Willmar tribune. [volume] (Willmar, Minn.) 1895-1931, 1904-10-12
P"-TAKING IN EUROPE.
Few in Public Life, Excepting the
Titled, Are Above the
Itching Palm.

l nave just returned from trip
through Europe, where l naturally
made frequent comparisons between
the status OF the foreign worker and
that OF his American brother, says
Lydia K. Commander, in the Amer
lean Federationist
One of the most noticeable differ
ences is the constant presence of the
man with his hand out for a tip. When
you leave the steamer fully ten peo-
pie expect to be remembered" OF
these fully half consider two dollars
or less an open insult, to be resented
by marked insolence of manner, and
only a tive-dollar bill can move them
to thanks
At every hotel from eight to dozen
tlp-hunters shadow the departing
guest, and he is expected to go the
rounds
Nor is this ALL If you hire a. car
rlage, you are expected to tip the
driver. If you ask the street car con-
ductor a question or request him to
call your street you must give him a
Zee. When you take a boat ride you
pay Ter your ticket and pay the man
who takes it from you. If you in
quire your Way of passer-by, you dip
your hand in your pocket as you do
so. You tip the clerk in the store,
the man who delivers your goods, the
postman, the policeman, and, for aught
l know to the contrary, the doctor,
the lawyer and the preacher I
heard it said that everyone in Eu-
rope will take a tip, except the
crowned heads" but I'm not at all pre-
pared to admit the exception.
When you demonstrate against this
continual tax you are met with the
argument: 1.-THE poor things get very
little, and they must live. You are
really paying them wages, and it is
unfair not to give it,"
If you ask: why do they receive
such small pay?" the reply is: THE
employer knows they will get tips,
and counts on it" and again you are
assured that tips are wages, and
should not be withheld.
But a few minutes consideration
shows that not only are tips not
wages, but they destroy wages. Wages
are a definite sum agreed upon by
employer and worker. To pay them
is an obligation, to receive them is d
right. A tip is favor charity. 1t
can be given or withheld at will It's
bestower sWears with self-satisfied be-
nevolence. Its receiver, true flunky
graduates his thanks to match tn ?
amount of the gratuity. A tip is not
wages, for no man has a right to de-
mand it. He can only cringe and kow-
tow in the hope of not missing it.
Nor does the amount gained offer
any atonement for the manhood sac
rificed in the getting. The steamer
stewards are more favored and more
arrogant than the man beyond the
seas. In Germany you may give your
street car conductor small COLI
worth one and one-fourth cents; in
France a cent will be accepted, and
the naughty Britisher only stands out
for a "tuppence." Of course the tips
run from these trifes up, and some
times high up-and that's the way
the money goes"
But it was, after all, the small tips
that shocked me most. To think that
men, full-groWn, white, civilized, free
men-not children nor Filipinos nor
savages nor slaves-would take a one
cent charity and say: THANK YOU
for it,.
1t made me heart-sick and ashamed
to see it. l blushed to think that
they hadn't the self-respect to blush
for themselves