PUBLIC OPINION
One of the first aims of such an organization would be to bring public opinion to bear upon city, state and national governments to inspire them to clean house in regard to tipping. No government employee should be permitted to accept any compensation other than his salary or wages from the government. Mail carriers, policemen, garbage collectors, guides and other government employees are paid adequately and gratuities to them from the public are indefensible, in any country, and supremely so in the American democracy.
The public, of course, will need to revise its attitude toward these and all persons who serve them. The feeling that a traffic policeman whom you pass in your automobile every day should be remembered with a gift of money or anything else substantial at Christmas, or upon any other occasion is false sentiment. He is due nothing except courtesy all the time from the public, which, through taxes, already has provided his compensation. The feeling that a mail carrier whom you see daily, or a garbage collector, must be similarly remembered is equally false sentiment. The ideal is a relation in which patron and employee, public and government employee, entertain mutual opinions of self-respect, and regardless of how distasteful this may be to class sense, or aristocratic impulses, it is the American standard and the right standard.