The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1912-01-09
~ ESTHER GRIFFIN WHITE.

~ ESTHER griffin WHITE.
The anti-tipping crusade.
Everybody wishes it web and hopes
1t will succeed.
But they doubt it.
Since, however, it is originating
with the travelling mems organizations
it may make Roadway.
The truth is that. as everyone
knows, il you want to get things done
you have to resort to this popular and
convenient, as well as abominable
system.
To point an illustration. the writer
OF this column was recently in a no
tel in the state capital for one day
and half and during that time-most
of it spent outside the hotel, at that
paid out the following tips:
Five cents to a bell boy, fifteen
cents to a maid, ten cents to another
bell boy, a quarter to another and
another quarter to still a third, with
twenty cents to a waiter. A dollar in
tips in a day and a half's stay.
Perhaps this is not excessive-but
it is far too much. You have to do it,
however, IL you expect to get service
the next time. And naturally there are
things you want and must have.
II your dress happens to have a
complicated set of ingresses, for ex-
ample. somebody has to be called to
the rescue-hence a maid.
There are trifling services for which
a woman travelling alone is obliged to
call on some one, and which the at
taches of the house should perform,
since that is the reason the travelling
public goes to a hotel. When they pay
for their domiciling that should be in.
cluded
Everybody knows, Of course, that
the reason for this is the inadequate
payment made by hotel proprietors
and other employers of labor, as rail
way companies. to those in their ser
vice,
And also the system levied by these
people on the latter.
Walters are held responsible for
disappearance of linens and silver in
dining-rooms. are locked for breakage
of dishes. no matter how unavoidable
and for a thousand and one other caus
es, more or less petty, which make
them so insistent on the tip.
In some cafes the walters are paiC
nothing at all but rely entirely or
tips, percentage of which goes tC
the owner The whole thing is an out
rage and will be kept up just SO Ions
as the public will countenance it.
The trouble about instituting a re
form of this sort is that it will not b.
encouraged by that certain class witt
plenty of money which likes to pose
in the limelight and throw it round.
They will always tip.
Because it looks magnificent ani
because they are fools.
| They can afford it,
But it is these very ones who have
grated this alien system on to the
democratic social regime established
by this republic and which reacts OF
those unable to afford it but who mus
perforce fall in with it because. If they
don't, they are showed to one side an(
suffer discomfort and inconvenience.
| IL 10, III oAOll, 0OII Vi 1ANCAlSS
special privilege"
| And the special privilege is at tn,
extremes-at the opposite ends of thu
pole. The people which it does no
benefit. but who are, in the end. thu
ones who pay for it are squeezed be
tween and mashed flat.
| Take the unions.
| <,or III <ol
about the poor laboring man and tn
down trodden employee.
But you'll find a surprising humble
of these martyrs drawing four or fiv,
times the amount paid over to som,
college graduate who has specialized
in several departments of knowl
edge"
The writer could herself tell tai,
of a newspaper upon which she wa
once a brilliant and shining ornament
She shaved anywhere from twelve t.
fifteen hours a day corraling news
for the perusal of the papers constitu
ency.
Yet the boy who ran the press
known in fiction and on the stage a
1.-The printers devil-got three dollar
more a week and at the tick of tn,
eighth hour stopped all operations.
If you belong to the Union you hav'
all sorts of special privileges.
If you happen to be poor devil o
a reporter you haven't any-exceptin,
getting in places free-and then hav'
to fight your way down stage.
Unions are the greatest things out
Here, says the council in dark cham
Der session, it's time to raise wages
Look at the high price of living, lool
at the trusts. look at the wool sched
ule, look at Taft and Rockefeller an
Pierpont Morgan.
Wages must be raised one hundre,
per cent or we'll call 'em all GU,
Spread the news.
You don't have thing to do with i,
Somebody comes along and says-nex
week you'll get one thousand dollars
week instead of beggarly eight hun
dred.
Oh, all right, you say.