The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1917-06-14
Dorothy DIG Says
BY DOROTHY DIX
Worlds Highest Paid Woman Writer
Doing Ones Bit.


one which is on the lips of every Eng
! lish man and woman today. 1t is: Il
am doing my oit.''
/ There could be no more inspiring
motto than that to live by, or fight
| by. One could wish no nobler cpl
taph to be carved on ones tomb when
one died, for it means that one had
done ones duty wherever one found
| it, and filed ones appointed role in
the world.
Most of us live hum drum lives.
| There comes to US no opportunity to
! do any great, heroic. spectacular act,
so we drift unconSciouSly into being
slackers because it does not seem to
us to matter whether we do well or ill,
/ or even perform at all, our small
tasks.
| This is particularly true of home
! keeping women who, of all workers in
the work, work underneath most dis
| couraging conditions. For it is their
| lot to labor without apparent results.
! They spend their days and their
| strength cooking meals that are eaten
and forgotten soon cooked; in
sweeping floors that must be swept
| over again in the next hour; in darn
| ing holes in garments that are rent
again in a day; in washing little faces
and combing little heads that are dirty
and tousled again in five minutes.
| Such woman can point to no Wis
| ible thing with pride, can the car
! penter, or the writer, or the artist,
and say. This thing have L wrought"
| She cannot even jingle in her pocket
! the money she has earned by her long,
weary hours of toll for of all work
ers she is the only laborer now left on
| earth who is expected to work and be
thankful for the privilege of work
] ing, for such board and clothes as her
| lord and master sees fit to give her.
is M
say enviously to their sisters who are
out in the world doing things that get
their names in the papers and bring
them in independent incomes, Il wish
that l could do something worth
| while!'
| lose heart and courage and go about
their daily grind of monotonous duties
without enthusiasm or interest, that
! they degenerate into lazy, shiftless
! housekeepers who feed their families
| out of cans and paper bags and care
! less mothers who raise their children
in the streets.
Every domestic woman in the land
should hang this motto: L Am Do
| ing My Bit where she can sea it
every time she raises her eyes from
! her work. 1t will be an inspiration
| to her. 1t will make her feel that
every time she sweeps a floor she is
doing her part in the great work of
sanitation: that every time she mar
! kets thriftily or makes over an old
garment thar it is as good as Eew
she is solving practically the prob
| lem of the high cost of living with
| which learned economists are wrest
| ling in vain; that every time she
scalds out the baby's milk bottle
properly she is reducing the infant
! mortality rate.
1t would make her feel that whent
she made a comfortable, cheerful,
/ happy home that her husband and
! children liked to stay in, she was do
| ing more to stop drunkenness anC
| vice than a dozen loud mouthed re-
| formers; that every time she taught
| her boys and girls self control and
! obedience, she was fulfilling a high
patriotic duty by making good citi-
| zenS for her country, and thai when
| she raised up a family of honest. in
! telligent, industrious men and women
| she shared with God himself in the
| great work of creation.
That as her BID of the worlds work,
| and it is the one most important piece
of work IN the world. If she does it
| ILL., she fills our jails and reforTna-
| tories with criminals. Surely if every
| woman kept the words Il Am Doing
My Bit in her thoughts as she went
| about her domestic duties it would
| rob them of all sordidness ana petit
ness, and make them seem the most
worth while thing that any hand
! could lind to do.
And 1 would hang the motto II
| Am Doing My Bit over every work
! ing girls desk or counter. Girls fail
/ in business because the part they
have in it doesn't seem worth while
learning to do it well. What they sub
consciously argue in the back of their
] heads, are few extra minutes in the
morning that one should break ones
neck to be always on time? What do
a few more or less ees or lis amount
/ to in a word that one should give up
a party TO study the spelling book?
And what does it matter if now an6
! then one makes a mistake in an ad-
dress on q parcel? 1t will eventually
be Strengthened out and heavens
knows, no one has right to expect
to get efficiency experts or Noah
Websters at ten dollars a week,
If every working girl would make
| it a point of honor to De able to
truthfully say Il Am Doing My Bit
we should not have to talk of a min
/ imum wage, for every girl would be
wage. And the employer would be
able and glad to pay it. 1t is the
girls who are rot doing their bits,
| who are strikers, who cut down the
profits Of a firm so that it has to hold
down salaries.
The working girl who is doing her
bit is doing more than helping her
self. She is helping every other
working woman in the world and
making the way easier for all of the
girls who come after her She is
proving woman's efficiency and relia-
bility. and making employers more
willing to give girls chance and good
| pay. 1t must surely send a very warm
thrill to any tired little stenographer
| or shop girl to feel that she is doing
her bit towards opening the door of
/ opportunity to her sex
Nor have women altogether the
worst of it in the world. Life is drear
and drab enough to the average man
who tolls from youth to age without
ever gaining more than a lap or two
on the wolf. 1t doesn't seem to him
that he has accomplished much when
all that he has done for forty or fifty
years is Just to add up columns of fig
uras sell rrnnarfas q harnlinrr