The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1918-03-09
DOROTMY DIX TALKS
By DOROTHY DIX
Worlds Highest Paid Woman Writer.
Mothers of Men.

All hail Brooklyn. home of the
Spartan mother!
II For years the cartoonists and the
wits have made merry over the Brook
Ign rubber trees and baby carria ges,
but it appears that among the women
who tend the rubber trees by the
Brooklyn front windows and push the
/, Brooklyn perambulators there are
those who were the 1ineal descendants
of the mothers who, in sending forth
their sons to war, babe them come
back with their shields or on them.
A Brooklyn woman, of whom 1 have
personal knowledge. had a son enlist
ed in the army. He was big, strap
ping lad, but under age for the draft,
and not finding army life all the beer
and skittles he had imagined it to be,
he wrote to his mother that he
thought she could get him discharged
on account of his age. and that, any
way, he believed that he was begin
ming to develop fiat feet.
To this his mother replied that she
thought that what was the matter
with him was that he was beginning
to develop a yellow streak, and that
no son of hers could ever have feet
fat enough to come back to her when
he ran away from his duty to his
country.
Now comes the story of another
Brooklyn mother who promptly teIe-
phoned the police and had her son ar
rested as a deserter when he ran
away from camp and came home.
These are the kind of women who
are the mothers of men, who turn
the weakness of their children into
strength, and give to the world the
heroes who do, and dare. A monu-
ment should be built in their honor,
n
tues, but to stand as an inspiration to
all other mothers.
For we have glorified mothers love,
mothers tenderness, and mothers pity
so long that we have lost sight of the
fact that motherhood has any other
function than just being a soggy mass
of maudlin sympathy Sometimes it
is mothers highest duty to her child
to nail him to his cross and force
him to carry it on.
Nobody will dispute that mother's
sympathy is salve to our wounds,
ana tnat 1t is a precious and comfort
ing thought that there is somebody
whom we can go to when things go
| wrong with US, and who will blame
everybody. and everything else on
earth but US for our failures.
But this very mothers sympathy.
that is such balm to us, is a danger
Gus and deadly narcotic that kills our
energy and ambition and paralyzes eff
Tort, and makes weaklings and fail
ures of us.
What we need when we come to
the hard shedding in life, where we
must put every ounce of grit that is
IN us INTO our work, is not a mother
VINO sheds tears over u.s. or poor
dears us, and tells us how it breaks
her heart to see us having to put
our back into things, but a mother
who gives us a bright and CHEEKY
smile, bids us go to it, and do a
mans or woman's part in the world
instead of being gutter and a
Stacker.
Everything depends on the point
of view. Work is a glorious adven-
ture or it's the curse of Adam, ac-
cording to the way you look at it.
You can achieve everything, or the
fates are against you just as you be-
heve * You believe that the world
is a fine place in which a man takes
what is his own by the strength of
his good right hand, or you despair
and whine about the unequal distri-
button OK wealth, according to the
way you are brought up.
1t all depends on your mothers
attitude towards life. II she begins
sobbing over you in the cradle telling
you now it grieyes her that you can't
have the things that rich children
have, and IL she walls because you
nave to attend night school instead
of going to college: and if she is
drenched in woe because you have
! TO go to work when you are boy.