But two wrongs do not make a right.
THREE KINDS OF EMPLOYERS
Employers who profit by tipping are classified as follows:
1. Those who pay living wages and positively forbid gratuities.
2. Those who pay average competitive wages and maintain a passive attitude toward gratuities.
3. Those who pay minimum, or no, wages, and aggressively exploit the propensity to give.
At present the first class constitutes almost an infinitesimal minority. Here and there in large cities there are barber shops which advertise a "No-Tip" policy, and occasionally a hotel or restaurant.
In the second class are most of the moderate-price places catering to the public. The employers and employees welcome gratuities but do not make them the prime object in their relations with patrons.
The third class includes the high-grade hotels, sleeping car companies, expensively conducted restaurants and like enterprises. This is the class which sets the pace through the patronage of the socially or financially prominent.
A few of the more noteworthy employers who profit by the custom follow:
- The Pullman Company,
- The Hotel Company,
- The Taxicab Company,
- The Transfer Company,
- The Steam Ship Company,
- The Master Barber,
- The Apartment House Owner,
- The Restaurant,
- The Telegraph Company.
That an organized conspiracy exists between employers and employees to exploit the public is realized vaguely, if at all, by the average patron.