The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1909-01-01
NEW YEARS.

This is the day that rolls around
every twelve months when new
cycle of time, characterized as a year,
| begins its swing, and it is generally
the occasion when persons prepare
themselves with thoughts and other
things to make a new start in life,
or undertake the continuance of the
start they have made, If it be a good
one, with renewed energy and force.
OF course there is nothing to prevent
an Individual from rearranging his
private affairs on a new scale, if they
need it, on any day in the year, but
custom, the efficacy of which may
be questioned, has rather determined
that new efforts in the various af
fairs of life shall be postponed until
the first of each new year. And so,
this is the time for the making of
new resolutions in the ordering of
ones life in every variety of ways.
Perhaps there is considerable good in
tho custom. Certainly there can be
no harm. If there was not a day
rather set apart for the beginning of
things over again in a better way.
there would likely be a good many
people, sorely needing to change their
ways who would forget all about it.
All sorts of fun has been poked
from time to time at those fragile
creatures of humanity who wait, and
even pine for New Years to come in
order that they may throw off one
or more of their personal habits which
they have rightly decided are injur-
ious, that is if they have ever stopped
to think Of them at all. A good deal
of this Joking is deserved, for the res
olutions made to give up this or that
personal habit on certain day, when
its development has taken years, is al
most certain to be shortlived. But
as has been remarked in these col
unns before, it is really far better
to make New Years resolutions of
this sort and break them fithin a
month or a week than it is not to
make any at all. 1t is easier to re-
make a resolution of this kind and
stick to it for a longer time after it
has once been made and broken than
been made.
Surely nothing can be lost in the
contemplation of the first day of
new year as time when desirable
changes of one sort or another can be
made in a persons life. Certainly
there is great room for improvement
III JIle lie anu TIE WOIk OI SoCIl anu
every individual If there was not,
the future of the world would be dark,
indeed. And the thoughts occur that
in looking over these things that much
individual and collective benefit will
accrue if everyone goes about his
work at hand with a little more
earnestness and energy, if everyone
develops a broader and more sensible
view of the important affairs of life.
if everyone is more solicitous for the
welfare of his neighbor, If everyone
gives vent to the better feelings that
are within him.
Certainly the new year of 1909
dawns with great brilliancy for the
people of this most favored land. A
general prosperity is becoming ram
pant again. Desirable as it is, there
are dangers within it. 1t may lead
to the extravaganza and recklessness
which brought on the financial panic
of little more than year ago. And
it will be a good plan for those who
are to participate in the new pros
perity, as will almost everyone in the |
land to a greater and less degree, to |
proceed in their business affairs with |
caution, to plant this prosperity not |
on a boom basis but on a substantial |
which will make it secure |
and permanent.