Omaha daily bee., 1921-08-03
Reviving the American Plan
Hotel Dining Room as Competitor
Against Cafeteria for Customers.
(From the New Orleans Times -Picayune.)

The American association held convention
last week in Chicago and the discussions there,
are told, presage a return to the American
plan by most hotels. That sounds pleasantly to
the ear, yet We cannot believe it solely for the
reason that the Comeback seems to be against
the rule of nature. Things that have been, and
in the natural course of events depart, do not
ever return. Something may come that, IN a
spirit of atavism, brings memories OF the things
gone, just as in the youthful face we will see
heeting resemblances to an ancestor, but the
thing or the custom can no more come back than
can the person pass round the hill and through
the valley back to the days Of youth.
The American plan i'll our hotels was not a
thing independent to be established and dis
continued at will, 1t was part OF the character
of the people as they were. 1t was, we doubt
not, merely all evolution of Ahe open-house hos
ptaty of the early days when men were drawn
into closer fellowship because opposed by forces
that only close fellowship could head against.
When traveller who in the country felt safe in
riding up to strangers door and i'll asking for
nights lodging, assured III advance that all
there was to give would be given freely: when,
we say that traveller reached city he felt con-
strant unless similar freedom was guaranteed.
He could not expect in public hostery, free
lodging, but he did expect and did receive as
near to that hospitality as was possible. At
certain number of dollars per day he had the
position OF guest, to be called to meals at meal
time ana 10 nave dll tnC dltSlltiOlS Will dt Sdst
the apparent disregard for petty calculations that
he found in the home OF the rural host
That is how the American plan came into
being and one does not even yet have to be very
old to recall the time when the European plan
was, at least south and in the middle west, con-
sdered disagreeably snobbish The truth was,
however. that the American plan was extremely
wasteful and that the hotel patron was, in order
to insure himself against the semblance of watch
fulness and suspicion on the part of his host,
paying for much that was of no use to him.
True enough under the European plan, that
rapidly won its way, he got only what he paid
for, but there entered other means of applying
the screws and the change perhaps brought no
saving. What it did do was merely to bring the
hotel service again into harmony with the guests
who, themselves become cunning and suspicious
and critical, had grown away from the pioneer
spirit.
At the recent Chicago convention the argu-
ment adduced was that under the American plan
better balanced menu was offered the hotel
patron, and that he really would prefer to eat in
the hotel where he was stopping In the latter
statement the conference really let the cat out
of the bag" Under present conditions food, at
the average European plan hotel, has grown so
expensive that only the very wealthy can risk
the luxury of diversified meal, and therefore
the average traveller browses among the restau-
rants, thereby deprving hotels of a lucrative
dining-room patronage. But the die is cast the
thing is done, and when the change comes it
will be found something different from either the
American or European plans. The hotel man
who will devise it will reap untold wealth.