The Pee-culiar Story of Why Toilets Are Free in the United States
Every time you go to the restroom in the United States, thank March Fong Eu (MFE), a feminist Asian-American woman in the 1960's.
As an avid bourbon drinker, I often need to visit the restroom several times over the course of an evening. I never realized I was taking the bathroom for granted, until a recent vacation to Italy with my fiancée Sandy.
After a scenic train ride, we had an hour long drive ahead of us to get to our final destination. We both decided to quickly use the train station toilet before embarking on the next leg of our journey.
Spotting the sign for toilets, we both walked towards the restroom when a gruff voice suddenly called out.
“One euro for toilet,” a previously invisible man demanded, pointing to his grungy metal cash box.
Sandy and I looked at each other in surprise because (1) we never paid for a toilet before, and (2) we didn’t have any cash or coins.
“I have a credit card,” I quickly responded, pulling out my credit card. “Do you have a card reader?”
“No…no,” he responded. “Cash.”
“No cash,” I said because it was the truth.
He waved us in. “Okay…go.”
This odd encounter stuck with me even after our trip ended. Returning home, I decided to figure out why toilets were free in America, but not in Europe.
The first record of paying to use a toilet dates back to 74 AD, when Emperor Vespasianus levied a toilet tax on outhouses to fund war efforts and replenish treasury funds.
Civilizations rose and fell over the next thousand years, and people migrated away from rural dwellings and into cities. While this urban migration led to a higher standard of living, it also ignited a public health crisis due to all these people living together in close proximity.
As all humans need to pee and poop, these new city dwellers relied on chamber pots, and disposed human waste into ditches and open waters. This unsanitary practice often led to outbreaks of dysentery, cholera, and typhoid fever.
This public health issue plagued communities until the debut of indoor plumbing in the early 1800’s at the Tremont Hotel in Boston, Massachusetts. Shortly after, the first pay toilet magically appeared. Ostensibly as a way to help offset the cost of establishing indoor plumbing.
It makes sense why there wasn’t an outcry when pay toilets first appeared on the scene. Paying a small fee to use a toilet indoors was infinitely better than using a smelly chamber pot or outhouse.
While indoor plumbing became ubiquitous over time, pay toilets remained because they brought in easy money.
This is where the story splits between Europe and the United States. In Europe, pay toilets still exist as an anachronism. In contrast, pay toilets effectively disappeared in the United States, thanks in large part to the work of a feminist, female Asian-American legislator.
March Fong Eu (née Kong, Fong was the last name of her first husband, and Eu was the last name of her second husband) or MFE for short, was an Asian-American activist born in the right place at the right time.
While I won’t list out all her groundbreaking accomplishments here, she skyrocketed to fame in 1969 when a photo of her smashing a toilet in front of the California capitol in high heels circulated.
MFE’s brilliant publicity stunt called out the inequality in government buildings where urinals were free for men, but women were required to pay for toilets.
While her initial bill in 1969 was defeated, MDF moved on but didn’t forget. In April 1973, she reintroduced her bill to ban public pay toilets. This bill eventually passed and was signed by then-governor Ronald Regan in 1974.
The movement to ban public pay toilets didn’t occur solely in California. Between 1955 and 1972, bills to restrict or eliminate public pay toilets appeared in other states like Maryland, Pennsylvania, and New Mexico. While unsuccessful, these bills were indicators there was a popular movement to get rid of public pay toilets.
In 1973, Chicago, under Mayor Richard Daley, became the first city in the United States to remove public pay toilets of Chicago. [Quick comparison here: While Chicago might have been the first to ban public pay toilets, the ban in California was the first material ban in the United States. In 1973, there was only 3 million people in Chicago, compared to 23 million in California.]
The impetus for Mayor Daley banning public pay toilets was due to community organizer Saul Alinsky and The Woodlawn Organization (T.W.O). As public pay toilets discriminated against poor people and women, Alinsky and T.W.O planned a “shit-in” at O’Hare Airport where African-Americans would protest the fee by paying for a toilet, and then sitting inside for as long as possible with their lunches and reading materials. This would force desperate passengers to relieve themselves in the terminal because no toilets were available.
While this “shit-in” never happened, the threat itself was powerful enough to convince Mayor Daley to get rid of public pay toilets and avoid any bad publicity.
This fact appears to be lost, though, when it comes to other writers. Based on a simple Google search, virtually all articles online focus their pay toilet narrative on The Committee to End Pay Toilets in America (CEPTIA) rather than MFE, Alinsky and T.W.O. Such as the Pacific Standard.
Apparently, four high school students had a greater impact on ending public pay toilets in America, than an accomplished trailblazing female Asian-American California State Legislator and the founder of modern community organizing.
While CEPTIA likely had some impact on the public pay toilet discussion, there are two key problems with the CEPTIA narrative:
- Based on provided figures, CEPTIA claimed membership of 1,400 members who were mainly college students, scattered across five different cities. This translates into average chapters of approximately 280 college students. I find it difficult to believe this small base was enough to galvanize any real change.
- The crux of claiming that CEPTIA was instrumental to ending public pay toilets, is based on correlating a press conference CEPTIA founders held in Chicago, and then one month later, Mayor Daley announced a ban on public pay toilets. As we all know though, correlation does not equal causation.
Somehow, the MFE, Alinsky, and T.W.O. narrative makes a lot more sense than four high-school students getting rid of public pay toilets.
As public pay toilets were slowly banned across different states, this led to all toilets, becoming free.
Pay toilets in the United States were already on their way out the door by the time I was born in the 1980’s. This is why pay toilets were never on my radar. Because by the time I could start drinking bourbon at bars, I could use the restroom whenever I want, without needing a dime in my pocket.
Talking about bodily functions has been taboo for too long. As a result, we haven’t really moved forward as a society since the invention of indoor plumbing. This has led to modern social problems as of 2019, including:
In San Francisco: people are pooping on the streets.
In Seattle: free toilets were used for prostitution and drugs.
In Philadelphia: a man was arrested trying to use the toilet at Starbucks.
In Europe: pay toilets are still prevalent, and highlight a regressive tax on marginalized communities.
In India: women are being raped as they go outdoors.
So let’s get real and start having a real shitty conversation. To start, I present a list below of questions for your consideration:
- Is access to toilets a fundamental human right?
- Should cities be required to build and maintain public toilets?
- When it comes to private businesses, should toilets be allowed for non-paying people?
- How clean and odor-free should these toilets be?
- Who should bear the cost to maintain toilets?
Note: I sent feedback to The Pacific Standard on the attribution error in their article, “Why Don’t We Have Pay Toilets in America?” which attributes all material credit to CEPTIA. I will provide an update if I hear back.
