He added, and I felt that he had me also in mind, "Some easy-going natured people believe that they tip the nearest itching palm to them because of their sympathy with the poor. Reflection should teach them that there can sometimes be real charity without public demonstration." True, church people might, with this purpose, give through their own congregational agencies. In London, the American traveler wishing to do the best with his withheld tip-appropriation, might send it to the Westminster Children's Aid Society; In Rome, to the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals; In Berlin, to the semi-public lodging houses. Everywhere, trade-unionists can always give first to the genuine and pressing claims of their own organizations. But, of course, if the tipper, gives, not from motives of good-heartedness, but mere vanity, all advice is thrown away on him. The hotel keeper will continue growing rich on him and despising him. Other folks in Europe may have good reason to tell him, what a plain spoken Swiss citizen told a friend of mine: "You Americans with your dirty dollars are ruining my country." VANITY, ALL IS VANITY! Mr. Gompers in this chapter from his book has shed much light on the ethics, economics and psychology of tipping. The deliberate, shameless exploitation of the public by employers and employees is revealed. No ground to stand upon is left to the tip givers except vanity, and the pernicious influence of the custom, to patron, employee and employer, is so unmistakable that the doom of the custom is as certain as was slavery, when the American conscience once squarely faces the issue. Hotel and restaurant managers in our cities have employed European waiters upon the theory that the native American has too much independence and self-respect. The European waiters have multiplied the tip-giving propensity in America and have established their undemocratic sovereignty over our public hospitality. Inasmuch as a certain element of Americans think that the last word in social propriety originates in Europe, when these European servitors are transplanted, gold lace and all, to America, they hasten to enlarge their tips to the point which they assume these servitors consider "proper." The astonishing feature of the European situation is that the European patrons of hotels do not themselves tip within a tenth of the largess bestowed by American tourists. The American tourist is fair game to the European hotel, which trebles its regular rates the moment he appears. A native of the country, however, can have identically the same accommodations for one-third of the American's bill, and his tips are a bagatelle in comparison. The situation may be changed by an organization of employees, but reform will come most speedily whenever the public, which pays the bill, decides to withhold the tribute. XVII THE WAY OUT