Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1921-02-08
DOROTHY DIX TALKS
BY DOROTHY DIX
THE NEW GIRL
Copyright, 1920, by the Wheeler Syndi-
cate, Inc.
a VERY rich man, who, beginning with
u the proverbial shoestring, has con-

u the proverbial shoestring, has con-
"A verified it into cable that reaches
around the world, said to me the other day:
1T used to be the prodigal sons who
turned parents hair gray with worry In
these times it's the strenuous daughters VINO
keep us awake at night, wondering how we
are going to keep them at home
Take my case, for example, 1 have just
one chick in the world, and all these years
that l have been toiling, and moiling and
laying up money, the chief thing that I
thought about was that / was going to be
able to pad her life with luxury and that she
would never have to work as her mother and
mad to do when we were young. Well, I've
given that girl money, and motors and fine
houses and fine clothes; everything she
wants, except the thing she wants most of all.
"And that's work. She hates society. Co.
ing to parties and dancing bores her stiff
She even looks marriage as man does
an accident that is liable to happen to you If
you aren't careful and don't watch your step.
but that you needn't be foolhardy enough to
rush into.
mo. What Betty clamors for is work
She demands that take her into my Office.
or set her up in business just as 1 would do
IT she had been a boy instead of a girl and
don't know what to do about It. 1t breaks
her mother and me all up, especially her
mother, who had looked forward to having
a pretty daughter to dress up and show off,
somebody who would take a real heart inter-
est in shopping with her, and have romantic
condolences to whisper to her, and who
would be embroidering doodahs for her hope
chest.
And here's a young person who says
frankly that if she thought she had to spend
the balance of her life trotting around to
teas, and conversing with the feeble-minded
WNo frequent such places, she would commit
suicide at once, because she prefers swift,
short agony to the slow torture of being
bored to death. Here's girl who prefers
reading the stock market to Robert Cham
bers, and who envies the girl who has Job
more than the one who is going to marry
millionaire who has given her hundred
thousand dollar pearl necklace.
cts ridiculous for girl, situated like my
daughter is, to go to work. Yet what
going to do about it?''
81 do not believe any girl should work out
side of her home unless it is absolutely nee
essary," said another man. "a womans
place is in the home"
"Just what 1 Think" said the first man.
"Why can't girls be satisfied to go around
and have a good time, and dress themselves
up, and look forward to getting married, as
their mothers did? What is the trouble with
girls anyway"
"Well," I replied, "the chief trouble with
your girl is that she is her fathers daughter,
and that she has inherited your keen brain,
your energy and driving power, your vision,
that have made you success, and that you
have had such joy in using, camoring
for expression in her. You wouldn't hitch
OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES power motor to five-fea
job; and that's what Betty thinks she is do
ing when you ask her to use that great in
telligence of hers piffling little things like
picking out chiffOns, and talking to jellybean
youths
Suppose you had nothing in the world to
do or to think about except dressing youF-
self up, and buying Clothes and going from
one party to another, where you met the
same set Of aimless inane people, who re-
peated over and over and over again the same
bromide remarks; wouldn't you go crazy
with the dizziness and monotony of it all?
Wouldn't you think it pretty poor way to
spend your life?
"Never to have stood alone never to have
tested your strength, never to have had any
thing that wasn't given to you, never to have
done anything that wasn't really worth while,
or to have had any interest that wasn't a
manufactured interest, never TO have pitted
your wit and shrewdness against other peo-
pies and won out-if you had missed all Of
that, wouldn't you have missed most Of the
fun in life?"
"Of course I would, but am man." said
Betty's father
"When a woman has mans brains, she
feels just as man feels" responded, land
she's got the same cosmic urge to use her
power as he has. The trouble is with nature,
that makes girls inherit from their fathers
and boys from their mother. That's why SO
many big strong men, the men who do things,
have clever daughters and dull sons"
"Girls weren't always restless like they are
now. They used to be satisfied to stay at
home, if you would give them enough finery,"
said the second man.
There must always have been certain
number of women, strong Of mind and body,
who Ionged for wider, and freer life, and
bigger opportunities than they could find in
the small circles in which they lived, but they
had to remain in them because there were no
doors to their cages I said. "The young girl
Of today isn't confined to any cage The
wide world is hers, and she can go as far In
it as her strength will take her.
'We've got to realize th@t we've got new
girl and she is the problem of our times.
She's no more like her mother than as IL
they belonged to a different species She
doesn't think as mother thought at her age.
nor have mothers hopes and aspirations.
She's far more like father than she is like
mother, and so she becomes fathers problem
more than Mothers
"Well, what are we going to do about it,"
the man asked.
"Give her her head" answered, "but keep
a steady rein over her"
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