Is the American Hotel a Failure

Southland Times, Issue 12730, 14 October 1893, Page 1 (Supplement)

Is the American Hotel a Failure

Their Ihpfri system’,is,que of .the things of which Americans are proudest; bqt Europeans are /not. unaqipaous in their ,praise of itheso caravanserais,. whßrfr'tlio guest is sometimes apt to be treatedaa if hewerean inmltoofS'reformatory institution rather than a person who pays his way. And Americans themselves have jidmetbing to say .against their hotels; <as General Rush 0. Hawkins, <who makes candid observation on the subject inithe North American Review. Says the General: — The defects in the American system of hotel-keeping.are general and organic, for which no particular landlord or manager can or should be held responsible. _ Not one in fifty among them knows anything, practically, about cooking) s Q d they have to depend upon .the supposed knowledge qf.a lot of German,French, Italian, and Irish upper soullions, who come over hero and easijy pass themselves off for chefs. They are cheap, and that is the reason why the aver, age American landlord and manager employs them. They are no more cooks than they ar® In European kitchens they probably trimmed the joints, peeled potatoes, stirred the soup kettlds, and washed the onions; but were never permitted to interfere with a joint, entree, or a sauce. But like other classes in Europe, ’■ they act upon the theory 'that -anything ;is good enough fortbe Americans, who lijro to be humbggged)iSrid tbe American hotelkeeper is quite willing to take this particular class of impostors at their word. Cipoul, the French tenor, in one of Ijis published letters about America, said :|- ‘This is a wonderful country, with tfie loftiest mountains, the longest rivers, and the largest Jakes, but without a #ouf» Fifty years ago judge Grimke, a noted holder of Circuit Courts in South Carolina, ordered tea at a backwoods hotel; shortly ' after it was served he sent for the landlady and astonished her by saying; ‘Madame, df this be tea bring me coffee, and if this be coffee bring me tea.’ This command could with propriety be given in nine-tenths of our hotels to-day. The usual hotel coffee would easily pass for some kind of medicine, and often the supposed tea defies recognition. The general aim seems to be to hoodwink patrons with a show of great liberality—hence the dinner bill of fare with from eighty to 125 items upon.it; and the breakfast menu with from forty to seventy-five. Such a spread of printer’s ink looks large, panders to national vanity, andcoavinces thenalive that heisnot being swindled. It is quite unnecessary to write that not one in ten.of those products of the kitchen named in the bill of fare are properly prepared or decently served. The vegetables are usually cold and soggy, often slopped with a nasty-looking and worse»tasting sauce; the joints are usually tough and cold; the flesh-made diehea (entrees), with high-sounding French names, neither taste nor smell like anything wo have ever seen before; the sweets are often the better part of the dinner; but the fruits, in the majority of instances, are the cheapest and poorest that can be found. When asked why the hotels in America do not adopt the Continental table d’hote dinner, the answer always is, ‘Americans won’t have it that way, they want more liberality;’ and yet during the past twentyfive yearel have met hundreds of Americans at the better French, Swiss, Italian, Belgian, and German hotels, and have hoard but a few find fault .with the. food: or service. On the contrary, T have-known many of them to ask, ‘Why cannot our hotels be managed like these ?’ The ‘.why’ is |a hotel secret. It costs less to feed guests the American way than the other, and so long as that fact remains we can hope for no reform. And besides,-to’servo a table d’hote in the better Frepch.style requires,good taste, knowlecjgejgnd .certain skill—qualities that can only be acquired by a long experience in first-class establishments, such as American hotel proprietors and managers know nothing of. The American landlord applies the enforced theory of Colonel Sellers to the everyday actualities of hotel keeping. He has convinced himaolf that bis guests do not need really palatable food; They only want the illusion—i.e, to see a certain liberal dieplay of items with high-sounding names on the bill of fare, and dishes filled with some sort of a beyond-understanding substance, to correspond with a certain name, which can be supplied when ordered. No matter whether or not it is actual food'fit to eat, it represents an item printed, and fulfils one part of the contract existing between the landlord and the guest. The relations.existing between a guest and proprietor of hotels can % bo expressed in a very few words. The former arrives, the attendiogroom clerk hands him a pen, bo writes his name, and if unknown to the clerk,is shown the most undesirable room in the house. . This is what is called ‘trying it on,’ and if the guest does not ‘kick’ he is entered upon the account books for not less than five dollars per day, exclusive of sundries. At the end of a certain stated period he receives hie bill, but,between the.rqgwtrat on of his name and the reception of his bill ho receives very little attention ; be has become a paying cog in one of'the numerous wheels which constitute the machine known as an American hotel, .where comforts are unknown and exorbitant charges aro tho rule.

But there is another view of tho question which ia given in the game Review by Mr William J. Fanning, who waxes enthusiastic over the magnificence of the hotels of the Republic :—‘During the past two years there have been opened in tbe city of New York four new hotels,the aggregate ccst of which, including furniture, was upwards of ton millions of dollars. They aro veriiabls palaces, both in architectural design and interior splendour,and yet they may be said to be only in keeping with a largo,number of hotels with which our citizens have for years been familiar. In proof of this, and as a notable fact, it may be mentioned that in the municipal tax levy for the current year the highest valuation put upon any building but one, in the whole city of New York, is placed upon a hotel that has enjoyed a world wide fame for more than thirty years; an! another curious fact is, that the two hotels bearing tho highest assessed valuations are two of the oldest in the city, thus illustrating the high character maintained by the hotels of New York for inauy generations. It may hetruly said that there is no other feature of our mttnicipal life that ban given to onrimperial city such world wide fame as the magnificent hoti Is of which her citizens are justly proud. The stranger within our gates may fiod many eubjecte for adverse criticism, but he invariably admits that in the matter of hotels Now York stands unrivalled among the cities of the world.’