WAITERLESS HOTELS

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXVI, Issue 8178, 20 July 1912, Page 11

WAITERLESS HOTELS

THE RECENT TROUBLE IN NEW 1 YORK. 4000 MEN OUT. COLLEGE YOUTHS OFFER THEIR SERVICES. The strike of four thousand waiters at thirty-five hotels in New York, including the Astor, Plaza, Waldorf, Regis,, Vanderbilt, Knickerbocker, Rector’s, and the Savoy, aroused mixed feelings. la no other city in this Continent or in Europe are such extravagant tips the general rule, says a cabled message to London on June 3rd, but these extortions often find their way into the pockets of the head waiters, wUo in many cases treat the men under them as if they were Siberian prisoners. These bosses have been known to fine them as much as twenty dollars a week under the most frivolous pretexts, and the daily newspapers are full of cartoons representing a typical waiter surrendering the almighty dollar for dropping a spoon, spilling soup, or finishing a cup of cold coffee on th‘e sly. The waiters are egged on by Mrs Bose Pastor Stokes, and Air W. D. Haywood, the moving spirit of the' industrial workers’ world, who are telling the public it will do the average New Yorker no harm to do without his usual twelvecourse dinner and himself invade the kitchen and eat bread and milk. PUBLIC NOT SYMPATHETIC. It is doubtful if Vhe waiters have gone the right way to win popular sympathy. They took paticular pains to march out of each hotel just after the soup had been served. For every guest who considered this a good joke several thousands were exasperated. Hundreds of strikers marched up Fifth avenue, halting before those restaurants whose employees have held aloof from the movement. They howled in Italian, German, French, or broken English for their comrades to - quit. A collision with the police occurred, and pistol shots rang out. A dozen arrests were made, but no windows were smashed. The Hotel Association defiantly refuses to recognise the men’s union. Its president says, “Our hotels are the finest in the world.. Do you.think we are going to let the waiters run them? Not on your life. We are importing hundreds of Southern negroes for distribution as required.” A lighter side to the dispute is seen an scores of college men volunteering for service, though their role as strike-breakers has already induced the "New York World” to protest against "the example of University students opposing the aspirations of a humbler class for a higher standard of living, which is calculated to confirm the impression that the tendency of college education in this country is undemocratic." MANICURISTS HELP COLLEGE BOYS. Pretty manicurists, who are as much a feature of American hotel life as the telephone girl, have thrown aside their implements, and are reinforcing the college boys. Inasmuch as carabeat shows are nowadays just as important as dinner menus, the fun in striking diningrooms is waxing fast and furious. The American humorists are surpassing themselves. One, describing a dinner at a fashionable hotel, says:—’‘When we ordered a simple repast every lobster, every clam, every egg, every young sprig of celery in the place walked out. The asparagus stalked out too on the question of tips, and the onions came out strong, bringing tears to every eye.” But while the public does not take the strike seriously, men who submit to much tyranny daily are. getting desperate, and unless a compromise is soon arranged the situation will bo no laughing matter.