The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1904-04-17
UNJUsTIFIABLE HOTEL RULES.

Announcement Is made that at least a
dozen of the leading hotels in New York
city have adopted the following as one of
their printed and unbreakable house rules:
Women travelling alone will not be re-
ceived as guests unless they forward to the
house, in advance of their arrival. unex-
ceptionable references-New York city ref
erences preferred"
1t has long been a difficult matter, it is
said, for unaccompanied women no matter
how obvious their responsibility, to obtain
shelter at a frst-class hotel in New York.
but until now the rule against them has not
been absolute. Hotel men who have been
interviewed on the subject urge In defense
of the regulation that if they did not put
up the bars against women travelling alone
and without references their establishments
would be ruined out of hand. They point to
the blackmailing schemes conducted by
women who gain admittance to hotels, and
that, when exposed, cast discredit on the
establishments. They also say that New
York is Mecca for women all over the
country when they wish to have a good
time and that in the enjoyment of their
good time a proportion of them come
to grief and undesirable notoriety and
bring the name of the hotel where they stop
into injurious prominence in the yellow
press. A certain proportion of men on their
travels. the hotel men say, are expected to
go on jamborees and get caught in shady
transactions but assert that the arrest Of
twenty male guests for all sorts of miscon-
duct and crookedness, and with all the ac-
companying newspaper notoriety. does not
have one-twentieth the damaging effect
upon the tone and character of a hotel as
the exposure of any sort of misbehavior on
the part of one woman guest of the house
These landlords kindly admit that the vast
majority of women who arrive in New
York unaccompanied are eminently respect
able and behave themselves with the ut
most propriety, but insist that the hotels
must protect themselves against the others,
even though all the reputable ones suffer
thereby.
This defense of the action is very gauzy.
The reputation of large public hotel is by
no means the sensitive and fragile thing the
managers represent. No one with a grain
of sense considers the arrest of one of its
guests. man or woman. for whatever of
Tense, any reflection upon the hotels char
acter. Men and women with sufficient
brains to be allowed TO travel about the
| world alone do not regard hotel register
as social record and are not in the least
surprised or disturbed at the occasional dis
covery of black sheep among the guests.
They are as indifferent TO the standing of
and corridor as TO that of their fellow
passengers on a railroad train. and would
no more think of boycotting the one than
the other because OF the chance presence.
now and then, of an individual whom they
would not invite 10 their homes.
The hotel men also proceed on the as
sumption that the company of a man is a
badge OF responsibility and inoffensiveness
TO woman. Is it the experience OF these
| guileless gentlemen that every woman
having as escort an ostensible husband or
brother or father is absolutely above sus-
picion OF being thief or blackmaiIer or
| adventures. or of not behaving in such a
way as to get herself into the police court
Or have they observed when such a
woman gains notoriety that the existence
of the man who freed her by his presence
| from the need of presenting credentials in
any way lessons the consequent annoy
ance and injury TO the hotel?
The truth Is. the hotel men have no case