Evening star., 1939-07-09
Tourists Teachinq
Silver Dollar Bell
To Use Bills
Civic Pride Of West
Resists Inroods Against
Cortwheei, However.

SALT LAKE CITY, July 8.-The
dollar bill is making gradual in
roads on the "cartwheel's" popu-
larity out West. where men are men
and silver dollars wear holes in
their pockets.
The banker, the baker, the coin
collector and just plain Mr.. Guy
on-the-Street agree unanimously:
Blame it on the tourist.
Ever since the "49er" began toting
his wealth about in the form of gold
dust in a leather pouch the West
has been a hard money country.
Old timers maintain the high
way robber could claim his share of
the credit for making the West
erner coin-carrying individual,
and the popular belief is quite
plausible.
Weight Became Insurance.
Stage and freight wagon holdups
yielded thousands upon thousands
of dollars to the bandits of that day.
Badmen discovered that stealing
the money was much easier than
eluding posse with a strongbox or
sack full of heavy coins slung on
the saddle. The West, therefore.
clung to coins as a sort of holdup
insurance, figuring that bills would
facilitate the getaways.
In the rough and tumble days.
when the pony express and then
the overland stage we're the only
means of transportation aside from
the slow freight wagon trains, the
moving of large amounts of cumber-
some metal money from the Phila-
delphia mint was not feasible. So
the San Francisco mint started
coinage in 1854
But aside from the question of
using money too bulky for bandits
to handle, there was civic pride,
and it still exists to an unbelievedly
large extent.
The gold coin is gone, called in
by the Government in 1888, but
Westerners believe that by stressing
the use of silver from the dime to
the dollar increases the demand and
buoys the price of the newly mined
metal, source of much of the wealth
in many Western States.
Held False Thinking.
This is entirely a false viewpoint,
a banker pointed out, adding that
for each dollar silver certificate it's
equivalent in silver reposed in the
United States Treasury vaults.
The civic pride touched closely the
feelings of the hard bitten miner or
lumberjack, who up until recent
years received his weekly salary in
gold or silver.
Gould you imagine. for instance, i"
unused one white-bearded old vet
eran. "a husky hard rock miner
bellylng up to the bar of a Butte
or Carson City saloon, hollering for
slug of bourbon and slapping
down dollar bill in payment?
If the bouncer didn't toss him
into the street some Cousin Jack
(miner) would"
The same holds true today in the
gambling houses of the West.
The man behind the can or
sloplng tin tray fitted to hold stacks
feels considerably sissy counting out
dollar bills to pay off winners.
Years of experience have left the
game operator an adeptness in
matching the customers hard
money with a measured sweep of
the arm that leaves the exact win
nlngs stacked neatly alongside of
the bet.
Bills Quickly Replaced.
True, some customers start with
bills, but they are quickly exchanged
by the shiller who helps the operator
conduct the game.
The hotel clerk in any Western
city can testify to the sad decline
of the big silver coins.
One fashionably dressed Eastern
matron, checking out. bags plastered