The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1918-08-13
DOROTHY DIX TALKS
BY DOROTHY DIX
Worlds Highest Paid Woman Writer.
Put the women to work.

IuL inc NoIHCH 10 WOFk.@%s
And each and every one of these
wo7nen's ambition and aim in life is
to reach some sort of an elysium in
which she will be like the heroine OF
the nursery rhyme, who sat on SILK
cushion and sewed up seam and fed
upon strawberries, sugar and cream,
and didn't do a blessed thing else on
earth. Not even think =--
Some of them believe that that they
can attain this ideal of the do-noth-
ing-state by marriage, and when they
FIND out that performing upon the
kitchen range Is hundred times more
luxurious than performing on type
writer, and that a mother walks many
more miles with the collie than any
come the peevish, fretful, discomfort
ed domestic women who are always
growing about being worked to death
at home, and how much trouble hus-
bands and children are.
Now 1aziness is a well nigh incur
able fault, because the victim of it
ne--er admits being afflicted with the
disease and never wants to be cured.
Especially is this true of women, who
cameuflage their Incidence by calling
il nerves and ill-health. A woman
never says that the reason she makes
her poor husband put up with the in
Convenience of a boarding house, in
stead of having a home of her own, is
because she is too lazy to keep house.
No. she signs and says that her health
is so bad that she is not able to WELD
a broom, or make a bed, altho she is
able to play golf and tennis all day
long and dance the night afterwards
+ No ordinary means can reach the
lazy woman, safely barricaded behind
| her nerves and her specialist, but the
government can stretch out its long
arm and get her, and that is why the
l n nj fino q ehn x1x 70
men as well as men. and the female
Stacker should be put to work just
| as much as the male. If this is done,
| it will do much more than help the
present labor stringency. 1t will re-
| generate society and the home.
/ For laziness in women is the parent
of disease, divorce, broken homes and
wayward children, and half the ills
from which we suffer.
| Any doctor will tell you that his
trade would be gone If it were not for
the idle women who gorge themselves
On rich food and never do lick of
work and who, having nothing to oc-
cupv mind or body, fall a prey to a
hundred real and imaginary ills. We
| know that this is true, because all of
us can cite a dozen cases of rich wo-
rucn who have been pampered inva-
lids for years, and were suddenly
cured by losing their property and
having to go out and hustle for a Hv-
! ing.
IT is the lazy women who never
+, make even so much effort as to dress
| themselves, who become neurotic, and
who bore us to death by their hys-
terra, and harping forever on the
stories of their own grievances. If
you want to hear a crowd of morbid,
| self-centered cyclists tell the sad. sad
stories of their lives, get among the
wiver of prosperous business men
men who can afford to keep half a
dozen servants and Iimousines for
their women folk. And II you want
to find out how bright, breezy. cheer
full and humorous women can be.
| foregather with a lot of business wo-
men who are too busy to nourish
! grievances or vivisect their own emo
lions.
! 1t is the idle women whose brains
are the devils workshop. 1t is the
women whose only labor is killing
time who discover that their husbands
are not thei- soul mates, and who
I start out on a still hunt for affinities,
which they invariably find. 1t is the
women who have no real interests in
! a legitimate occupation. who find II
in the illegitimate occupation afford
! ed by f1irtations and affairs with men
they pick up IN questionable ways at
question: BILE places.
The hard worked woman who is
doing her best to take care of her
family and spread three dollars over
the space of five hasn't got leisure to
discover that her husband isn't a ro-
j mantle hero. or that she IL misunder-
stood. Neither has the woman who is
got something more important to think