American taxpayers should not be made to
pay for such luxuries. American diplomacy
was never more effective than in the days
when Benjamin Franklin boarded in a Pa
risian suburb, and appeared in plain clothes
among the empty-headed aristocrats of the
splendid Bourbon Court.
But we cordially approve of what he said
against the tipping nuisance. Here it is:
“In maintaining, as one of their firmest insti
tutions, the tipping system, the steamship com
panies manifest a shrewd perception of their own
interests. Tiptakers rarely, if ever, strike. Every
eager tiptaker studies the short and sure route to
the shilling or the pound awaiting his quest in the
liberal passenger’s pocket.
“The tipped servant's vocabulary of lip-grati
tude, his gestures of obsequousness, his methods
of forcing upon his intended victim a series of
subtle and unnecessary attentions, his habitual
air of profound deference—what is all this but
the practice of a profession in which the most suc
cessful need have the least heart or manliness?
Is it not an unhappy, if not degrading, occupation,
from which the great majority following it would
gladly escape? From my investigation, I have no
hesitancy in answering the question in the affirm
ative. And they may—nay, will—become organ
ized in the protective fold of the trade union
movement.
