South Bend news-times. (South Bend, Ind.) 1913-1938, 1915-04-23
Seeing America
First
BY Fred Kelly.

Found in Diary:
Western money is not like eastern
money. Just as silver dollars are a
curiosity in the east, paper dollars
are almost equally rare IN the west.
BY the time a banknote has travelled
10y easy stages from the east TO the
west II looks 50 soiled and seamy that
the first banker TO get hold OF II Is
ashamed 10 pass II out of his grilled
window. In due course IL is shipped
back east
The traveller in the west, If he
has any money left at all, is weighted
down with silver dollars. He yearns
to spend them just for relief from the
sheer physical strain of toting them
about. Likewise he itches 10 spend
his gold money lest he lose it. And
If by chance he should get hold OF a
little bunch Of banknotes he hastens
10 spend them, too, because of their
unsanitary appearance
Thus it is that money seems TO
move just about twice as freely in
the west as in the east. The eastern
tightwad Of today becomes the west
ern spendthrift Of tomorrow. There
is little about western money for one
TO cling TO.
You ask a cashier in a hotel or store
to change $40 bill and he is just as
likely as not TO hand out 10 silver
dollars. He may offer you a gold
piece and only five pieces of silver, but
If he chooses to shove out a stack of
heavy, bulky, clicking silver money,
he does so with entire nOnchalance.
One afternoon L saw a woman ship
ping with a wee little lace purse and
wondered all the rest of the day
where she would have carried her
change If she would have occasion to
break a $40 bill.
The next time l have 500 at enc
time, l shall get il all in one bill and
then ask a hotel cashier to change il
just for the experiment OF the thing.
If he takes a notion to give me SO sill
vcr dollars and one half dollar and
quarter and a dime and a nickel,
ne will do so; l am certain of that.
And having done so he will go right
ahead figuring at his ledger without
cracking a smile. 1t will never occur
TO him that there is any reason why
a man shouldn't carry SO silver dol
lars and a few subsidiary coins in his
change pocket
Many a hotel cashier of course has
only just moderate sense of humor
TO start with-only a trifle more than
if he were the room clerk.
Just as money travels more freely
in the west, western people travel
more freely also. 1t is the exception
W AAAlU a NCSltAH uldll W hO lldS hOI
been across the continent Yet east
erners who have never seen the Pa
ciic are common enough. This is
partly due to the fact that great
many westerners were at one time
fasteners. But that is only one rea-
son. Towns are farther apart in the
west, and naturally, the farther apart
they are the greater the distance one
must travel to go from one to another.
One might almost lay down a fiat rule
that the distance between towns,
or in fact between any given points,
has a great deal to do with how far
apart they are. Be that as 1t may,
westerners are accustomed to distance
and think no more of travelling 500 or
l 900 miles than New Yorker does OF
journeyins to Brooklyn for Sunday
dinner with a relative. 1t is usually
necessary to travel 500 miles TO get
to any place at all. And in some
places / have in mind you would not
be any place even after you got there.
1 can give an idea OF the western
view of travel by quoting something
that was told me by Congressman
Stout of MontaDs:
Zone day, a numhSr of years ago"
related Stout, 81 +DaEd that by dint
Of work and econOIDc 1 had accumu-
lated about 81, 500 !" ready money.
That evening my VIE and 1 held
long conference alb, >. what TO do
with it. We though. of various in
vestments, railroad stocks, real es-
tate. and so on, and had about de-
cided to buy some town lots in a new
section. Then all of a sudden 1t
popped into my head that we had
never been TO New Orleans. The next
morning I inquired and found out
that our $500 would take the entire
family from Lewiston, Mon, TO New
Orleans and return. That seemed to
settle the question Of what to do with
the money TO the satisfaction Of all
concerned Two days later we all set
out for New Orleans. There was no
reason in the world why we should
go there except that we had never
been there. But as we had become