The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1921-04-04
Dorothy Dix Talks
Playing the Game-2.
By DOROTHY DIX
Worlds Highest Paid Woman Writer.


And nine times out of ten, the in
valids who martyrize their families
have brought their misfortune upon
their own heads by their own folly
and self-indulgence. There is nothing
mysterious in the glutton developing
a disease of the stomach, or the girl
who works all day and dances all
night, breaking down with nervous
prostration, or women who wear pa
per soled shoes and silk stocking when
they walk icy pavements. acquiring
colds. These things belong to the un-
alterable law of cause and effect. and
the people who do them know what
the results are going to be.
They know that they are going to be
made sick and that somebody else has
got to nurse them while they are sick,
and support them, but they are so
selfish and egotistical that they don't
care. They are willing to offer up any
goat that happens along on the altar
of their own momentary pleasure and
self-indu1gence.
OF course. there are individuals who
are inflicted with dire diseases thru
no fault of their own. These unfor-
Inmates merit our tenderest care and
sympathy. 1t is not of these that 1
am speaking, but of those who might
be healthy and husky, and do their
appointed work in the world if they
would, but who make themselves sick
by gratifying their appetites, and in
clinations, and so become burdens on
their families.
The same structures apply to the
voluntarily dependent. There are GER
tain members of every family who sit
down and fold their hands, and force
the other members of the family to
support them.
| There is hardly any one who has
not some pensioners, and the curious
thing is that among these pensioners
there are always some who. as the
| phrase goes have seen better days.
This, stripped of glittering gener-
alities, simply means that while they
| had plenty of money they spent 1T en-
pleasure and selfindulgence, instead
of denying themselves to lay up for
the rainy day that comes to all.
They ate, and drank, and made merry,
and left to others the job of feeding
them after they had devoured their
cake.
| Last winter a man I knew died.
For twenty years he had been earn
ing an immense salary. and he and his
wife had spent money as If itswere
water. When his estate came to be
settled up, it was found that he had
not left a penny. He and his wife
had lived up everything he made,
|
to go and live on her brother, a poor
man who could ill afford to support
her. There are thousands Of such
cases, and these dependent people
never seem to realize that they are
2rafters and thieves because they have
no right to fail to provide for them
selves.
Even parents have no right to make
themselves burden for their chill
dren to take care of unless it is alb
solutely unavoidable. Most men and
women quit work too early. They
would be healthier and happier, and
better satisfied if they would keep on
with their jobs to the last possible
| moment. and they would have far
more self-respect If they earned their
own living than they have as pen
sioners on their children and their in
laws.
L don't know what Saint Peter is
going to ask US when we come up
| and knock for admission at the
Heavenly Gate. but I have an idea
that if we can say that we have played
the game of life fairly and squareiy
and made ourselves as little an afflic-
ton to other people as was possible
that we will have the counter sign
and the pass word