The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1917-05-16
Dorothy DIG Says
BY DOROTHY DIX
Worlds Highest Paid Woman writer
The Habit of Self Control.

been preaching a series of sermons on
the Temptations Of Youth" has ask
ed number of prominent men and
women to suggest the way in which
they think the snares of Satan may
best be avoided.
The replies embrace almost every
known theory of combating the world.
the flesh, and the devil, but, strangely
enough, no one has even so much as
mentioned the one potent weapon with
which temptation may really be
fought and overcome.
And that is the habit of self con-
troll
powers of evil shall not prevail against
them For them the wine shall spar
kle, bright eyes lure, the primrose
path beckon in vain.
Teach the young that, and you have
given them the magic talisman that
compels success, that sets them in
high places, that secures their happi-
ness; for they will be the masters of
their souls and bodies, and may COM
mand fate instead of being its puppet
Always, as long as humanity exists
there will be temptations assailing us.
Always we shall meet these tempta-
lions in guiSe and an hour when We
least expect them. Always they will
come upon us when we have no time
nor power to argue or philosophize or
even to count the cost; and then what
we do, whether we yield or resist, de-
ponds on whether we are accustomed
to ruling our passions or are ruled
by them-whether we have the habit
of self control or net.
1t is not too much to say that there
is lot crime that stains the world
with blood, or weakness that
drenches- it with tears, that has not
its origin in the flabby will power of
those who have given away to every
impulse and inclination until they no
longer have the power to resist wrong
For you can no more summon strength
OF character and mind at will than you
can physical strength. Both have to
ercise.
Take murder as tragic example of
this. Not one murder in a thousand
IS premeditated. A hot tempered man
takes offense at some real or fancied
slight. All of his life he has INDUCED
hlmself IN bursts of fury, and in his
moment of supreme need he cannot
control his anger. It masters his rea-
son, his judgement, even his sense of
personal safety. There is that thrust
of knife, or the flash of a gun. and
Fellow creature lies dead at his feet.
Yet a moment before he had no
thought of killing. The lack of the
habit of self control has made him a
murderer, and set him in the shadow
| OF the gallows, or sent him a wander
er. with the brand of Cain upon his
brow, to hide among the waste places
of earth.
1t is the lack of the habit of self
control that fills our penitentiaries
with thieves. A boy starts out with
the intention of being honest and ris-
ing in the world by his own industry
and thrift. But he acquires expensive
tastes He wants fine clothes, to ride
in automobiles, to take girls to the
theater and to fine restaurants to
supper. He has never learned to deny
| himself, or do without the things he
wants. so he spends money he cannot
afford and gets in debt, and then,
when the bill collector gets too press
ing, he does things to the cash register
or falsifies his accounts
1t is the boy who is brought up with
the habit of indulging every within who
yields to the temptation to steal New
er the lad who has been taught the
habit of self denial
| And what is drunkenness but the
| lack OF the habit Of self control? No
man is so ignorant that he does not
| know all that any temperance orator
could tell him Of the evil effects of
alcohol. He knows that he goes down
to the level of the beast when he be-
comes intoxicated. He knows that it
ruins his health, :mpairs his mental
| fty, decreases his earning power. per-
haps drags his family thru all the hor-
rors of poverty and want.
Yet, because ne likes the taste of
| liquor. or the momentary exaltation il
| brings him, he will not deny his ap-
petite. He has no cultivated power
of resistance. He is bound to have the
thing he Graves, no matter what the
result. He is the child of the mother
who lets her precious darling make
himself i'll eating jam because the poor
| little dear love ~---eets so.
! And the failures, the pathetic never
make-good men who drift around
from job to job, men who should have
succeeded, but who never have. Nine
times out of ten, their sole trouble is
/ that they were never taught the habit
] of self control. They never learned to
| shut their teeth ard do hard things,
/ or TO stick to any work after it ceased
| to be a play and settle down into a
| steady daily grind. They were always
changing, always looking out for the
mythical situation where there is light
work and good pay.
OF course, everybody gets tired, ev-
erybody gets discouraged at times. ev-
erybody is assailed by the insidious
temptation to throw whatever they
are doing up and try something easier.
Some of us yield to this temptation
and some of us don't. It's according
to the kind of a mother we had. And
! the ones that don't ride, eventually,
| in automobiles and borrow money are
the kind that had mothers who never
taught them the habit of controlling
| that tired feeling.
It's the lack of self-controI that is
at the bottom of the whole divorce
muddle. Every husband and wife
| in the world have enough cantanker-
| BUSINESS about them to warrant the
party of the other part in getting a
| divorce, if you come right down to
cold facts And practically any hus-
| band or wife can be lived with in
reasonable peace and happiness if
you make the best of the bargain you
have got Its, all matter of self
control
If a woman is going to take out all
of her temper and nerves on her hus-
band and tell him exactly what her
private opinion is of all of his weak