The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1917-08-30
Dorothy Dir Says
Girls Letters.
BY DOROTHY DIX
Worlds Highest Paid Woman Writer


Girls Letters.
1t is good news to hear that the
general government is going to put
stop to the maudlin and pernicious
between women and
men convicts in penitentiaries and
jails
Strange as it may seem to the aver
age healthy minded individual So
ciety for promoting letter writing be-
tween respectable women and the
male inmates of penal institutions
exists. 1t is called the Oriental
Esoteric Literary League of Washing
ton, and it sends out circulars to wom-
en- drawing a pathetic picture of the
hind the bars, telling how greatly they
would be cheered and uplifted by re-
ceiving letters from some pure young
girl or some woman with a warm, ten
der, sympathetic heart, and asking
such women to adopt a convict ana
write to him regularly.
And all over the country thousands
of silly geese of females who think
only with their emotions have re-
sponded to this appeal and carried on
a heart-to-heart correspondence with
gentlemen whose permanent addresses
are Sing Sing or Joliet or Leaven-
worth, or Atlanta. or Trenton, or some
other place which is a winter and
summer resort for murderers, burglars
and white slavers.
1t seemed to these women that 1t
was such a little thing to write d let
ter and, of course, they reasoned that
it must be terribly dull being shut up
in prison, not being able to, go to pink
teas and bridge parties and matinees
and SO on, and it must be perfectly
lovely to get letters, especially from
strangers. So they picked out their
pet convict and proceeded to cheer
him UP with libationS of ink, without
ever stopping to think that the mere
fact that the men to whom they were
writing were convicted criminals was,
of itself. an all sufficient reason why
no decent woman should correspond
with them.
Neither did they pause to reflect on
the trouble and danger they were lay
ing up for themselves. For naturally
the very first thing that the burglar
or the white SLAYER would think of
doing after he served out his term,
would be of repairing at once to the
home of the gentle correspondent who
had manifested so warm an interest in
him while he was in prison and who
should stand ready. by all rules of
logic, to extend him a warm welcome
and helping hand
What such a woman would really
do when her ex-convict appeared on
the scene with his prison pallor and
his furtive look would be to scream
for help. But it would not make her
sleep the sweeter to recall that the
man possessed a thick packet of more
or less sentimental letters that she had
written him, which would prove eX-
ceedingly interesting reading to her
dear five hundred friends.
That, the law has to stop with its
heavy hand the correspondence be-
tween mice" women and criminals is
"a commentary on feminine intelligence
that makes every sensible woma n
EbluSh with shame for her sex. Also
it calls attention anew to a feminine
weakness. against which every woman
should guard herself, and every moth
er. in especial, should guard her
daughter. ~
~ And that is letter writing. Ink goes
to aANomans head like a strong drink
and steals away her reason. her judg-
| ment and her good taste. Let a wo-
man set herself down at a desk with
a ream of fair paper spread before
her, san inexhaustibfe ink pot and G
|; sn Tooth glowing pen, and the thing.
she writes she wouldn't believe OF
I herself the next day, even when she
sees it down in black and white over
her own signature. SD
! She has tossed discretion to the
! winds. She has kissed reserve and
feminine coyness and reluctance good
bye. She has confided secrets sh.
never meant to tell and written thing
that she would have bitten her tongu,
off before she would have said. wors,
still she has put the loud pedal on al
! of her emotions and sentiments ant
! exaggerated them to the highest de
gree.
contrived the puzzle of feminin,
psychology knows. Perhaps the hes
guess at the riddle is that every Wo
man is at heart a poet and novels
and that it is only in her letters tina
she finds a vent for the bubbling ant
/ seething sentimentality and romano,
/ that is bottled up within her.
/ She hasn't the nerve to express her
iself in high fallutin' phrases in fac,
to face talk with anyone. Nor in or
binary conversation could she rhap
sodiZe over nature or paint lurid pic
lures of her own soul hunger ant
yearnings after the whatness of tn,
/ what. She knows people would laugl
at her.
/ But when she sits down to writ
a letter all restraints are off It's tn
open season for a woman making a
/ big a fool of herself as she can ant
going as far as she likes. Thus
, happens that a woman will write
man letters breathing the most pas
sionate vows of devotion when sh,
really isn't in love with him at all. O
/ she will pen discriminating thing
that she has to buy back with goot
money, mot because she was sweep
off her feet by the destinations of tn,
man, but by the fascinat ton of writing
i In neither case did she mean wha
she wrote, but it just looked so goot
! on paper she didn't have the strength
of mind not to send it.
Hence these tears, and much of tn,
thriving trade in blackmail Nor il
the fatal folly of letter writing con
fined to women, as witness the mis-
SiVeS that form Exhibit - and FIX
! hibit B in breach of promise cases il
which elderly milliona1res have signed
themselves your itty bity little Bo,
| Blue" and have been guilty of othe
epistolary rashness that the jury as
sesses in hard dollars and cents.
! In one of Rosa Broughton's novel
| there is depicted a charming heroin
Ny.hn a great flirt Will. 1uhnle q T