The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1918-04-18
DOROTHY DIX TALKS
BY poROTHY DIX
WeE1d's Highest Paid Woman. WriteR.
The Other Fellow.

lou 90 one OF the Otuefs you hitoFs
Which is it?
Do you ever stop to think that the
heaviest burdens that We bear are laid
upon us by the hands of those nearest
and dearest te us, and not by our enc
mics?
Or that the unkindest speeches We
ever hear are inspired not by the
malice of our foes but the irritability
of our own family?
Or that just pure, unauthorized
selfishness destroys q million times
more happiness than the seven deadly
sins?
OF course you haven't thought about
tt csc things as they apply to yourself.
AS long as we keep the big law we are
SNUG and self-satisfied and feel that
we have highly virtuous, admirable
characters. Yet when we come to
stand before the judgment bar at the
last day, the thing that will probably
scar our very souls will be the realiza-
ton that we might have made life
easier for those about us; We might
have made them happy and comfor-
table and we did not do it
Are you making life easier for your
mother? Do You ever notice how tired
and worn she is? She is one of those
whose work is never done. She is al
ways stewing over the cooking stove,
fixing up extra little dishes for those
who imagine they can't eat this, and
they can't eat that, or warming up
food for members of the family who
don't take the trouble to be on time
for their meals.
She is always Strengthening up
clothes and putting them away in
closets. picking up papers from the
floor, hunting lost articles, and sew
ing on buttons, and mending rips in
garments. She is eternaliy getting out
fresh towels, fixing baths, sweeping up
cigar ashes from the floor. straighten-
ing furniture, and doing a million end
less jobs.
Does it occur to you that you are
making life harder for mother and
that she need not be an oyerworked
slave il you would help q little. or
even take care of your own things?
1t is an almost grotesquely pathetic
fact that more than half of the work
| in any home is absolutely useless work
| that could be eliminated If the diff
ferent members of the family would
show the slightest consideration for
those who have to perform the domes-
| tic labor. If an honest epitaph were
carved on the tombstone OF nine
| tenths of the mothers, who are taking
thu first and last rest in cemetery.
it would read, worked to death un-
necessarily by her husband and chill
| dren."
AS wife do you ever consider
| whether you are making life easier or
| harder for your husband? When a
| the support of wife and children he
assumes a staggering load. When he
comes home at night with his shoul-
ders slouched down with WEAKNESS,
with his face white and drawn, with
| his eyes haggard with anxiety do you
meet him at the door with story of
| everything that has gone wrong with
you during the day, do~you deluge him
| with complaints because he cannot
| give you all of the luxuries that some
H ffc n
out your own nerves and ill temper
on him, and SO add to his burden the
feather that breaks the camefs back
Or do you hide your own worries
and anXieties in your own breast and
make your home such place of peace
and quiet that your husband turns to
it as the storm tossed mariner steers
for a land locked harbor? Do you
lap your husband so in love, praise and
appreciation that it binds up, as with a
healing ointment. all of the wounds
that the world deals him, and makes
him feel that the struggle of life is
worth while, since it is made for you
and has your comfort as its reward?
AS a husband do you ever think
whether you are making life easier or
harder for your wife? Most men feel
that they have done their full duty
toward their wives if they provide
them with food and clothes. They
are necessary, but they are only the
beginning. A woman's soul must be
fed and clothed as well as her body
and unless a man does something &C.
lively to make his wife happy, he Ii
treating her just as badly as II. he
starved her physically.
Are you one of the men who gloon
and crouch at home and whose fam
lilies stand in as much terror of them
as any trembling slave ever did before
Nero? When you put your key in the
front door can you hear the children
hush their laughter. see the cat take
| to the cellar, and a strained look come
on your wife's face? Do you raiss
such a row over the bills every month
that your wife's hands shake as she
hands them to you? Do you say mean
cruel. cutting things to her, insulting
| things, that you would knock any mar
down for saying to you?
| Or are you one of the husband.
whose cfming home at might Is like
flooding a house with light and joy
Are you always thinking of some lit
tie treat for your wife. or If you have
not the money to buy things for her
do you tell her how you would like t.
dress her up in jewels and satins Il
you had the money? Do you motto,
the work she has done? Do yo,
praise her for her thrift and compli
ment her on the dinner she has spen
hours of loving care cooking for you
Do you make her feel your love anS
tenderness surrounds her like the yer,
air she breathes?
The life of the woman married to
, poor man, and who is overburdenes
with work and children, is a hard ant
monotonous one, and IL rests entirel,
with her husbands attitude toward
her whether she is happy or miserabl
in it. He can make life hard or cas-.
for her, and there is nothing else s,
tragic as the fact that a man has
in his power to make his wife happ,
, by saying few cheap words, and tina
: he withholds them.
AS a friend, do you Ike life easie
/ or harder for others?
Are you one of those who conside
that friendship is another name 70
graft and impertinence7 Do yol
deluge your friends with your tears
and burden them with endless storie
of your private troubles that they hav