The Wilmington morning star., 1943-12-28
BY WESTBROOK PEGLER

NEW YORK.-The decision to abandon for
time at least the old custom among saloon
keepers of buying customers an occasional
drink on the house suggests another reform
which | commend to the hotel ana restaurant
trades with no confidence, however, that they
Will take my sound and Well-meant advice
There never was any reason why the saloon
keeper should take his turn with the custom
ers and l may say too, that that which
they have decided to suspend for the duration
or until liquor becomes more plentiful, was
no longer custom or even caprice in most
places but just a lingering superstition. On
the other hand there has never been any
reason why the customer should be expected
to pay the wages of the help 10 hotels and
eating places. 1t is a miserable custom and
a mean form of moochery which puts the
bellhop, waiter and chambern:ald in constant
doubt and the customer in the position of
a phllanthropist but leaves out OF the equation
the employer, often a soulless corporation,
who thus by operation of an cid European
tradition, receives, IN the course of a year,
the benefit of an important amount of charity
but maintains a pretenSe Of ariStocratic dis
interest.
After all, it is not the worker but the en-
ployer who actually receives the tip because
he reckons the tips as perouisite of the
job in hiring his help and keeps the wages
down accordingly. Nor is il true that they
reduce their prices to the public accordingly,
for the tipping custom has always been based
on an understanding that it was theoretically,
voluntary and on that we may assume that
the rates for quarter and food are sufficient
to permit them to carry their own RESPONSE
bllltles, as employers in other lines do
am not one of those vino believe the tin
degrades the recipient, holding instead that
the custom has lived so long that the tip is
regarded as the servants due for services
performed, 1t should. however degrade the
Individual or institution which in the lono
run gets the benefit
dare say that hotel or restaurant man
VINO buys suit of clothes doe7 net add 10 per
cent 10 the cost and give ii to the employee
VINO serves him, and would raise an indignant
holler II ne were asked tc give .ithes on his
own rent and on all purchases in the stores
as, IN justice, he should do to round out the
sl1uatloh. He pays what he owes for the
article ana no more but in his own business,
blandly underpays his workers on the as
sumption that his clients will feel sorry for
men, not angry at him, and assume an obi
Sdtioh winch he has deliberately shirked
l. seems TO me that this problem is one
With l'ds peen discussed before always with
OUT results, but the present is an opportune
time 10 mink 1t over again because the hotels
an over the country are fat CATS many of
them turning away business and manv of
enough to pay the high rates ON their low
wages without being expected to help the
el!lployef with free contribution to his oper-
a1loh costs. The same is true of the restau-
rallI Iade. and 1t might be added, of the Pull
man service whose rates are fixed by law
and IS mus in position to abolish or inveigh
against tipping and obtain any adjustment of
rates mat night be necessary on the evidence
OF us books. AS to most of the travelling
pupllc 1t would not be necessary to inveigh
very hard because Pullman is national in
stltutlon whose customers have feeling that
on a comparison of its own wealth to theirs
the idea of charity from them to the company
is little grotesque. l understand that Pull
man has seriously considered the abolition of
the tip system from time to time but has
been dissuaded in the belief that the custom
ers would tip anyway from force OF habit
That may be true TO some extent put only
because the people in ali thelr dealings with
those who give personal service such as wait
ers bellhops porters and oaroers have been
trained to understand that unless they do
make gifts of money to such workers thew
denrive them of their living, which neverhe
loss should be included IN the Dill and, judgna
nv the prices of the present houf- very like1v
are inc1uded although not delivered.
The fellow who doesn't spend too n,,o,>
time rninding the other fellows business
usually knows lot about his own.
THEY'VE cut down the old pine tree-but
not in price. !