A fourth badge is the fact that domestic servants are made not only to
feel but to acknowledge their social inferiority. Not only deference
but even servility of manner is demanded as of no other class, and this
in an age when social and family relationships are everywhere becoming
more democratic, when reverence and respect for authority are sometimes
considered old-fashioned virtues, when even undue freedom of speech and
manner are permitted to other classes. The domestic employee receives
and gives no word or look of recognition on the street except in meeting
those of her own class; she is seldom introduced to the guests of the
house, whom she may faithfully serve during a prolonged visit; the common
daily courtesies exchanged between the members of the household are not
always shown her; she takes no part in the general conversation around
her; she speaks only when addressed, obeys without murmur orders which
her judgment tells her are absurd, “is not expected to smile under any
circumstances,” and ministers without protest to the whims and obeys
implicitly the commands of children from whom deference to parents is
never expected.
A fifth mark of social inferiority is the fact that domestic employees,
especially those connected with boarding houses, restaurants, and hotels,
are generally given a fee for every service rendered.
A self-respecting man or woman in any other occupation is insulted by the
offer of a fee. The person who through mistake offers a fee to a person
belonging to his own station brings upon himself only ridicule and
embarrassment. The shop-girl who works for $7 a week spends half an hour
in a vain attempt to match for a customer a bit of ribbon; but she would
be justly indignant, as would be her employer, if she were offered a fee.
In hotels and restaurants, the larger the establishment and the more
the price of every article should warrant exemption from such outside
dues, the greater is felt to be the pressure for their payment. Nowhere
else is the democratic principle “first come first served” so flagrantly
violated, and nowhere else would its violation be tolerated. Feeing
is a system of begging that cannot be reached by charity organization
societies, a species of blackmail levied on all who wish good service,
for which there is no legal redress, a European and American form of
backsheesh that carries with it the taint of the soil from which it has
sprung. It has its origin in snobbishness and it results in toadyism
and flunkeyism. It is objectionable because it makes the giver feel as
humiliated in giving as the recipient ought to feel in receiving. It
puts a price on that kindness and consideration which ought to be the
“royal bounty” in connection with every paid service, it destroys genuine
sympathy and unselfishness, it creates an eye service and introduces
into every branch of domestic service an element of demoralization and
degradation that is incalculable. It takes from the person receiving it
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