The Itching Palm E-Book

William R. Scott

• Herausgeber: neobooks
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Deutsch

Seitenzahl: 141

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2026

Beschreibung

"The Itching Palm: A Study of the Habit of Tipping in America" by William R. Scott delves into the economic, ethical, and psychological aspects of tipping in the United States. Scott critiques tipping as a modern form of servility that contradicts democratic values, highlighting its widespread practice and economic implications. The book explores the origins of tipping, its impact on society, and advocates for a reevaluation of this custom. Through historical references and compelling arguments, Scott challenges the moral and societal implications of tipping, calling for a shift towards fair compensation and equality in service industries.

Leseprobe

William R. Scott

The Itching Palm

A Study of the Habit of Tipping in America

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Inhaltsverzeichnis

Titel

I FLUNKYISM IN AMERICA

II ON PERSONAL LIBERTY

III BARBARY PIRATES

IV PERSONNEL AND DISTRIBUTION

V THE ECONOMICS OF TIPPING

VI THE ETHICS OF TIPPING

VII THE PSYCHOLOGY OF TIPPING

VIII THE LITERATURE OF TIPPING

IX TIPPING AND THE STAGE

X THE EMPLOYEE VIEWPOINT

XI THE EMPLOYER VIEWPOINT

XII ONE STEP FORWARD

XIII THE SLEEPING-CAR PHASE

XIV THE GOVERNMENT AND TIPPING

XV LAWS AGAINST TIPPING

XVI SAMUEL GOMPERS ON TIPPING

XVII THE WAY OUT

Impressum neobooks

I FLUNKYISM IN AMERICA

The Itching Palm

A Study of the Habit of Tipping in America

William R. Scott

"Oliver Cromwell struck a mortal blow at the universal heart of Flunkyism," wrote Carlyle of the execution of Charles I.

Yet, Flunkyism is not dead!

In the United States alone more than 5,000,000 persons derive their incomes, in whole or in part, from "tips," or gratuities. They have the moral malady denominated The Itching Palm.

Tipping is the modern form of Flunkyism. Flunkyism may be defined as a willingness to be servile for a consideration. It is democracy's deadly foe. The two ideas cannot live together except in a false peace. The tendency always is for one to sap the vitality of the other.

The full significance of the foregoing figures is realized in the further knowledge that these 5,000,000 persons with itching palms are fully 10 per cent of our entire industrial population; for the number of persons engaged in gainful occupations in this country is less than 50,000,000.

Whether this constitutes a problem for moralists, economists and statesmen depends upon the ethical appraisement of tipping. If tipping is moral, the interest is reduced to the economic phase—whether the remuneration thus given is normal or abnormal. If tipping is immoral, the fact that 5,000,000 Americans practice it constitutes a problem of first rate importance.

Accurate statistics are not obtainable, but conservative estimates place the amount of money given in one year by the American people in tips, or gratuities, at a figure somewhere between $200,000,000 and $500,000,000!

Now we have the full statement of the case against tipping—five million persons receiving in excess of two hundred millions of dollars for—what?

It will be interesting to examine the ethics, economics and psychology of tipping to determine whether the American people receive a value for this expenditure.

II ON PERSONAL LIBERTY

The Itching Palm is a moral disease. It is as old as the passion of greed in the human mind. Milton was thinking of it when he exclaimed:

"Help us to save free conscience from the paw,Of hireling wolves whose gospel is their maw."

Although it had only a feeble lodgment in the minds of the Puritans, because their minds were in the travail that gave birth to democracy, enough remained to perpetuate the disease. In Europe, under monarchical ideals, a person could accept a tip without feeling the acute loss of self-respect that attends the practice in America, under democratic ideals. For tipping is essentially an aristocratic custom.

TIPPING UN-AMERICAN

If it seems astounding that this aristocratic practice should reach such stupendous proportions in a republic, we must remember that the same republic allowed slavery to reach stupendous proportions.

IF TIPPING IS UN-AMERICAN, SOME DAY, SOMEHOW, IT WILL BE UPROOTED LIKE AFRICAN SLAVERY

Apparently the American conscience is dormant upon this issue. But this is more apparent than real. The people are stirring vaguely and uneasily over the ethics of the custom. Six State Legislatures reflected the dawning of a new conscience by considering in their 1915 sessions bills relating to tipping. They were Wisconsin, Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, Tennessee and South Carolina.

The geographical distribution of these States is significant. It is proof that the opposition to the practice is not isolated, not sectional, but national. North, Central, South, the verdict was registered that tipping is wrong. The South, former home of slavery, might be supposed to be favorable to this aristocratic custom. On the contrary the most vigorous opposition to it is found there. Mississippi, Arkansas, Tennessee, and South Carolina simultaneously had laws against tipping—with the usual contests in the courts on their constitutionality.

The Negro was servile by law and inheritance. The modern tip-taker voluntarily assumes, in a republic where he is actually and theoretically equal to all other citizens, a servile attitude for a fee. While the form of servitude is different, the slavery is none the less real in the case of the tip-taker.

Strangely enough, bills to prohibit tipping often have been vetoed by Governors—notably in Wisconsin—on the ground that they curtailed personal liberty. That is to say, a bill which removed the chains of social slavery from the serving classes was declared to be an abridgment of liberty! "Oh, Liberty, how many crimes are committed in thy name!"

The Legislature in Wisconsin almost re-passed the bill over the Governor's veto. In Tennessee and Kentucky bills have been vetoed for the same given reason, though Tennessee in 1916 finally had such a law in force. In Illinois, the law was framed primarily with the object of preventing the leasing of privileges to collect tips in hotels and other public places, and not against the individual giver or taker of tips.

SHORT-LIVED LAWS

The courts have negatived such laws on much the same grounds, so that anti-tipping laws thus far have been, generally, short-lived. The reason is, of course, that popular sentiment has not been behind the laws in an extent sufficient to give them power. Judges and executives simply have yielded to their own class impulses, and the pressure from organized interests, to suppress the legislation. When the public conscience finds itself and becomes organized and articulate, they will have no difficulty in finding grounds for declaring regulatory laws constitutional. The history of the prohibition of the liquor business is a parallel.

PERSONAL LIBERTY

Personal liberty is a phrase that is being redefined in America in every decade. In its broadest sense it is interpreted to mean that a man has the right to go to perdition if he so elects without neighbors or the government taking note or interfering.

Anti-liquor laws in the early days of the temperance movement fared badly from this interpretation, just as anti-tipping laws fare to-day. But as public sentiment crystallized, and judges and executives began to feel the pressure at the polls, a new conception of personal liberty developed. In its present accepted sense, as regards liquor, it is interpreted to mean that no citizen may act or live in a way that is detrimental to himself, his neighbor or his government, and his privilege to drink liquor is abridged or abolished at will.

The right to give tips is not inalienable. It is not grounded on personal liberty. If the public conscience reaches the conviction that tipping is detrimental to democracy, that it destroys that fineness of self-respect requisite in a republic, the right will be abridged or withdrawn.

III BARBARY PIRATES

The American people became fully aroused on one occasion to the iniquity of tipping—on an international scale.

In 1801 President Jefferson decided that the United States could tolerate no longer the system of tribute enforced by the Barbary States along the shores of the Mediterranean.

Before our action, no European government had made more than fitful, ineffectual attempts to break up a practice at once humiliating to national honor and disastrous to national commerce. Candor requires the admission that we, too, submitted for years to this system of paying tribute to Barbary pirates for an unmolested passage of our ships, but the significant fact is that American manhood did finally and successfully revolt against the practice.

By 1805 our naval forces had brought the pirates to their knees and all Europe breathed grateful sighs of relief. Even the Pope commended the American achievement. The practice was contrary to every dictate of self-respect.

TRIBUTE

These pirates of Algiers, Tunis, Morocco and Tripoli did not pretend to have any other right behind their demands for tribute than the right they could enforce with cutlass and cannon—a right ferociously employed. It was not robbery in the ordinary sense of the word. They demanded a fee based on the value of the cargo for the privilege of sailing in the Mediterranean, and this being paid, the ship could proceed to its destination. Ship-owners soon began to figure tribute as a fixed expense of navigation, like insurance, and passed the added cost along to the ultimate consumer.

This practice of paying tribute was a system of international tipping. The Barbary pirates granted immunity to those who obeyed the custom, but made it decidedly warm and expensive for those who dared to protest against it—just as do our modern pirates in hotels, sleeping cars, restaurants, barber shops and elsewhere.

If a ship refused to pay tribute it was sunk, and the sailors went to slavery in the desert, or to death by fearful torture. President Jefferson could not see any basis of right in the position of the Barbary States that the Mediterranean was their private lake through which ships could not pass without paying toll. He sent Decatur to register our protest.

With the Pinckney slogan: "MILLIONS FOR DEFENSE—NOT ONE CENT FOR TRIBUTE!" the American naval forces made good our position. The tips that skippers of our nation had been paying to the pirates were saved and the custom soon was abandoned by other nations.

To-day, the old battle cry is reversed to read: "Millions for tribute—not one cent for defense!"

It is certain that a greater tribute is paid in one week in the United States in the form of tips, than our merchantmen paid during the whole period that they knuckled to the Barbary pirates.

In New York City alone more than $100,000 a day is paid in gratuities to waiters, hotel employes, chauffeurs, barbers and allied classes. But New York has reached a subserviency to the tipping custom that is amazing in a democratic country.

This vast tribute is paid for not more real service than the Barbary pirates rendered to those from whom they exacted tribute. It is given to workers who are paid by their employers to perform the services enjoyed by the public. If the Barbary pirates could see the ease with which a princely tribute is exacted from a docile public by the tip-takers, they would yearn to be reincarnated as waiters in America—the Land of the Fee!

IV PERSONNEL AND DISTRIBUTION

The Itching Palm is not limited to the serving classes. It is found among public officials, where it is particularized as grafting, and it is found among store buyers, purchasing agents, traveling salesmen and the like, and takes the form of splitting commissions. There are varied manifestations of the disease, but whether the amount of the gratuity is ten cents to a waiter or $10,000 to a captain of police, the practice is the same.

This is a partial list of those affected:

Baggagemen

Barbers

Bartenders

Bath attendants

Bellboys

Bootblacks

Butlers

Cab drivers

Chauffeurs

Charwomen

Coachmen

Cooks

Door men

Elevator men

Garbage men

Guides

Hatboys

Housekeepers

Janitors

Maids

Manicurists

Messengers

Mail carriers

Pullman porters

Rubbish collectors

Steamship stewards

Theater attendants

Waiters

The foregoing list is not offered as a complete roster of those who regularly or occasionally receive tips. Nearly every one can think of additions, and at Christmas the list is extended to include money gifts to policemen, delivery men and numerous others.

THE TIP-TAKING CLASSES

At the last Census, in 1910, there were 38,167,336 persons in the United States, out of a total population of ninety-odd millions, who were engaged in gainful occupations, that is, who worked for specified wages or salaries. Of this number, 3,772,174 persons were engaged in domestic or personal service, or practically ten per cent. of the industrial population.

This means that in round numbers 4,000,000 Americans of both sexes and all ages were engaged in the lines of work specified in the foregoing list, with certain additions as mentioned. These are the citizens who profit by the tipping practice.

Since 1910 the growth in population to one hundred millions, and the steadily widening spread of the tipping practice will increase the beneficiaries of tipping to 5,000,000. An idea of the relative distribution of the total may be obtained from the statistics of fifty leading cities. The numbers represent the tip-taking classes in each city.

CITY

NUMBER

CITY

NUMBER

Albany

8,000

Minneapolis

19,000

Atlanta

23,000

Nashville

15,000

Baltimore

48,000

New Haven

9,000

Birmingham

16,000

New Orleans

37,000

Boston

61,000

New York

400,000

Bridgeport

5,200

Newark

17,000

Buffalo

25,000

Oakland

11,000

Cambridge

7,500

Omaha

10,000

Chicago

135,000

Paterson

5,000

Cincinnati

30,000

Philadelphia

105,000

Cleveland

31,000

Pittsburgh

41,000

Columbus

14,000

Portland

17,000

Dayton

6,500

Providence

14,000

Denver

17,000

Richmond

15,000

Detroit

26,000

Rochester

13,000

Fall River

4,000

St. Louis

56,000

Grand Rapids

5,500

St. Paul

16,000

Indianapolis

19,000

San Francisco

44,000

Jersey City

14,000

Scranton

6,000

Kansas City

24,000

Seattle

19,000

Los Angeles

26,000

Spokane

7,000

Lowell

5,500

Syracuse

9,000

Louisville

23,000

Toledo

9,500

Memphis

19,000

Washington

43,000

Milwaukee

22,000

Worcester

9,000

In all other cities, towns and hamlets there are proportionate quotas to bring the grand total to 5,000,000. Any estimate of the daily tipping tribute for the whole country necessarily is only an approximation, but $600,000 is a conservative figure. At this rate the annual tribute is around $220,000,000.

IN NEW YORK ALONE

Taking New York with its 400,000 persons who profit from tipping, the leading classes of beneficiaries are as follows:

Barbers

20,000

Bartenders

12,000

Bellboys

2,500

Bootblacks

3,500

Chauffeurs

12,000

Janitors

25,000

Manicurists

4,500

Messengers

1,500

Porters

15,000

Waiters

35,000

The tipping to these and other classes varies both in amount and regularity. Waiters and manicurists in the better-class places receive no pay from their employers and depend entirely upon tips for their compensation. Barbers and chauffeurs are classes which receive wages and supplement them with tips. Sometimes the employer will pay wages and require that all tips be turned in to the house.

It is a common feature of the "Help Wanted" columns to state that the job is desirable to the workers because of "good tips." Thus the employers are fully alert to the economic advantage of tipping, and wherever it is practicable they throw upon their patrons the entire cost of servant hire.

The extent to which employers are exploiting the public is realized vaguely, if at all. The vein of generosity and the fear of violating a social convention can be worked profitably, and they are in league with their employees to make it assay the maximum amount to the patron.

In a restaurant where the employer has thus shifted the cost of waiter hire to the shoulders of the public, the patron who conscientiously objects to tipping has not the slightest chance in the world of a square deal in competition with the patron who pays tribute, although he pays as much for the food.

A waiter, knowing that his compensation depends upon what he can work out of his patron, employs every art to stimulate the tipping propensity, from subtle flattery to out-right bull-dozing. He weaves a spell of obligation around a patron as tangible, if invisible, as the web a spider weaves around a fly. He plays as consciously upon the patron's fear of social usage as the musician in the alcove plays upon his violin.

This is a particularly bad ethical and economic situation from any viewpoint. The patron, getting only one service, pays two persons for it—the employer and the employee. The payment to the employer is fixed, but to the employee it is dependent upon the whim of the patron. To make this situation normal, the patron should pay only once, and this should cover both the cost of the food and the services of the waiter. Theoretically this is the present idea under the common law, but actually the patron is required, through fear of well-defined penalties, to pay twice.

Naturally, if the $200,000,000 or more annually given to those serving the public should be withdrawn suddenly, employers would face the necessity of a radical readjustment of wage systems. In many lines wages would be increased to a normal basis, either at the expense of the employer's profits, or through additional charges to patrons. Before going further into the employer phase of the practice, the economics of tipping in individual instances will be an interesting study.