THE IDEAL LAW
The ideal act will be evolved through these repeated approximations and through experience. In a broad outline it must include (1) a clear definition of a tip, (2) a statement of a patron's right to service for one payment exclusively to the proprietor, (3) a prohibition against subterfuges in the charges whereby patrons may give tips, (4) the wages paid by an employer to be considered as presumptive evidence of his attitude toward tipping, (5) a requirement that employers shall give patrons a definite understanding of the service to which they are entitled, (6) any actual extra service to be compensated for direct to employer after being appraised and charged for by the employer, (7) the giving of money or gifts to employees to be taken out of the class of "charity" and "personal liberty," (8) the employer, the employee and the patron to be subject to the same penalty for violating the law and the conviction of any one of the three to be followed automatically by the conviction of the other two for the same offense, (9) the law to be applicable to any employer and any employee in any relation with the public or with individuals, in private home or public place, (10) a prohibition against operating any convenience for the public in which the rate of payment shall be left to the whim of the patron, such as cloak rooms, the tariffs to be displayed and exacted impartially of every patron if the employer assumes that patrons must pay extra for the service, (11) an adequate provision for acquainting patrons with the law through posting it or otherwise directing their attention to it, (12) the granting of licenses to operate public service places only upon condition that gratuities are not to be permitted, directly or indirectly, (13) the granting to a patron who has been denied fair service of redress in addition to the punishment of the guilty employee and employer, (14) an adequate scale of penalties, fine or imprisonment for any violation of any part of the law.
It is not presumed that if a law were drawn to embody the foregoing provisions that the tipping custom would be strangled. Only actual tests in the courts will produce the ultimate intent. Of course, if employers and employees and patrons were actuated by a desire to maintain their relations upon a basis of self-respect so circumstantial a law would be unnecessary, but many of them are not thus actuated and a minute restraint will be imperative at the outset and until a normal ideal of democracy is cultivated.