The Struggle Over Tipping on Northern Railways
Facing the threat of replacement by white workers, a labor group of Black Pullman porters in St. Paul organizes to abolish the 'tip evil' to save their jobs.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Are people who travel on the railroads running out of Spokane to be freed from the porter's tax—the tip? Fearful lest the roads running out of St. Paul east and west should follow the lead of the Union Pacific and discharge all colored porters employed on trains, it is announced that the Young Men's Sunday club of St. Paul, the membership of which consists of colored porters and other colored men, has undertaken to prevent the northern roads from taking such action. The method adopted by the club is to discourage the tip system. The leaders in the movement openly avow that the only way in which the colored porter can now hope to retain his position on the trains is to abolish the tip evil. The group argues that unless the salary of the porter is increased, he cannot support himself and family without gratuities. This movement comes after the Union Pacific fired their Black porters and replaced them with white porters, while simultaneously increasing their base salary by $12.50 per month. The Union Pacific rule prohibiting the solicitation or acceptance of tips went into effect last Friday.
“The only way in which the colored porter can now hope to retain his position on the trains is to abolish the tip evil.”
This 1904 report highlights the racialized economic precarity of the Pullman porter profession, where employers used 'no-tipping' policies as a pretext for purging Black workers. It reflects a chilling intersection of labor rights, racial exclusion, and the origins of the modern tipping debate.
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