The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1918-07-06
Names In the News.
DOROTHY DIX TALKS
BY DOROTHY DIX
Worlds Highest Paid Woman Writer.

oNIney and Matrimonial Happiness.-1
The other day a divorce was grant
ed to the middle aged wife of a man
who has made a large fortune in the
last few years.
In her testimony the wife said:
Judge, I love my husband, and he
is a good man in spite of the way he
has treated me. It's money that has
ruined him. Ours was just a poor
boy and girl marriage. I used to get
up at 4 o'clock in the morning to get
him a good hot breakfast before he
started off to work, and l staid up
at night washing his shirt and press
ing his clothes SO he would look neat
and clean. He loved me then, and we
were as happy together as we could
be.
But he made money and the peo-
pie who never noticed him when he
was poor began to flatter him, and
hang about him, and then he got rich,
and pretty young girls with painted
faces made eyes at him, and they took
him away from me.
It's money that's broken up our
pray to God every night that he Will
lose it, for then he'll come back to
me-"
Perhaps this story is not as uncom-
mon as we think. Perhaps the for
tune that all of us are striving for
is oftener a boomerang than we know,
and brings misery as frequently as it
does happiness. Perhaps more people
are ruined by prosperity than by mis-
fortune, for the real test .of character
is not in meeting poverty bravely but
in bearing riches with equanimity.
Many man is saved from being a
| drunkard by lacking the price of a
drink and there iS SnPh =
| tor of the domestic virtues as for a
man having to work so hard all day
| he is too tired to leave his own fire.
side at night. Poverty is a great NOR
| alist, and our purse, as often as our
principles, decides our course of ac-
| ton.
The question thus suggested, low
| ever, of whether poverty or riches
makes for connubial happiness is an
interesting one. According to the old
| adage when poverty comes in at the
| door, love flies out of the window, but
| riches came down the chimney love
sneaked out the back stairs, and so the
problem is left unanswered.
| Undoubtedly. bitter, biting poverty is
a hard test for love to stand In its
| essence even love must be material
| When you are hungry you are more
stomach than heart. When you are
| cold you think more of the tempera-
ture of your body than you do of the
temperature of your affections. When
you are harassed by bills and bounded
| by collectors. money and not sentiment
| fills your waking thoughts and night
| ly dreams. Love has to be comfort
able, so to speak. before it can work
But on the other hand it can be
smothered to death by too much lux
ury. and our common observations, as
well as the records of the divorce
courts, go to show that love and mar
ried happiness are among the luxuries
that no millionaire has money enough
to buy Occasionally they are his by
chance, but nobody in search of the
ideal Darby and Joan would hunt 70,
them in the palaces of the wealthy
| There are many reasons why the
possession of great wealth should teno
to separate people who are married
instead of drawing them together. The
greatest, in this country, is because OF
the fact that the american man who
achieves a fortune spends the frs
part of his life in making it and the
balance in taking care of it. He liN e.
In world apart from his wife, whose
interests she does not share, and whose
language she does not speak. He get:
up early and stays out late, and wher
he is at home he is generally too nerv.
Gus and tired to talk. The richer the
man becomes, the higher this barrier
grows, until the wife of the muitin1il.
1ionaire finds that she has no husband
nothing but money making ma.
chine.