Life, 1910-01-13 · page 31 of 36
Life — January 13, 1910 — page 31: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page combines advertisements with a reader's letter criticizing tipping culture in early 20th-century America. **The Letter's Context:** A Buffalo reader praises Life's recent satirical sketch about waiters' behavior, proposing a dedicated "Waiter's Number" issue. The writer complains that tip-demanding waiters represent a broader systemic evil—that restaurant managers deliberately underpay staff, forcing customers to subsidize wages through tips. A specific anecdote describes a waiter refusing a 10% tip as insufficiently generous, which the writer calls an "openly brazen attempt to humiliate." **The Satire's Point:** Rather than shame individual tippers or waiters, the letter argues Life should expose restaurant *managers* as "grafters" who exploit this system. The writer suggests ridiculing wealthy patrons who enable it through excessive tipping, rather than blaming working waiters—"you can't suck blood out of a lemon." **Modern Relevance:** This reveals that American tipping culture's exploitative structure and moral debates are century-old problems, not recent developments. The page also features period advertisements for Whiting Papers and Pears' Soap.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
mind, Irama, h put- ned, -made nm ran eaders, nent. > into % ——__$ um — When you think of writing think of WHITING = 7 Nearly a half century of successful experi- ence in the art of paper-making is a guar- atee of the excellence of the Whiting Papers. The reputation of their papers is workl-wide, and three great modern mills ae kept busy producing them. They are made in textures and surfaces to suit every taste, and are sold by all first-class sationers in every good-sized city or town in the United States. FOR FINE CORRESPONDENCE OR FOR GENERAL BUSINESS USES WHITING PAPERS ARE STANDARD WHITING PAPER COMPANY New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston os THE BEST SELLER To tur Epitor oF Lire: Dear Sir:—1 write to commend heartily the sketch in your Xmas num- ber, by Young, illustrating the attitudes of a waiter. It is the best thing I have scen on the subject and about the only thing I have seen anywhere on what scems to be a fruitful subject for satire. 1 would like to suggest, along with your special numbers, a “ Waiter’s Number " of Lire (quoted in advance). Of all the insidious nuisances I know of, the tip- demanding waiter and the ticket specu- lotor are the most brazen in their de- fiance of written and unwritten laws re- garding good conduct—deportment, etc. But I wish to remind you, and all good people who hate these human lecches, that, as your Dramatic Editor shows the ticket speculator up to be merely the tool of a crooked manager, so may it be said of the insinuating waiter, that he is really only one of the tentacles of the restaurant octopus. The evil is spread- ing. But recently a waiter in this city refused a 10 per cent. tip on a bill amounting to $5.00, saying that he couldn't “appreciate it.’ You know what that meant. It was an openly brazen attempt to humiliate the man who paid the bill, before his friends— but it didn’t succeed. That particular waiter was guyed out of the room and later out of the restaurant. In Buffalo we're not quite so EASY—not quite— as you New Yorkers. I would like to see you apply some of your satirical cleverness to a crusade on the managers of various hotels and restaurants, barber shops, ctc., who tolerate, or rather en- courage this pauperism by paying their servants such small wages. It is a Knotty problem, but it deserves atten- tion, Matters have reached a stage where no man who is not wealthy can afford to cat in places where special at- tention is given to good cooking and good service. Charges for everything are very high and a bill for the lightest kind of a breakfast always includes charges for “ service."” Now, I am not so dense that I cannot sce how seemingly impossible it is to get at this evil, but it is just such evils that we should “get and I know of no better method than to shame the man who gives a tip; shame him more than the waiter can; fight the leech with his ewn weapon. Show up the managers of hotels as grafters in connivance with their menials; show how they are pau- perizing themselves by encouraging pau- rerism. Go in and ridicule the man- agers and the people who throw away money like millionaires; leave the waiters alone; you can’t suck blood out of a lemon; strike at the root of the evil instead of hacking at a fibrous growth which turns the edge of the finest steel that was ever made. Beat it into the skulls of those spineless ones who (Continued on page 108) 107 Beauty From a woman's point of view, beauty isa quality that enables her to successfully appeal to the admiration of others—men and women. She never fully succeeds, however, if she neg- lects her complexion, which is the real foundation and funda- mental principle of beauty. With Pears Soap there is an immediate freshen- ing response when the skin feels the touch of this famed beauty soap. It is nature stimulating nature, every par- ticle of Pears’ being pure and refining. The woman who daily uses Pears’ gets all the beauty into her complexion that she can desire. The World’s Best Aid to Complexional Beauty comicbooks.com