The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1918-01-05
DOROTHY DIX TALKS
BY DOROTHY DIX
Worlds Highest Paid Woman Writer.
Ont of Evil Comes Good.


be sent to France for our boys. A |
sweet faced. middle aged woman.
passing by, stopped to speak. |
How are your boys?" asked |
friend of hers. |
Three of them are already over |
there replied the woman, and the |
last goes in very few weeks. 1 have |
see me. but I take fold in my belt |
every week"
Il do not see how you bear it,"
breathed her friend, sympathetically.
1T breaks my heart to have them
go, but it would my soul if they
were slackers enough to stay" said
the VI oman as she passed on.
The women looked at her with the
tribute in their eyes that women pay
to heroes. and then the friend bNrst
ouc impulsively.
Believe me- she said, the strang-
est thing about this whole war is what
it's doing to people. 1t is making
them over. Every day 1 meet on the
streets some big, tanned, broad Shout
dered, outstanding, husky young fell
low that 1 don't recognize for a few
minutes. Their it dawns on me that
row chested. stoop shouldered, thin,
white faced bookkeeper or clerk. Why
even his voice has changed and the
look in his eyes. He's been turned
by war from a manilxin into a man.
And the war is having just as
much effect on us women. It's
changed US. Half the women I know
have been just as metamorphosed by
the war as ii they had changed their
skins. They think about different
things. They do different things
They've got different ideals, an en-
tirely different viewpoint on life.
Take that woman, for instance
who has just told US with perfect
calmness that she has four sons out
to meet danger, and perhaps death
She's one of those frantic mothers
who have mysteries tor fear their chill
dren Will have blood poisoning if they
stub their toes. I've seen her go thru
agonies of anxiety when one of her
boys was five minutes late in getting
home from school. vet she can smile
and kiss them goodbye when she
knows they are leaving her probably
forever. The war has made her over
from weak, unreasoning, fearful
poor creature into. a brave, strong,
noble woman"
She isn't the only one," said
another woman. Il have a friend
who has had most unhappy life. She
had stepmother who treated her
cruelty in her childhood and in trying
to get away from her wretched home
she rushed'into disastrous marriage
Her husband is one of those cold,
iiiS1H, NStiIlSH, CyFann1caI men who
make their wives lives a hell on earth
And as if this poor creature had not
had enough sufferings to bear, her
children have been no comfort to her
Her combined miseries have
broken the woman's spirit and for
years she has gone about looking like
a figure of tragedy. She never smiled,
she never seemed to take any interest
in anything, and the only real pleas
ure she had in life was to tell you of
her troubles and go on regular jag of
tears. 1t took me days to get over one
of her visits and get back to the place
| where 1 could feel that life was some
| thing else besides cinders, ashes and
dust ~
Well. the other day I met this
woman and she was SO braced up that
I hardly knew her. She had on a
bright colored dress and it was the
first time l had ever seen her in any
! thing but black. She actually essayed
feeble joke, and she never once men
toned her troubles.
Things are going better with you
aren't they?" 1 said at last, when my
curiosity got unbearable.
No" she replied, but in the face
of the world woe I haven't got the
nerve and egotism to even consider
my own little, petty. personal griefs
What does it matter whether ones hus-
band is conSiderate or inconSiderate
when nations are being trampled I'M
der foot by barbarians? What does it
matter whether or not my own chill
dren are all that I would have them
when millions of mothers are seeing
their children slaughtered?
Nobody will ever hear another
whine from me. I tell you when I
think of how I have howled over pin
pricks when those who have been
stabbed to the heart have not even
made a moan, feel that I have been
the most contemplate coward on
| earth and 1 am Inundated to the dust.
| The war has changed my whole
mental attitude towards life
Same here" said a third woman.
i "A1l my life I've been a fretter and
worrier. If everything wasn't exactly
as it should be 1 was up on my tip
! toes. I could make myself and every
| body about me miserable about any
/ kind of a trifle that went wrong.
| bad seats at the theater. a clumsy
maid who didn't know how to set
| table. the collar of a frock that was
) an eighth of an inch too high or too
/ low, why. I'd just be in a fever and
i fury over any one of them and I'd
I talk about it and nag about it and
make a great ado
| But little things like that have
ceased to worry me now. don't see
them. I don't realize them They
have just passed into matters of alb
solute indifference. 1 go to the thea
/ ter because it helps my husband to
! ToldA- anu dlOlS UAoSi
/ big war contracts that have their part
! in helping the country but I'm not
thinking about whether we've got the
best seats in the house not. I'm
thinking about my boy off in avia-
+ ton camp.
I'm not worrying about the blum
/ dering of a maid now. I'm agonized
with fear lest the men who hold the
destiny of our country in their hands
make mistakes. I'm no. worrying
i over the set of my collar. I am wor-
rying over whether our boys have got
! enough sweaters and mufflers. Those
boys in khaki, they are the only i'm
portant thing on earth to me right
now.
! The war has changed me. too"
said a fourth woman. Il used to be