Rensselaer Republican, Volume 16, Number 10, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 November 1883 — Colored Waiters. [ARTICLE]

Colored Waiters.

“Colored men are thßT'iErier Vaitefe bv' nature, and are peculiarly adapted to servitude," said the proprietor of one of Chicago's most prominent hotels. “Colored people are not ambitious, like Caucasians, and they are not always scheming and planning lor better positions. No matter how incapable a white man may be for any other occupation lie always considers that he is above being a waiter, is never content, does not, take proper interest in his work, and is generally looking out for a better position. On the contrary, the colored man is satisfied—he lias reached the height of his ambition when he has been employed at a first-class hotel and can wear a steel-pen broadcloth coat and a white vest.” - ... ■ “Do they get good wages?” “Head-waiters get from S6O to $75 a montll; second waiters, S4O; third waiters, S3O ; general waiters, $25; and Captains get $2 a month extra. Board is included, but not lodging. A first-class heath waiter can always get $75 a month, which, with our excellent board, is almost equal to a bank clerkship. The first-class restaurants.pay waiters $1 a day; and there is our greatest trouble; their hours are twelve or fourteen, while ours average ten, with very little to do during late supper hours. The colored waiter will come to the office and say that he wants to visit his sick mother in Cincinnati, or go to see his wife in St. Louis, and must quit. He prefers to tell this lie rather than the truth, yet lie knows we do not believe it, and that if lie reqjly were to tell the truth we would suspect something else anyhow. If we discharge a colored waiter it does not affect him in the least. He will take it philosophically, really appear as if-be were relieved, and in a few days will turn up at some of the other hotels as a waiter in all his assumed dignity. A white man will be indignant, then despondent, and perhaps not find a situation for a month, but the colored man always gets in somehow. ... y... “No; they rarely go to second-class

hotels or cheap restaurants,” con tinned the race delineator. “Dignity is everything with them. The average African must be in a first-class hotel, where he can wear a white vest; otherwise he will act as chief bottle-washer in a barroom or work for a private family at much less wages than he could get in a second-class hotel or cheap restaurant. This he considers in a measure retire 7 ment from public life. And, again, the cheaper restaurants and hotels largely, employ white labor, some of which is very cheap. White and black waiters cannot work together in a dining-room. It is something like an oil and water mixture. There is a feeling of superiority on one side, and while the blacks feel their inferiority as to white people they assert their equality in this instance. But separately the colored waiters are undoubtedly the best in the world, and really are the only people qualified for waiters.” —Chicago Tribune.