Part 12 (1/2)
”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 princ.i.p.al'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 princ.i.p.al'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 princ.i.p.al, employer or master, or to employ service or labor for his princ.i.p.al, 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 Ma.s.sachusetts. 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 cla.s.s 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 att.i.tude 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 ent.i.tled ”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 ill.u.s.trate: 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 pa.s.sed 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.