The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1922-04-18
Dorothy Dix Tails

nY DOROTHY DIX
Wsrs6's Hishess raid Woman WrltaR.

Look about you and observe how
selfishness works out in real life Look
at the man who works himself to
death for his family. He never takes
holiday. He never INDUCES himself
in any pleasure. He is always on his
job, night and day, making money for
his family to spend in extravaganza.
living. They have fine clothes. They
have automobiles They travel. The
children go off to college. His wife
cuts a dash in society. He is nothing
but bill payer.
Did You ever know a man of that
kind whose wife really loved him. or
whose children had any affection for
him, or pride in him? Never. Did
you ever know the children OF that
kind of man to turn out to be any
thing but MASTERS and spenders? You
did not. Doesn't your own common
sense tell you that il such a man had
thought of himself more, and his fam
lily less, that it would have been bet
ter for all concerned?
1t Is the women who bear their part
of the family burden, not the parasitic
woman, who are devoted wives. 1t is
the children who know what it is to
do without things, and plan and work
to get what they want not the ma M
pered children who are fed with a gold
spoon, who make the worthwhile men
and women.
Exactly the same thing may be said
about the woman who sacrifices her
sell ADI 4eE GU know the
poor. meek, worn, harried creature
who spends her days in the kitchen.
because husband and children like her
cakes and pies better than hired
COOKS; who wears the cast-offs of tho
family, and eats the neck and the
back of the chicken. and the tough
end of the chops, who sits up half the
night sewing so that Mamie may have
as many tucks- in her petticoat as the
other girls. and who tiptoes around
doing the homework of q morning so
as to keep from waking UP SAllie.
Did you ever know that kind of a
/ woman who had a husband who was
proud of her. or wanted to take her
about with him. or who didn't trea
ner with contempt? Did you ever
know that kind of a mother whose
children ever showed her any consid-
GRAFTON? You never did. Nobody
ever did.
The women whose husbands and
children love and admire them are
the women who demand lot for
themselves, and who make their
families go fifty-fifty with them on
the perquisites of life, as well as the
sacrifices. And it's perfectly logical.
No husband and children are going to
love woman they don't respect and
you can't respect any human being
who hasn't backbone enough to stand
up for his rights.
The most piteous sacrifices are
those which noble hearted women and
men make to age, and helplessne ss.
A man, who has the making of a
great success in himself. gives up the
opportunities the big world offers him
to stay at home and help father with
piddling little business. or to do a
day laborer's work on the old farm
A gifted girl gives up her own ca
reer, or sacrifices marriage, to nurse
mothers rheumatism. or to take care
of her orphaned nieces and nephews.
And their sa crifices are in vain, too.
because if they had followed their
own destinies they could have better
helped those they were trying to help.
But we can never settle the prob
lem of what We owe to ourselves and
what we owe to others until we know
whose life is the most valuable. And
this we cannot know until the Judg-
ment Day.
Av@ ~