The Washington herald., 1920-08-11
Excellent Advice
By DOROTHY DIX
Copyright. 1920.
Wheeler Syndicate, Inc.

at the bar Of conscience, and ask
you again, ARE you murderer?
Have you killed the joy Of living
in your home?
When you married your wife was
gay, high-spirited girl, bubbIing
over with laughter. She sang all
day long, just because she was filled
I with gladness, and because she
found the world so bright, and
beautiful and happy. Have you
made of her quiet, sad-faced wom-
an whose eyes know tears oftener
than her lips do smiles? Have YOU
killed her joy in living?
When your key rattles in the
1 latch of an evening when you re-
! turn from work, does a sudden
strained silence fall upon the
/ house? Do the children hush their
/ prattle and stop their play? Does
everyone in the household crinre
when you speak. as a whipped dog
does when it expects a blow. be-
cause experience has taught them
that you always blame and never
prise? Hive you killed the joy of
living for your children so that
{ their one idea Of happiness is to get
away from home?
What say you, Mr.. Good Man?
Do you plead Guilty or Not Guilty?
Are you a murderer, Mrs. Good
woman?
Have you killed your husbands
love?
He was mad about you when he
led You to the altar. When he
locked at you his face wore the look
OF one who wOrships at the shrine
OF his saint. Is that look still in
ms eyes. or has he grown hard and
cynical and disillusioned. one of tho
men who sneer at love. and say that
marriage IS the great endurance
contest?
Have you been small, and mean
ad nagging, too poor a thing for
any man to worship? Have Won
killed love with selfshness and
greediness. or starved it to death
through neglect?
II your husbands love is dead Won
have murdered it. Your hands are
red with more than his life blood
and all the perfume of Araby shall
not SWeeten them.
Are you murderers, fathers and
mothers? Have you slain the am
hilton in your children and killed
their faith in themselves?
The bookish boy who wanted to
be a lawyer and whom you forced
into the grocery business because
you had planned for him to carry
on the firm. When you look at him
struggling unsuccessfully along in
an occupation for which he has no
aptitude and for which nature new
er designed him, do you ever see
the ghost of the chief justice you
murdered in him?
and that strange, beautiful.
brilliant girl of yours, with her
wonderful gift of mimicry, who was
crazy 10 so on the stage, and whom
you Kept at home because you be-
Iieved a woman place was at the
COOK stove and washtub. She's old, |
and worn, and bitter now. Have
you no compunctions of conscience
when YOU think of her talent that
you strangled? Do you not know
that you murdered her far more |
cruelty than if you had choked her
TO death in her cradle?
And stand forth and answer to |
the charge of murder in the first de- |
gree, willingly, knowingly, with |
malice aforethought, all ye who are I
blankets and killjoys. who lie in |
wait to stab hope to death with !
raven croakings, who slsy our self /
confidence until our ability to
achieve things perishes of inanition,
who stab US to the heart with cruel /
speeches, who poison US with sus-
plclons of those we trust and who
XIII all that makes life sweet and
beautiful.
YOU are murderers all. Repent
your crime. And reform.