The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1917-11-20
DOROTHY DIX TALKS
BY DOROTHY DIX
Worlds Highest Paid Woman Writer.

False Pride.
The reason that so many women
are failures is because many business
women are ashamed of their jobs
Lately I-have been thrown with a
woman who is well born and well edu-
Gated, and until two years ago moved
in fashionable social circles. Then her
husband suddenly died, and as they
had spent everything he made IN
keeping up with their rich friends,
she was left destitute.
She studied stenography and was
given a place in a business office by
man who had often been her guest in
her palmy days, but instead of being
proud that she had enough intelli-
gence, courage and independence to
strike out for herself instead of be-
coming dependent upon the grudg-
ing charity of others, this silly woman
was Inundated to death because she
had to go to work.
1 think 1 have never seen anything
more pathetic than her false pride, a
pride that made her boast continu-
ally of having known this or that
member of the four hundred and of
having spent a week end at some mil
lionaire's palatial country home, or
taken trip on some trust magnate's
yacht. 1t made you want to weep to
hear her recount her past social tri-
umphs in one breath and in the next
wall because most of her former
friends and acquaintance had drop
ped her as if she had been suddenly
smitten with the leprosy as soon as
she had become poor and needy.
This woman had no interest in her
work, no ambition to excel in it. Every
particle of brain and energy she had
was concentrated on hanging on to
what little social position she had left
kRaniner 11n
had taken up Stenography as a fad to
occupy her thoughts and keep her
from grieving too much over the loss
of her husband, instead of having
taken it up as a business by which
to make bread and butter.
This poor ladys case stirred my
deepest compassion, not because fate
had forced her to become a producer
instead of just a waster and a spender.
Tor believe that none but those who
work have any excuse for living, but
because her false pride made the way
SO hard for her and doomed her to
ultimate failure.
She missed the thrill and low of in
dependence because she was ashamed
10 be known as a working woman She
| missed that deep satisfying exaltation
| that the craftsman has in good work
done because she despised the labor al
which she toiled. She missed the
u
ship that she might have had among
| her fellow workers because she scorn-
ed them as beings of inferior social
| caste. She skunk into her business
office as If she had been going to
| some disgraceful rendezvous and were
trying to escape recognition, and she
tortured herself wondering what some
| brainless cad she had once known
would be saying of her.
Is it any wonder that such a Wo-
man holds her place only on suffer
ance that will soon be worn thread
| bare? Or that her work is bad? Or
that she will never get dollar more
| salary, or be advanced to any higher
1 place? No human being ever did any
| work well who was ashamed of it
1t is only pride that puts the punch in
any labor that makes it great. To
make success, you have to believe
that the thing you are doing is the
finest and best thing in the world and
that you are the luckiest person alive
to have been elected to do it.
People complain that Women's
work is SO often bad work. This is
true, and their work is bad because
they are ashamed of it and have nc
interest in it, but the fault does not lie
with the individual woman SO much
as with the false teaching of which
| women have been the unfortunate vic
Tins
Men have had the ideal of indie
discomforts TO living in untidy rooms
| been taught that work was glorious
! that it was a shameful thing for g
| man to pass his life in an idle round
of pleasure, and that the most admired
| man was the man who did his work
best. That is why men boast of being
| lawyers, doctors, merchants, manu-
facturers, mechanics.
On the contrary. women have beer
| taught that if it isn't actually dis
| f11l
least a terrible misfortune. When we
hear of a woman who has gone into
! business we draw down our mouth
and poor Mary her, and poor Mar.
feels as Inundated as if she had com
| mitted a crime. That is why womer
| will starve before they will go t.
work. and why, when they do work
they so often try to work in secret anc
| try to camouflage it under the name
of charity.
How many of us buy cakes from
pathetic old ladies who pretend tina
thew are selling them for friend wht
doesn't want her name known? Ol
how many of us have our fine lingerie
made by some woman VINO says Una
she makes her missionary money tina
wav because she feels that the none.
she has made thru a personal sacrlIlc'
is especially blessed and efhcaclous II
converting the heathen?
How many of us have endured lh'
discomforts of living in untidy roomi
land eating meals that We're never OF
time or decently cooked because W.
we're staving with those who tool
s'paving guests but VINO would nave
eWooned with horror at the idea OF De
ing known as keeping a boarding
house or a hotel?
Now Won can't get over the teach
ings of centuries in a minute, and i
is going TO take time for women to rls'