The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1919-05-01
DOROTHY DIX TALKS
BY DOROTHY DIX
Worlds Highest Paid Woman Writer.
Money and Happiness.


The love of money is the root of all
evil, says the Good Book.
Money isn't everything, but it will
buy the balance. says the cynic'
The lack of money is the cause of
most of the worries, anxieties and
troubles in the world, say we all.
It's money that looms largest on our
horizon. It's the rich we envy. It's
the time When we have made our for
tune that we set as the browning hour
of life, the psychological moment in
which we are going to be happy.
Nor is all this as Sordid and avari-
cious as it seems. A certain amount
of money is an absolute necessity.
without it we are crushed under cares
and fears with which no philosophy
can cope. The poverty stricken man
and woman can know freedom of
neither soul nor body. They are bond
salves to the hand that supplies their
wants
Even the finer joys of life have a
price tag on them The call of the
stomach is louder than the cry of the
heart. When people are hungry they
do not yearn for love. They demand
food. No one can picture a happy
home with a bill collector forever
pounding on the door.
Only the foolish fail to recognize
the part that money plays in our lives,
and that our. house of life must be
built upon good, sound financial
planks if we are to have any rest and
peace and happiness in it. And only
the lazy and the shiftless refuse to
work and supply this necessary foun-
daticn.
The mistake we make, however, is
in thinking that we need a great deal
nf he in a Il
in some easy, romantic and poetic
manner-in thinking that we must
have a palace instead of bungalow.
and that it must be located on Fifth
avenue instead of in the suburbs of
bonneville.
1t is true that money can buy hap
piness up to a certain point. After
that it loses its purchasing power,
and what we get with what we spend
is more likely to be misery than pleas
ure. After you have had a full meal
you can eat no more, tho you had un-
limited money to buy the richest food
in the world. When you have a good
roof over your head, fire to keep
you warm, a comfortable chair to sit
in, soft bed to sleep in, a bright light
to read by. you have all the comforts
of a habitation that money will pur-
chase.
You can wear but one suit of
clothes at time.I A jitney will carry
you anywhere that a limousine will,
and so when you have provided your
self with what we call the ordinary
comforts of life. and have enough laid
by to keep the thought of old age and
sickness from being a haunting terror
to you, you have about reached the
limit of the real happiness that money
buys
After we have passed the milestone
where we have left hunger and cold
and the fear of the world behind US,
the reason that being poor makes us
unhappy is because we will not accept
poverty frankly and unashamedly and
enjoy the liberties it gives us.
We are not willing to live in the
kind of a house we can afford, or
wear the kind of clothes we can pay
for. or indulge in the amusements
within our means. We must initiate
those who are better off We have
champagne taste on a beer income,
and therein lies our doom.
Copyrighted. 1919, by the Wheeler SyndI-
cate 1nc.) ..s1-