. One set of citizens will become abased--that is, they
will surrender their birthright of equality--in order that another set
may strut around in a belief of superiority and indulge a sense of
pride.
NO SUPERIOR CLASS
In a democracy, the gradations of culture exist, but it is not
permissible for one class of workers to assume a superiority over
another class. That they do assume it is evident, and that for all
practical social purposes we live and move and have our being on that
assumption is evident, but in granting manhood suffrage, in allowing the
proud and the humble to have an equal voice in government, we declare
the social system a fungus growth.
At the moment of the highest power of the institution of slavery it was
not less wrong than at the moment the first ship-load of slaves was
landed. No mere accumulation of material property can vitiate a
principle of right. Hence, the very widespread acceptance of the tipping
custom lends no authority to it. If 95,000,000 Americans are engaged in
tipping 5,000,000 Americans, and if both the givers and the receivers
apparently concur in the rightness of the custom, it does not thereby
become right. We must go back to first principles to find the answer.
TIPPING AND SLAVERY
The American democracy could not live in the face of a lie such as
slavery presented, and it cannot live in the face of a lie such as
tipping presents. The aim of American statesmanship should be to keep
fresh and strong the original concepts of democracy and to beat back the
efforts of base human qualities to override these concepts.
The relation of a man giving a tip and a man accepting it is as
undemocratic as the relation of master and slave. A citizen in a
republic ought to stand shoulder to shoulder with every other citizen,
with no thought of cringing, without an assumption of superiority or an
acknowledgment of inferiority. This is elementary preaching and yet the
distance we have strayed from primary principles makes it necessary to
prove the case against tipping.
The psychology of tipping may be stated more in detail in the following
formula:
To one-quarter part of generosity add two parts of pride and one part of
fear.
FIRST INGREDIENT, GENEROSITY
This is a subtle element and merges into a sense of obligation on slight
provocation. You feel that your position in life is more fortunate, and
pity enters your thought. If an extra service is given, in reality or in
appearance, the servitor has pitched his appeal upon the ground of
obligation. Few persons can rest easily until a sense of obligation is
discharged through some form of compensation. The opportunity to balance
the account comes when cash is being passed between you and the person
serving. You offer a cash consideration proportioned to your sense of
obligation.
Inasmuch as the whole argument in favor of tipping is based upon the
allegation that the servitor actually gives a value in extra service,
the element of obligation will be examined closely.
The Pullman porter or the waiter who can succeed in making a patron feel
a sense of obligation knows that he has assured a tip for himself. The
company or the restaurant business is a vague fact, while the man
hovering over your berth or table is a most tangible relation. His art
is to make the patron feel that he is responsible for the careful
attentions. In a subconscious way the patron knows that the price of the
ticket or the food includes the service (wages of the porter or waiter)
but the obsequious alertness of the attendant overshadows this
knowledge. It is present personality versus an abstract entity known as
company or restaurant. Hence, though the price of the ticket or the
payment of the check pays for the porter's or waiter's service, the
patron has been made to feel a second obligation which he discharges
with a tip.
CLOAKROOM TACTICS
Thus tipping involves two payments for one service. Servitors
understand clearly the psychology of the sense of obligation from
experiment even though they could not read understandingly a book on
psychology. A trial in Detroit over the division of the tips in the
cloak-room of a restaurant furnished the following proof:
"'How do you make people "cough up"?' queried the judge.
"'When they are going away I brush them down, and if they don't
give me something I take hold of their lapel and say, "Excuse
me," and brush them again. I pretend that's the only English I
can speak. If they don't give me something then I hold on to
their hats until they do give me something. I made $12 the first
day I worked at the place.'
"'Why did you pretend you could not speak English?' demanded the
judge.
"'The more English you know the less tips you get.'"
This morally obtuse hat-boy knew that the average person does not want
something for nothing when dealing with serving persons, and he
exploited this trait to the maximum. Pullman porters and high grade
waiters are more polished in the use of the same method, but it all
gets back to the idea of creating a sense of obligation by actual or
pretended service beyond the expected.
Undoubtedly, a rigid adherence to the letter of duty would result in
service that would be unsatisfactory, but this is to be surmounted
rightly by the employer requiring flexibility of service from
employees--not by the public paying extra for affability, courtesy and
attentiveness.
SECOND INGREDIENT, PRIDE
Anxiety to cut a good figure before servants or allied classes of
personal workers is a rich vein of pride which they do not fail to work
for all it is worth. This kind of mind is always agitated from fear that
the tipping has not been done handsomely enough. The satisfaction of
having a fellow creature servile before your largess is a factor. The
gratuity emphasizes your position in the social scale. It stamps the
giver as a gentleman or lady. The smirking attentiveness of the servitor
is balm to vanity.
* * * * *
Truly, if it were not for vanity there would be no tipping system.
THIRD INGREDIENT, FEAR
The power behind the tipping custom is Social Convention and the fear of
violating it. The so-called social leaders, actuated by aristocratic
ideals, establish the custom and the crowd follow suit in a desire to do
the "proper" thing. The "what will people say" mania holds the average
person in an iron obedience to a custom which is innately loathed. It
makes you conspicuous to be a dissenter. The serving persons understand
this psychology perfectly. To drift along with the current of social
usage is easiest, whereas, to go against it requires the highest order
of courage. The multitude simply rate it as one of the petty vices and
let it go at that.
THE REMEDY
Now what is the method of meeting and mastering this situation?
Precisely the same reasoning employed by the Americans in 1801 against
the custom of paying tribute to the Barbary pirates.