The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1921-05-24
Dorothy Dix Talks
Are You a Booster or a Knocker?-f
BIZ DOROTHY DIX
worlds Highest Paid Woman Writer

Are You a Booster or a knocker?-f.
Among my friends is a fine, intelli-
gent, Woodworking man who started
out in, his youth with every prospect
of making good, but for number of
years achieved nothing. He married
a pretty girl, but she was fretful.
peevish, discontinued sort, who was
always complaining that her husband
did not get along, and that they
couldn't have luxuries she craved,
and she was sure she didn't know
why, because. Heaven knew, she
worked her fingers to the bone, and
scrimped on every penny.
In the course of time, this woman
died, ard in the still further course
of time, the man married again. ThlS
wife was q jolly, good-natured woman.
who put her husband on a pedestal
and worshipped him, and was always
telling him, and everybody else who
would listen, how great and wonder
full he was, and almost Immediately
the man began to prosper, and he
went on to the big success that all OF
us who knew him had prophesied for
him in his youth.
Queer, isn't it, how he suddenly
got into his stride?" his acquaintance
said, in discussing the matter. Won
der what happened to him?
But it wasn't queer. There wasn't
anything strange about it. And the
miracle was the effect that mans
wife almost always has on his for
tunes.
This lran's first wife had been
knocker, and she had knocked all OF
the courage and ambition out of him.
Every time he made a plan, or origf-
mated new scheme, she gave it tap
on the head that knocked it stone
dead before it was ever fully born
Every time he got up any enthusiasm
over what he was doing, she poured
cold water on it until its fires sizzled
out. She killed his belief in himself
by always telling him that he was a
failure, and so he lost his nerve and
courage and became one.
I She would spend half the night
snivelling over his ill luck, and won
dering why he couldn't make money
like other men and the result was that
he would start the next days work SO
worn, and weary, and downhearted.
that he skunk away from his fellow
men instead of holding them up and
forcing them to do business with him.
His wife's nagging and complaints
put him into the down-and-out class.
For the world takes a man pretty
much at his own valuation. He's got
to believe in his goods and himself il
he sells either one to other people.
Then the pessimistic lady died, and
the man married an optimist. She be-
lieved in the man with such fervor
that she made him believe in himself.
She inspired him with fresh courage
and hope, and just because he had to
live up to her good opinion of him OF.
die, he gathered together his energies
and made fight that carried him on
to victory. If this mans first wife had
lived, he would have died in the poor
house. When his second wife closes
his eyes, it will be in a mansion on the
sunny side of Millionaires' Row.
Such is the effect of a wife on the
common, or garden variety of man.
Or course. there are super men who
can rise superior to home influences.
put these are few and far between.
The average man is very apt to live up
to his wifes blue china and be what
she expects him to be. and helps him
to be.
Copyright. 1920 BY. the wheeler Syndicate.