The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-05-28

for the most mOQerate service. The example of New York has been copied on most of the great lines of travel. You pay the Pullman car porter 25 cents for doing what you have already paid for in your ticket. Rather, you used to pay 25 cents: now you are ex- pected to pay 50 cents. In the dining car you are expected to pay the waiter 25 cents or 50 cents for walking, per- haps, twenty steps to bring your meals; i; otherwise he will neglect you when he sees you again.
 If you want to get a decent seat in
 theatre in New York you must pay
 50 cents more than the price of the
 ticket to some agent in a hotel or be
 blackmailed by the speculators on the
 sidewalk out of 50 cents or a dollar.
 have had to pay cents for 1-cent
 newspaper in the dining-room of New
 York hotel. Every servant who does
 anything for you in a hotel expects a
 tip. You can get nothing for nothing,
 and fin many cases you get nothing for
 something.
 All this Is un-American. It should
 be resisted before it grows more mon-
 strous. It is spreading into our clubs,
 into our very houses. Not only is 1t
 killing voluntary courtesy. but 1t is
 making life more and more expensive
 and introducing the principle of fraud
 into the ordinary incidents of every
 day life. Go to some country house for
 a weekend visit to a friend. The
 chances arethat you will have to pay in tips to his servants as much as your
 board would cost at good hotel.
 Not long ago I went with two friends for a weekend at a country
 house at a fashionable place. We ar
 rived there on Friday night and left
 on Monday morning. l had some con-
 versation with the butler. Next week.
 he remarked. we are going to have
 one of those g gentlemen visit us.
 Two dollar gentlemenT l said in sur
 prise. Yes he answered. one of those gentlemen who come on Friday night and when they go away on Monday
 hand you only a $2 bill That was sufficient. On Monday morning each of us gave the butler $5. But that was only the butler. There was the maid. the valet and so on.
 "It is thrue that this tipping suctom prevails in Europe. but there people
 have a standard to go by. A man or woman knows what the customary percentage is. Here there is no stand ard. and the demands upon one grow larger every year, until the size of tips has became preposterous.
 ITO illustrate the difference between the evil in New York and elsewhere in America, 1 will tell you about a party of New Workers who came over to Philadelphia recently and were taken to the Bellevue-Stratford for something to eat. The bill for the meal was $9.S0. The host gave the waiter $10 and received twenty cents change. He handed this to the waiter, who said, Thank you very much He was satisfied and he showed it in his
 manner. Now suppose twenty cents
 had been offered to waiter in the Waldorf Astoria after such meal. 1, Why, the waiter would act as though he wanted to throw the tip in the face of the guest who gave 1t. Yet the Bellevue-Stratford in Philadelphia and the Waldorf-Astoria in New York are both run by the same man, MT. Boldt.
 '"This tipping business is graft pure and simple. It is amazing that intel ligent people submit to it. And 1t has it's grave side. know a waiter who
 was employed in a restaurant on very small wages with the understanding that he should get the rest of his liv- ing out of his customers tips: That went on until the custom dulled the mans conscience. He became disloyal to his employer, and in order to earn larger tbs would neglect ungenerous customers or reserve tables even against his employers orders. He was a grafter, and yet he had started in as an honest man. In time he left the restaurant ana became d CACAh n At S~ court He had to take an oath that he would show no partiality. But
 the tipping habit had so diverted his moral sense that he began to take
 money from lawyers in return for ad- vantages which he gave them in expe- diting their papers and other favors: :: He is now chief clerk in the court, and is still taking money in that way. His tips amount to more than his salary. "when I took this man to task for violating his oath he said, When l was a waiter my employer did not think a tip was graft. Why should the Gov | ernment think so Lawyers who tipped