The Washington herald., 1912-01-26
WHEN BAD LUCK
COMES YOUR WAY
Investigation Will Show Mis-
management the Cause.
Hy DOROTHY DIX.

By DOROTHY DIX.
The other day a wise man who had just
come out Of the West was expounding to
me his philosophy of life.
This man, who is now g land king and
a cattle king in Oregon, was a poor lad,
and he has accumulated all Of his vast
possessions by his own efforts.
When started out as a young boy"
he said, my father gave me little
bunch Of calves-the poorest, most miser-
able little beasts you ever saw. not high
er than a table. But along with them he
gave me something that was a thousand
times more valuable than the calves. He
gave me this piece Of advice. He said:
Son. when bad luck comes your way and
just seems to pursue you, stop and look
around until you find out where you are
mismanaging things
And" continued this man, who began
with nothing and now owns $4,000 acres
OF land, and literally the cattle on a thou
sand hills, Il have never known my
fathers rule of success to fail. Whenever
things have seemed to go against me and
bad luck to follow me, L have only had to
investigate a little 10 find that all the
trouble was with me, myself Ny bad
luck was simply my bad judgment or my
mismanagemeHt or my lack OF care or
Thank you" said l, you've told me
something I'll never forget" And /
went home and on my typewriter 1
printed out those words of wisdom in
great big capital letters ana stuck them
up on my mirror where ] would LIE sLre
TO see them:
When bad luck comes your way and
Just seems TO pursue you. stop and
look around until you find out where
you are mismanaging things.
The Secret of Success.
Here is the mystery of luck laid bare.
Here is the secret OF success. We are
our own luck, and it is good or bad as
we make il. The whole theory OF luck
is a myth that our enemies devise to
account for our prosperity IL We get
along and that We invent for ourselves
to salve our vanity II We fail.
The woman whose bread is as heavy
as lead and almost as deadly TO the
stomach as a dose Of cyanide. COM
plains fretfuIly that she has had such
bad luck with her baking. Nonsense!
Luck doesn't enter into cooking. It's an
exact chemical process where the putting
together Of certain substances, and the
subjecting them TO certain degrees Of
temperature, invariably produce the same
result II. instead of knocking her luck,
she would look and find out where her
mismanagement is she would md out
that the fault was hers, and waste no
more Of her husbands money in spelling
good food.
When YOU take your expensive cloth
10 a dressmaker, she receives II with
cryptic smile and says: Il do hope I'll
have good luck with it and your dress
will turn out all right" And you cross
your fingers and also 60 away breathing
prayers to chance. But Il isn't matter
OF luck whether a gown hikes up in
the back and down in the front, and is
tight Where II should be loose, and loose
where it should be tight. It's the dress
makers fault. It's her mismanagement
and lack Of skill Furthermore, the dress
makers who don't put their faith in luck.
but in knowledge of their trade, can ask
what they please for their work, and
women are glad TO pay them even extor-
tionate prices.
When nine mothers out Of ten talk to
you about their babies they breathe a
pious sigh and say: Il hope and pray
that I will have good luck in raising my
children, and that Johnnie and Susie will
turn out to be a good man and woman"
The Result.
And then the~4nother will let johnnie
and Susie break every law of health
or wonder at her bad luck IL they are
sickly, or she will permit them to grow
up on the streets. uncontrolled little hood
lums that have never been taught obedi-
ence or truth or honor, or any principle
of right living. and she will bemoan
herself when they go TO the bad for the
i'll luck that she has had with her chill
dren.
There's no luck with children. It's a
question of the mothers management. 1t
is true that We cannot escape death and
disease altogether, but we can materially
lessen both by intelligent management,
and as for the way children turn out
morally, that is absolutely within their
parents hands.
All Of US know men VINO complain about
having such bad luck about keeping sit
uations. They are always out of a job,
and they lay 1t all on chance. Their
hoodoo is not luck. 1t is their own in
The man who works with
his eve on the clock and who jumps for
his hat on the first stroke of the hour for
quitting time: the man who does the least
he can for the pay; the man who can
never get along with his fellow-workers:
the man who never learns anything, but
makes the same mistakes day after day
and year after year, isn't the victim of
some occult force of destiny when he
gets fred. He's his own bad luck, and
plenty of it.
Nor IS IL a matter Of chance that when
two merchants start side by side, with
the same capital and the same prospects
of success, that one lands in bankruptcy
and the other in the millionaire class.
OF, course. the failure always claims that
he was the victim of bad luck, but If he
had the courage to go back and look the
situation squarely in the face he would
see that It was his bungling mismanage-
ment that was the cause Of disaster. He
let clerks steel from him. He offended
customers. He was a poor collector and
a bad buyer. He was more interested in
baseball or politics than he was in the
store, and so the inevitable happened, and |
luck had nothing to do with It.
We are our own luck, and we make Il |
good or bad. Don't forget that, and when |
you get discouraged and think that some |
jinx Is on your trail, bounding you down, |
Just remember the words of this wise |
man Of the West:
when bad luck somes your way and |
just seems to pursue you, stop and look |
around until you find out where you are |
things"
Microbes and Flatirons.