The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1917-05-10
Dorothy DIG Says
BY DOROTHY DIX
Worlds Highest Paid Woman Writer
Endow Somebody.


some service to humanity. and the
thing we envy the rich most is not
| their fine houses or fast motors or
sumptuods apparel, but the opportu-
nifty that their wealth gives them to
lift the burden of woe of the world.
We, too, would like to build hospi-
| tails and endow colleges and give Ii
braries, but, alas, philanthropy, as
we see it, is the diversion Of million
| aires. At the most we have only a
few hundred dollars that we could
possibly spare, and that wouldn't even
buy the door plate on a splendid char
ity.
Now it is true that we can not en-
dow an institution, but did you ever
consider endowing some one individ-
ual? Compared with a Carnegies or
i a Rockefeller'S, that may seem very
piker philanthropy, but if every one
of us who could, did his or her bit in
this respect, as they say in England,
we should bring about the millennium
At any rate, it is certain that any
man or woman, with even SO much as
one hundred dollars to spare, plus
some human sympathy and common
| sense, can change the life of some
other fellow creature and turn it
from misery to happiness, and from
| failure to success.
will see the most of the poverty in
| the world is due to ignorance. A man
or woman is shiftless and of no ac-
count because he or she has never
been taught how to do any kind of
work well enough to make it worth
while. The way to help these people
| is not to give them money, which will
| pauperiZe them, but to help them to
help themselves by putting them in
the way of making a decent living
| Sometime you can do this by the ex-
/ penditure of little money. Often
| you can do it by merely finding out
what particular thing an individual
has talent for, and getting him or
her started in the right road
Many people have no line on their
own abilities. They can't even see
what they do best, or decide on their
own preference, and they need some
one with a clear vision and a strong
hand to guide them on the first lap
of the climb up the mountain of sue
cess.
Even if you have no money to give
YOU can endow some weaker brother
or sister with some of your strength
But if you have a little money to
spend
Did you ever notice that little club
footed baby that toddles about the
alley door of the newsstand where you
buy your paper every day? 1t is a
brfght-faced little thing, with a
CHEEKY smile. Too bad that it is go
ing to have to hobble thru life on
crutches. There's not much that a
cripple like that can do-keep a little
stall and exc out a bare existence
probably, forever cut off from all the
activities in which an able bodied man
may take part.
Why don't you endow that baby
with a surgical operation that would
strafghten the poor little feet? You
can't build a hospital, but you can
make one human being, at least, bless
you until his dying day for having
saved him from the curse of lame
ness.
There's that nice lad, the son of the
woman you boarded with in the coun-
try last year. He graduated with
honor at the top of his class in high
school, and he's crazy to go to work
and help his mother, but he doesn't
know what to do. Moreover, no one
VIII give him job because he doesn't
know how to do anything. He is like
merchant trying to sell wares that
he hasn't got.
Endow that boy. Send him to a.
good shorthand school and let him
make a cracker-jack stenographer of
himself Plenty of people will want
MIN then, and, instead of being a mis-
erably paid village clerk all his days.
you will have put him where he has
the chance of going on up to the
places where Mr.. Cortelyou and Mr.
Loeb and dozens of other rich and
prominent men, who were stenogra-
pliers, have gone.
You have made rather a pet of that
bright little Office boy who is always
on the job, who never has to be told
anything twice, and who displays al
most uncanny tact and judgment in
knowing whom to let in to see you
and whom to keep out. Call him into
your office and have real heart to
heart talk with him some day Find
out what he has got in that little tow
head of his.
You will find out that he is a born
merchant. He has thought of a dozen
changes in the way he would manage
your store if he were you. And he's
fiend at figures. But he has no edu-
cation. Mothers a widow, and there
are five younger than he. He can't
even go to night school because he
has to sell papers after office hours to
add every possible cent to the meagre
family exchequer
Endow that boy. Send him to the
public school for a year or two, and
then to good business college. 1t
will save him years of drudgerv at the
most. AT the best it may make him
merchant prince instead of a porter
in the basement. Hold out your hand
TO MIN while he needs it, while he is
still young enough to be able to take
| advantage of the opportunity you give
him.
And there's that clever little dress
maker who comes TO you by the day,
madam. Really, she has quite a
French touch and a wonderful color
sense. But she has to sew cheaply be-
cause she lacks just a little more
knowledge of how to cut and fit and
finish off things. One season in New
York or at any school of design would
fit her to be fashionable dressmaker
who would be able to get top prices
for good work and be on her wav to
| fortune.
| Why don't you endow her with the
price of success? 1t wouldn't cost YOU
more than couple of gowns, and
you d take that tired, hopeless tread
mill look out of her eyes and put into
them the triumph of the artist
And Miss Brown. who makes such
L Il li6i lie Il