The San Francisco call. [volume], August 07, 1910, Page 10, Image 10

About The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913

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THE CRIME OF THE OUTSTRETCHED PALM
HJZ7?i4 KNOX Leaps Upon the Tipping Outrage. Rends It Limb from
Limb, Emitting Harsh Growls of 'Rage •\u25a0^/H^/fif \u25a0\u25a0
Ezra Knox
IN days of ofd, when knights returned from holy
and unholy war, hoi polloi would stand' along
the line of march and . shout "Largesse! Lar
gesse!" And the knights, swelled with pride and
round shouldered from lugging their loot, would
throw out a little cash .to the people. In the essen- r
tial thing, the getting of the money, the conditions
exist today. The people do not etand on the side
lines and they do not plead for largesse; they de
mand it now. and they get it, but they call it tips.
It was in the distribution of largesse that the
tipping system had its inception, and no one can say
where it will stop. "The sign of the outstretched
palm" is seen on every side, and so insistent are the
demands, either actual or implied, that the tax im
posed on the average person by reason of this sys
tem, which is alike undefended and undefendable, is
nothing less than appalling. , .
It is not a tax, it is a holdup. . Perhaps that term
should not be applied to the process of tipping a
waiter who has served a meal. There is a semijudi
cial decree upholding this expenditure. The corpora
tion counsel of New York, in what one of his prede
cessors called a "cigar store opinion," has said the
payment of a tip to a waiter is now as usual as the
payment of the bill itself, and that the supreme court
must have concluded, in making an allowance for ex
penses to employes of the city, that the tip became a
part of the cost of the dinner.
Tips may be divided into two classes — those that
are scmikgitimatc and those that are of the common
garden variety of blackmail. While there is no good
reason why you should pay the proprietor of a res
taurant for the food you eat and then pay his servant
for serving it to you, yet there is a service rendered.
That is a good deal more than can be said for some
of the things for which tips are demanded.
Go to any of the bitter class of-restaurants in San
Francisco and you can sec the tipping system in
many of its phases. Before you can enter the dining
room you are compelled to leave your hat and coat
with a boy at the door, and before you get them back
you arc expected to give a tip. The boy at the door
is one of the choicest nuisances. If you should
chance to get by him with your hat in your hand,
thinking, perhaps, that you can place it in an empty
chair, he is after you. like a Nemesis, and will look
at you as if you were guilty of a high crime and ought
to be ashamed for even trying to associate with de
cent people.
It is not absolutely necessary that you give money
to that boy; you will get your hat and coat back if
you do not. But if you expect to go back there again
it might be just as well to hand something to him.
The worst that you can get if you do not tip him is a
sneer and a muttered "cheap skate," but if you re
turn there he will remember your face, and he will
take his own time before he finds your hat, and will
take the checks from just as many other persons as
he possibly can before he reaches for yours. That
is the way he gives an object lesson in the advantage
of distributing largesse. ~ \
$2.50 FOR ONE DRINK
You might want to wash your hands before sitting
down to dinner. In the washroom you will find a boy
who looks enough like the one at the checkroom to
be his twin, and they are more than brothers when it
comes to demanding tips. He will have a towel about
twice the size of a postage stamp ready for you, and
he expects you will. have a dime ready for him. With
an enthusiasm that in a worthier cause would be com
mendable he will grab a whisk broom and will wear
out a couplo of dollars' worth of clothing in trying
to lrnpfess upon you that he should get the money.
Now you do not have to give money to this boy; but
if you arc going to the same place day after day, of
week after week, you will find that it will add to your
comfort to respond to "the sign of the 'outstretched
palm" and stand for the holdup.
The Broadway folks used to say of one restaurant
famed for the elegance of the furnishings, and which
has since closed its doors, that it required an expeiir
diture of $2.50 to get a drink of whisky. Of this
amount $2 went for the rental of evening clothes^ for
they were necessary there'; then the boy who took the
hat and, coat had to have at least 15 cents, the waiter
had to have 15 cents more, and the whisky cost 20
cents.
One naturally would think that in high priced res
taurants, where a single meal will S£t a person back
for a considerable amount, the proprietors would try
•to protect their customers from the annoyance of
these holdups. They will say they don't ask the peo
ple to pay these tips, but they do ask just the same.
The revenue from the checkroom of a restaurant is
figured on as much as the profit from the bar, and
every restauran^man counts it as one of his assets.
He starts the holdup game by selling the privilege of
checking the hats; and the boys have to be the kind
:':: ' : - \u25a0.:'. -:'''''\u25a0%> '.'\u25a0< \u25a0 " \u25a0 ;'_ \u25a0\u25a0"\u25a0-- • \u25a0
A Little Detail Like" Having r the Tele
phone Ring Djiring the Nteht i
that can wheedle money or they don't stay in the
If you are a regular customer at a place, spending
quite a lot of money every we«k or monthj, arid you
make a complaint against one of these boys for* being
impudent the proprietor probably will see that he is
discharged. That does not help. The next boy may
be worse. The trouble is that the system is greater
than any proprietor who tries to regulate it, and for
financial reasons no one of them wants to -abolish it.
After you have had dinner and paid tribute to the
waiter, head waiter, checkroom boy, washroom boy
and a few others, including the person! who has the
flower privilege— cither paid tribute or been; annoyed
and probably humiliated— you decide to ride home ; in
a taxicab. The hotel or restaurant man has sold the
exclusive privilege of occupying the street in front of
the place. He does not own the street, and so far as
the honesty 'of the transaction is concerned he might
just as well sell three acres of blue sky; he has just
as much right to that as he has to the 'street,' but "by
the complaisance of the city authorities he is per
muted to establish and* maintain a monopoly. .
At each of these places you /will find a. taxicab
starter. If you are a regular customer of; the service
and do not respond to his appeal when he makes "the
"sign of the outstretched palm,", and; make that re
sponse about oncein so often, you will; get a service,
that. will inculcate in you the love for walking. If it
is a rainy night you will find that every taxicab is
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engaged, arid a stranger with the potential possibility,;
•of a tip will get, a .machine when you are riot- able ta
On: the other' hand, if you have slipped; the starter
something, from' time totime; in other words, if you
have stood' for the holdup, you will get the best scry
Hoi Polloi Would Stand Along the^Line of
March and Shout "Lareess $. Largess $*;
ice possible, and the nontipper'arid the stranger will
The next one of this gentle band to deal with is the
chauffeur. The taximeter records the* amount the
company will get for the ride, and no one ever has.
made the complaint that it is too little, but for some
unexplained reason the driver has to be taken care of.
Why he should receive a tip any more than the mo
torman" of a streetcar is one of the
things of life. You can ride the first time withoat
paying a tip, but woe be unto you if you ever get the
same chauffeur again. The things he can do to dis-.,
turb your peace of mind are almost without number,
and if you are in a hurry to get to a certain train and
confide this to him he will see that you get the next
FOR A TIP TRUST " •"
Now comes the report that the hotel and restaurant
men are going to take a little tip for themselves. It
may be that they; are .envious of the waiters and, the
checkroom boy. The new plan is to collect the "cou
vert" toll, a custom in vogue in Europe, by which you
are charged for the use of the * knife and fork, the
bread and butter, the sugar in your.coffee. coffee and the oil
and* vinegar for the salad. In other words, you may
be called upon- to pay a tax for sitting at a restaurant
table. It that goes good it is not at all unlikely there
will be a charge for the ice in the champagne bucket!
* - You do not have to dine in restaurants or, ride in
taxicabs to be a victim of this system. "The sign of
the outstretched palm" is in evidence at every apart
ment house. The holdup is not alone by the much
maligned janitor, for he .usually does something for
which he receives a tip, but there is that cheerful lit
tle pirate, the hall boy, who can think of imore. than
20 ways to make life for you a howling wilderness of
woe if the tips do-not come regularly and are not of
sufficient size. Have you ever observed the way a
new boy sizes up the tenants of an apartment house, .
orian;old boy takes themeasure of the new ones and
then looks for ways to annoy, if there is no response
when it is tipping 'time?' .--%> , . , , * \u25a0
'\u25a0'"\u25a0 If "the apartment house/ tipping- stopped with .the
janitor and the.hall boy it would.not.be quite so bad,
but in many places where there is}a : switchboard the
telephoneigirl has to be "seen." She sits there/ usui
ally chewing gum and doing no more -than she is paid v
for doing, and then she'wants to be: tipped,;not; for \
any, special; favor, or service Tendered, but just on gen-/?
principles. /And' whatever the others; may do to',
play even with a nontipper, this young 'woman can
inflict; what amounts-to almost torture rif you do not
stand jfor her little : holdup. She can attend to .a. littler
detail like having the telephone ring during the night (
• or early in the' morning; •\u25a0 she can see that you \u25a0do not
get the right number; can> take pains that, you are
interrupted in the middle of an important conversa
tion, and there are several other things she can do to
make it unpleasant for you. . •
"Is it /better- to fight' thq . system, refuse to pay the:
blackmail demanded and go to the: agent or the own
er of -the: building for relief, or pay, pay, pay?" was a.
question a y young married man who was having his
first: experience with the apartment house band of
pirates asked a group of friends recently' after he had
given his experience and told what it was costing him
for tips. . > _}-, , >
it is the impulse of every man to fight the. system,
at, first. He can go to the agent or the owner of the
building, make. his complaint; arid if his grievance is
a just one he may get the janitor, the hall boy or*the
telephone girl discharged. Then he finds he is no
better off than before.. The <iew ones will be just as
insistent and probably "more careful than the others,
and, while they may not give provocation for another
complaint for a time, a man will soon find that he is
not! getting all the attention and the good service his
neighbors are getting. After a little while he will
find the struggle unequal and the system will have
another victory to. its credit.
There is nothing finicky about persons who take
tips. They never apply a test to the money they get
to see whether it is .tainted. • On the contrary, if
they know of anything that is not quite right they
get more insistent in their demands.
There is a man in New York who lays money on
the races.. He does not run a so called poolroom, for
no one goes to his place of business, but there are
many wealthy men who telephone in their bets, and
they are men who will send along as much as $5,000
on a single race. If he wins they send a check to
him, and if they win he pays off in the same way,
but all the business is done by telephone.
WHERE TIME IS MONEY
The time, is so short between the announcement of
the-odds and the sending of the horses to the post
that it is necessary the telephone service should be as
near perfect as it can be. There are many wires run
ning into this man's office, and for the few minutes
before each race they are all busy.
The wire chief, or. the district chief, or the ex
change chief, or whatever he may be called for that
exchange, has to be tipped every, week or every
\u25a0month, as the case may be, but regularly. The mere
fact that this man is receiving a salary from the com
pany for trying to make the service the; best that it
can be makes no difference to him. He has to have
something besides. It is presumed that this money,
or at least part of it, is divided among the girls of the
exchange who have charge of the wires that go into
this room. . >" '•
The man who pays the tips knows it is "nothing
more or less than blackmail. But if the payment is
delayed for any time there isconfusion in the service.
Wires get crossed or there is a ctftoff in the middle of
a sentence. The; players report that they were unable
to get the number and: the service is generally unsat
isfactory: This continuous annoyance might not make
much difference to the ordinary user of a telephone,
but in a case like the one in question, in which time
is an essential ; factor, , such, service means a large
money loss. This man can not. afford to fight the sys
tem. It might mean -publicity that would ruin his
business, and in any event before he could effect a.
reform the men who exercise their money with him
would/be disgusted at > their failure to get him every
day fand! would find another place to play, so he. pays
with regularity and says, nothing.
It is impossible for persons in any business "to es
cape this insistent appeal for graft in the guise of tips.
If the office boy takes one step from the beaten path
he has to be paid extra, or the next time he will sulk
. and not take the step. The delivery man -from the
•large department store expects; to be" recompensed
when he delivers a' package, although the store pays
him for his services and expends thousands of dollars
: in advertising to get the -tradei .
, ; Take, for instance, an actor appearing in vaudeville*.
In the first place^he has been compelled to pay 10 per
cent of his weekly salary to the booking agency, al;
though under a proviii6n of a Jaw passed at the last
session \ of the legislature \u25a0 this has been reduced to "5
per ; cent. When , he > gets to : the . th eater there . is
nothing to do but 'pay money. The leader of the:
orchestra \u25a0 has to be tipped, : likewise the • property man
and .the scene shifters, and the call boy is there with
the outstretched; palm.. "Any 'rone of /these can- make
• an act go wrong; and make an- actor suffer a/loss in
professional prestige. The actors know this and they
.stand for; the blackmail.- : .. . ,
There is 1 a suspicion that all of the theatrical tipping
is not done in, the 'back of the house. When at tha
opening night it is impossible to get any kind of a
seat at the box office and men are on the sidewalk
selling choice seats at an advance of from SO cent^
to §23 it is just possible that they" have given the gesv
tlemanly treasurer of the theater a sxrall tip. As one
theatrical manager in this city has demonstrated that
ticket speculating can be reduced to a minimum that
does away with much of the annoyance, many per
sons, think the speculators have to hand some money
to persons connected with the theaters or they woul4
not be, "Derating.
The dry goods stores are compelled to pay tips.
The dress makers demand 10 per cent commission on
the sale of all goods their customers purchase. Of
course in the long run that comes out of the pocketJ
of the ultimate consumer, and it is presumed the
merchant in fixing the price of drcs3 good 3 makes an
allowance for a certain quantity to be sold on which
the dress makers will get their tips.
THE BARBER'S TIP
There are few men with the moral courage to re-
fuse to give a tip to a barber, and there are few with
In All Probability There Would Be an
;/: Ambulance Call- C
the physical courage to go back to the same shop
after once refusing. Of all the men Who demand and
receive tips the barber can make it the most unpleas
ant for those who do not pay, provided he can get a
second chance at the man. The bootblack wants a
nickel more than his advertised price, and a manicur
ist can give you a look that will sour milk if a tip is
not forthcoming, although ihe may figure that as pay
for entertaining you with gossip. . % £*•'
Whenever the tipping question is brought up somo
one is sure to say that it is a custom that has come to
us from Europe, and bad as it is here it h worse
there. Any person who has lived in Europe knows
that this is not true. It i 3 customary and necessary
in all European countries to tip the servant*, but a
dollar distributed there in gratuities will get more
and be more appreciated than $10 here. There the
people are grateful "for what they receive, and here
they grumble because it is not more.
For instance, a policeman in London will show
every courtesy to a stranger, and if he be on duty at
a park or art gallery will point out the things of in
terest. He docs not ask anything for thii, but he ex
pects something. Hand him a penny, equivalent to
2 cents of our money; he will thank you, and he ex
pects no more. Think what would happen to a
stranger who, stepping up to a Ntw Yotk policeman,
asked and got the information desired and then hand
ed him 2 cents." In all probability there would be an
ambulance call. If any man wants to try the experi
ment of offering a Broadway policeman 2 cents as a
tip he can undoubtedly make good terms with the
moving picture people.
The same thing applies to persons in, other lines.
Give a hotel porter here the same tip that you would
give one in' Europe and your trunk will hardly live to
tell the tale. You can get excellent service there
for a. week for what it costs to get a pitcher of ice
water in any of the best hotels here. The European
servants expects a. little more from Americans, or
rather they think all Americans fxc millionaires be
cause a few Pittsburg persons and their imitators
from the smaller. and also the larger cities hays been
so lavish in the distribution of money.
; -Why do the American people continue to pay thij
exorbitant tax in the way of tips, and why do they
submit to the continual holdups? One reason is that
the average person moves along the line of least re
sistance, and submission to the extortion means peace
of mind, less worry and the avoidance of much trou
bie. fij&j
There is another reason, and it is the one which
is responsible for the growth of a system which mani
fests itself in the demand for tips in daily life and for
graft in governmental affairs. Every person is look
ing for a special privilege, an advantage over every
other person. That is the reason the man who hand 3
the head waiter a tip expects a better seat than the
man who' does not tip, although the latter may have
a larger check. The man who tips a barber 25 cents
hopes to get more attention than the one. who pays
a dime, although one spends as much with the pra»
prietor of the shop as the other.
It is an evil the law makers of several states hay«
recognized and tried to abolish. It has been declared
by those who have given the subject some study that
it can not be eliminated so long as human, greed
exists. It may be that the time will come when the
people will get angry at these latter day pirates and
will start a movement to put an end to the giving of
tips. It is not' probable that we will see those bright
days until the Pittsburg millionaire can content him
self, with what the ordinary mortals have, and that
means" for a time, at least, we" shall recognize and pay
tribute when we do recognize "the sign of the' out
. strc tencu ~ pcxixn.
The San Francisco Sunday Call