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.
There is no doubt there is sufficient latent opposition to tipping to
form the basis of an anti-tipping organization. It may be called "The
American Anti-Tipping Association," or by any other name, and it should
embrace in its membership not only those who are opposed to giving tips,
but those servants and workers who are opposed to receiving tips, and
also all other persons of any race or creed whose conception of true
Americanism does not include approval of this custom.
NOT A WAR AGAINST PERSONS
The object of such an organization should not be to wage war on persons,
but on a custom. There is no need for hostility against waiters,
barbers, porters and the like as a class. Many of these heartily oppose
the custom and will join in a movement to eradicate it. Hence, the
campaign should be to readjust the basis of compensation of those who
serve the public so that self-respect may be preserved all around.
Nothing less than a fair wage as a substitute for the present tipping
system of compensation would be considered.
Having made the foregoing point clear at the outset, much resentment
among servitors would be eliminated. No one has a desire to deprive a
waiter of an adequate compensation, but no one has a desire to give him
an excessive compensation through gratuities, or a compensation which
depresses his self-respect in the manner of receiving and humiliates the
patron in the manner of giving.
Employers would need to be informed, too, that the campaign against
tipping is not to throw an unjust burden of operating expense upon them.
It will indeed deprive them of any revenues which they should not,
economically or ethically, receive from the public through gratuities to
employees. The substitution of a wage scale will be attended by economic
changes which at first may cause some unsettled conditions, but this is
inevitable when an unsound practice has been allowed to grow
unrestrained in the business world.
PUBLIC OPINION
One of the first aims of such an organization would be to bring public
opinion to bear upon city, state and national governments to inspire
them to clean house in regard to tipping. No government employee should
be permitted to accept any compensation other than his salary or wages
from the government. Mail carriers, policemen, garbage collectors,
guides and other government employees are paid adequately and gratuities
to them from the public are indefensible, in any country, and supremely
so in the American democracy.
The public, of course, will need to revise its attitude toward these and
all persons who serve them. The feeling that a traffic policeman whom
you pass in your automobile every day should be remembered with a gift
of money or anything else substantial at Christmas, or upon any other
occasion is false sentiment. He is due nothing except courtesy all the
time from the public, which, through taxes, already has provided his
compensation. The feeling that a mail carrier whom you see daily, or a
garbage collector, must be similarly remembered is equally false
sentiment. The ideal is a relation in which patron and employee, public
and government employee, entertain mutual opinions of self-respect, and
regardless of how distasteful this may be to class sense, or
aristocratic impulses, it is the American standard and the right
standard.
PROMOTING LEGISLATION
An organization opposed to tipping would have as its further objects the
promotion of legislation against the custom and the protection of the
public in the enjoyment of its rights at law. If so many States have
adopted laws as a spontaneous expression of Americanism, it may be
assumed that with organized public sentiment, and educated public
sentiment all the States will get in line. There will be abundant
financial resources behind such an organization. Those who oppose
tipping have been silent but they have felt keenly and will contribute
liberally toward the advancement of the cause. And when such an
organization actually proves its efficacy in protecting the public, its
ranks will be augmented overwhelmingly.
The protection hinted at is the kind that would take up specific
instances of neglect of patrons who do not give tips. Thus, if a member
should be neglected or insulted in a hotel after he had failed to bestow
a gratuity, the organization, upon investigation, would assume the task
of correcting the situation at law. Even where there is no statute
against tipping, the common law guarantees the right of a patron to fair
and equal service, and the organization could enforce this right in the
courts.
Naturally, great care and good judgment would be needed to prevent an
injustice to proprietors and employees. Often patrons exact more service
than they are entitled to, and in such a situation the organization
would be ranged on the side of the employee. Those who desire a
condition where they may run rough-shod over servitors have a mistaken
idea of the anti-tipping ideal. The employer is required to have
employees who will give cheerful, adequate service, but within the
limits of reason, and the selfish, domineering, patron is an evil which
must be restrained as effectually as the waiter who surreptitiously
insults patrons who do not tip.
TO PREVENT COMPLAINT
Surveying the vast field of tipping one may wonder how any organization
could offer protection to the numberless patrons who might complain.
The answer is that the organization would be as widespread as the
custom. Every town and city would have its local organization with an
attorney to prosecute violations. But it is reasonable to presume that
when public opinion is once thoroughly aroused and organized, and a few
prosecutions have been successful, that employers and employees, who do
not voluntarily reform their practices, will see the light.
As deep-rooted as the custom seems, it really rests on insecure
foundations and will crumble before any real attack. The average
American, be he barber, waiter or porter, has enough inherent
understanding of democracy to know that the custom is wrong. He "will
get his" as long as an easy-going public will stand for the exaction,
but will not be a formidable opponent. The imported European waiter will
present more obstinate fondness for the custom, having been nurtured in
the aristocratic school, but his opposition can be handled.
The most difficult type will be the class of patrons who delight in
playing the role of Lady Bountiful or Gentleman Generous. Their pride
will be restrained from buying servility from other Americans. And
wealthy proprietors, who cater to this class and the intermediate class
which ape the "smart set," will cling to the custom because of their
pecuniary interest therein. But the average American and his vigorous
sense of democracy will be adequate to the task of controlling all
elements adverse to the republic.
The campaign against tipping is much more than a purpose to save the
money given in gratuities. Its idealism aims to reach the very pinnacle
of republican society--the destiny toward which 1776 started us. The
mountain peaks of pride will have to be pulled down and the valleys of
false humility will have to be lifted up, while the impulses to greed
and avarice will have to be rebuked until every American can say:
If I must build my pride upon another man's humility,
I will not be proud;
If I must build my strength upon another man's weakness,
I will not be strong;
If I must build my success upon another man's failure,
I will not succeed!
INDEX
ARGUMENTS FOR TIPPING, 26, 28
BAGGAGEMEN, 76
BARBARY PIRATES, THE, 15
BARBER, THE, 29
BARBER-SHOP PORTERS, 79
BATH ATTENDANTS, 86
BELL-BOYS, 32, 69, 104
BETTER ORGANIZATION NEEDED, 160
BIBLE, THE, AGAINST TIPPING, 45
BLACKMAIL, 150
BOOTBLACKS, 66, 78
CASTE AND CLASS, 47
CHAMBERMAIDS, 153
CHAUFFEURS, 33
CHRISTMAS TIPS, 116, 119
CLOAKROOM TACTICS, 52
CLUBS, 119
COMMISSIONS, SPLITTING, 43
COURTS, THE, AND TIPPING, 126
CUSTOM ABOVE LAW, 123
DEMOCRACY AND TIPPING, 38, 48, 114, 166
DOOR MEN, 81
ECONOMICS OF TIPPING, 26, 28
ELEVATOR MEN, 61, 81
EMPLOYEE VIEWPOINT, THE, 73
EMPLOYER VIEWPOINT, THE, 88
EMPLOYERS, can control, 102
" conspiracy by, 90
" retain tips, 86, 90, 152
" three kinds of, 88
" who profit by tips, 89, 105
EQUALITY AND UNIFORMITY, 115
ETIQUETTE BOOKS foster tipping, 58
EUROPEAN TIPS, 146
train conductors, 149
FEAR, as a reason for tipping, 55
FLUNKYISM IN AMERICA, 7
FREE AND EQUAL, 113
GARBAGE COLLECTORS, 116, 118
GENEROSITY, as a reason for tipping, 51
" misguided, 117
GENTLEMAN, what is a?, 37
" would he accept tips?, 37
GOLDEN RULE, THE, 119
GOMPERS, SAMUEL, on tipping, 144
GOVERNMENT HOTELS, tipping in, 120
" " the, and tipping, 113
GOVERNOR WHITMAN against tips, 40
GRAFT, "honest", 45
" taught by tipping, 42
GUEST'S RIGHT, THE, 104
GUIDES, 81
HARRY LAUDER against tipping, 41
HATBOYS, 82
"HONEST GRAFT", 45
HOSPITALITY, false, 101
HOTEL, The, 30
" fees, 59
" hospitality, 62, 101
" theory and practice, 32
" tipless, 97, 146
HOUSE SERVANTS, 64
HUSH MONEY, 42
IDEAL LAW, The, 132
ILLINOIS LAW, The, 91
" Compromise, The, 138
IOWA LAW, The, 124
ITCHING PALM, The, 8, 10, 19, 31, 70, 72
JANITORS, 83
LADY, What is a?, 37
" would she accept tips, 37
LAWS against Tipping, 122
LEGALIZED ROBBERY, 140
LEGISLATION, Promoting, 164
LITERATURE of Tipping, The, 58
MAIL CARRIERS, 116
MANICURISTS, 84
MASSACHUSETTS, In, 141
MERCHANTS against tips, 44
MESSENGERS, 85
"MILLIONS FOR DEFENSE", 17
MORAL PIRATES, 151
"MOVIES," the, and tipping, 69
MUSICIANS, 66
NEBRASKA ACT, The, 134
NOT A WAR Against Persons, 161
"NO TIP" POLICY, barber shops, 89
" " " hotels, 89, 97, 147
" " " restaurants, 89
OCEAN VOYAGES, tipping on, 65
ONE COMPENSATION, One Service, 35, 55
ORGANIZATION NEEDED, 160
PERSONAL LIBERTY, 10, 13
PERSONNEL AND DISTRIBUTION, 19
POLICEMEN, 116, 119
PORTERS, 147, 153
" Pullman, 108
PRICE OF PRIDE, The, 37
PRIDE, as a reason for tipping, 54
PRIVATE HOUSES, tipping in, 64
PSYCHOLOGY OF TIPPING, The, 47
PULLMAN COMPANY, The, 105
" " investigated, 106
PUBLIC OPINION, 162
REASONS for tipping, 51, 54, 55
RECIPIENTS opposed to Tipping, 39, 144, 150
REMEDY for Tipping, 55, 94, 95, 103, 158
RICH AMERICAN MYTH, The, 67
SHIP'S DOCTOR, The, 67
SLEEPING-CAR PHASE, The, 105
SOLUTION, a Reasonable, 94
SOUTH CAROLINA LAW, The, 129
SPLITTING COMMISSIONS, 43
STAGE, The, and Tipping, 68, 72
STATISTICS of Tipping
money given in tips, 8
number of tip-takers, 7
tips in N. Y. City, 17, 22
tips in other cities, 21
tip-taking classes, 19, 20
STATLER HOTEL, The, 97
STENOGRAPHERS, 86
STEWARDS, Ship, 66
STREET CLEANERS, 118
TENNESSEE LAW, The, 136