It would give us a
State working smoothly, and therefore an efficient instrument for social
ends. Most important of all, it would promote that security of economic
interests which is essential to social progress.
A STUBBORN RELIC OF FEUDALISM
There is a persistent question regarding the distribution of property
which is of peculiar interest in the season of automobile tours and summer
hotels. Most thinking people acknowledge a good deal of perplexity over
this question, while on most parallel ones they are generally
cock-sure--on whichever is the side of their personal interests. But in
this question the bias of personal interest is not very large, and
therefore it may be considered with more chance of agreement than can the
larger questions of the same class which parade under various disguises.
The little question is that of tipping. After we have squeezed out of it
such antitoxic serum as we can, we will briefly indicate the application
of it to larger questions.
Tipping is plainly a survival of the feudal relation, long before the
humbler men had risen from the condition of status to that of contract,
when fixed pay in the ordinary sense was unknown, and where the relation
between servant and master was one of ostensible voluntary service and
voluntary support, was for life, and in its best aspect was a relation of
mutual dependence and kindness.
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