The Itching Palm Part 2

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 ent.i.tled to just as good a hair-cut as the barber can give. The patron enters the shop upon the a.s.sumption that he is ent.i.tled 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 att.i.tude 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 att.i.tude. The a.s.sumption 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 a.s.sistance, 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 a.s.surance 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 pa.s.ses 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 pa.s.s 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 cla.s.ses 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 pa.s.ses $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 a.s.sumption 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 cla.s.s 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 cla.s.ses; but the theory of Americanism requires that every citizen shall possess this quality. We grant the suffrage simply upon manhood--upon the a.s.sumption 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 rect.i.tude 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 cla.s.s distinctions forbidden by our organic law are inst.i.tuted 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"