The Outstretched Palm

Hemingway characters do not like tipping; they would rather be served out of love. Through approximately half of Across the River and into the Trees, the aging colonel and his young mistress' are meticulously cared for by assorted Venetian factotums, all of whom are really friends. When the colonel slips an extra bill to a young second waiter, the tip is reproachfully returned--an event about as plausible as the Grand Canal turning to Valpolicella. John O'Hara, a Hemingway disciple but less sentimental, is not so much concerned with friendship between servant and master as with correctness; his elderly club members know that it is as gauche to overtip as to undertip, and they seem to get away with shiny half-dollars that would be flung into the faces of lesser men. J. P. Marquand also knew, along with the late George Apley, the virtue of the correct tip, but he saw the grim portents of the future in Willis Wayde, an obnoxious and insecure climber who plied bellboys with folding money where the quick, light slap of metal would have been sufficient.

Between them, these three social novelists define the American attitude toward tipping, a perennial presence which--like wet martinis, shaving, the traffic problem and Christmas cards--can be resisted but can probably never be banished. The Hemingway attitude is what everybody yearns for, but no one finds; the O'Hara attitude is what everybody ought to stick to, although the situation is increasingly complex; and the Marquand menace is what more and more people face. On their summer travels across the U.S. this year, Americans will run into many regional tipping differences. New Yorkers will be overcome when a Southern taxi driver not only thanks them for a 10% tip but actually opens the door, and Californians will find that Yankee New Englanders still throw quarters around as if they were manhole covers.

But in general, tipping is inexorably on the rise. It is straining to break the 15% limit and in many cases has crashed through, leaving a sense of poignant nostalgia for the days when Emily Post was advising such favored characters as Jim Clerking, Sally Hiborn and Mrs. Kindhart that one never tips "less than 25^ in a restaurant with tablecloth on table."

The Experts. The steady growth of tipping is not simply an extension of rising prices. At a time when material abundance is shared in by more and more people, the real feeling of luxury is increasingly based not on goods but on service. Tipping seeks to buy that feeling --usually in vain. In crowded restaurants, in huge, barracks-like apartment buildings, at the mercy of deliverymen or repairmen, in dozens of other situations that make the individual powerless, he seeks feebly to reassert himself through tipping.

Today there are at least 800,000 restaurant employees in the nation who collect tips amounting to about a billion dollars a year, and an additional million or so people in the other service trades whose tip income is beyond estimate. Restaurant owners continue to pare employees' pay to the bone; even at Manhattan's high-priced "21," waiters' salaries are about $42 a week, while perhaps two or three times that amount comes from tips.

In developing the art of seducing the customer out of his change--it ranges from a hatchick's friendly pat on the shoulder to the Greenwich Village waiter who pursued a nontipper out into the street crying: "No tip! No tip!"--employees around the country have by now established their own argot. A nontipper is universally called a "stiff," while in Boston he is also a "fishball." in New Orleans a "frog," in Seattle a "mossback," in Kansas City a "clutch," in Chicago a "snake" or a "lemon." Someone free with money is a "live one" ,or a "mark."

At the Palmer House in Chicago, a convention city of great tipping expertise, a guest wearing crepe-rubber soles or a golf hat is marked down as a stiff; if his shoes are highly polished and he carries an attache case, he is a live one. Among the best tippers, say the Chicago experts, are furniture men, restaurateurs, clothiers and Shriners; the worst are doctors, Lions Club members, traveling salesmen and politicians. Cadillac owners and people with lots of luggage tend to be poor tippers. And perhaps no one is held lower than the "sanitation specialist." the hotel guest who hides in the bathroom when the bellhop arrives with the suitcases.

Grand Illusion. Ironically, notes a Detroit restaurateur, a well-known stiff often gets better service than a mark, because he is considered a challenge, and waitresses will do everything but tuck his napkin under his chin to see if he can be unstiffened. This points to the larger fact that trying to buy service through tipping is an illusion. The nouveaux riches, or Willis Waydes, have always been far less well served than the notoriously careful aristocratic rich, celebrated in O'Hara. The way some people tip at Boston's Ritz-Carlton, it is easy to see that the Brahmins have managed to hold onto their wealth over the years by prudently avoiding the outstretched hand; after all, why should one pay 15% interest on one's dinner when one's investments bring in only 5% or 6%?

This attitude serves to underscore the idea that service is a matter of organization, morale and tradition, first, and of tipping last. Some of the best service in the U.S. is given by untipped but thoroughly indoctrinated airlines stewardesses, whose performance is far superior to that of heavily tipped ship stewards and of most other service employees on the ground. And no one suggests that store sales personnel, generally terrible across the U.S., could be improved through tipping.

The Basic Rules. Chances are that, for all their complaints, it is the tippers themselves who perpetuate the custom, not because it really gains them better service but because it gives them a certain sense of power and comfort. Every headwaiter in the country knows that a man with a girl whom he wants to impress is an easy mark. Women, who in general are notorious mossbacks, often wildly overtip their personal hairdressers, whom they want to keep happy as their confidants, part-time analysts, gossipmongers and flatterers.

The whole thing has come to seem so inevitable that it is sometimes hard to remember how, in revolt against Old World customs, the U.S. used to consider tipping demeaning. Many states passed anti-tipping laws (they were repealed after Iowa's Supreme Court ruled the law unconstitutional in 1919), and there were dozens of anti-tipping leagues. Today some people are fighting hard to revive this spirit. Says U.C.L.A. Sociology Professor Edward C. McDonagh: "Tipping is 'out of season' in our society, but few of us have become aware of it. Why give a gratuity to someone who has Blue Cross coverage?" And in Boston a few years ago, an adman established "Tippers Anonymous," which sells members a $1 book of 30 yellow slips. On each is printed a message explaining that Tippers Anonymous is "dedicated to improving service and restoring its reward." The tipper checks off the grade of service (excellent, good, fair, poor) and leaves the slip for the waiter with an appropriate tip. So far, Tippers Anonymous* boasts 800 rather lonely members.

Aside from Tippers Anonymous, one answer often suggested is a straight percentage tip added to restaurant and hotel bills--as is the custom in most of Europe. But many customers fear that this would only make surly service people surlier and take all personal incentive out of the tip. And besides, Americans are such habitual tippers that they even add at least 5% to the built-in gratuities in Europe anyway.

There is, in short, no final solution to the tipping problem--only added ramifications, such as the spread of tipping recently to children's summer camps, boat marinas, suburban swimming clubs and the like. There are perhaps only two basic rules to follow. As a traveler, when in New York don't do as the New Yorkers do: be yourself and tip everywhere as you would at home. In general, don't be a Willis Wayde; when in doubt, take a chance on undertipping and see what happens. It may really be more fun to be a frog than a mark.

* Address: P.O. Box 451, Back Bay Annex, Boston 17, Mass.

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