The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1923-04-13
The Home
Jinx is the
Deadliest
of All
Dorothy Die
No Outside Enemy Could be as Cruel
AS Those With Whom We Lve-Who Balk
Our Ambitions With Best of Intentions

When we try to visuallzo the
enemy who will wreck our careers
and bring disaster upon our heads,
we always picture the dark and sin
lister william or the blond siren of the
fortune teller as the one who will
be our undoing. In reality. a<close-
up of the miscreants who balk our
ambitions and blast our hopes and
take all the JOY out Of existence for
us would almost always show q
mother or father. or husband or wife,
who have nothing but our good a,
heart, but who, with the best in
tentions In the world. do us more
injury than the most fiendish malice
could invent.
us Is small. If we are thrown with
a stranger who is argumentative and
disagreeable, or dull or stupid, we
simply avoid him. If we encounter
one who Is selfish and dominating
and tyrannical, we break off all re-
lationship with him. If we find one
who Is tricky and not to be trusted,
we pass by the other side of the
street. Moreover, we are on our
guard against our enemies. and when
we see that they are getting the
best of us we can put more punch in
our blows and fight back harder.
But we are helpless before our
families. AS sheep Is led to the
slaughter, SO we are delivered over
to them as living sacrifice. We
cannot strike back at our mothers
and fathers. no matter how much
they Cypress us. We cannot fight
our husbands and wives unless we
are willing to break up our homes
and figure in the divorce courts.
A thousand ties Of affection and
duty hold us in a slken mesh that
we are powerless to break through.
Pity for the weakness of age, pity
for the prejudces, the narrowness,
the lack of vision. that keeps the
wreckers of our lives from knowing
what crime they are committing.
breaks our sword and takes away
our shield and buckler when we come
to struggle with the dear enemies In
our own homes.
There is not one Of US but who
can cite a hundred cases of men and
women whose parents have doomed
| them to poverty and obscurity. either
because they wanted to keep their
| children with them or because, In
their narrow ignorance, they saw
| bogies In the outside world OF which
| they were afraid. and they felt that
the only way they could help their
young ones safe was to keep them In
4, the home nest.
think now of a beautiful and
brilliant woman to whom God gave
marvellous voice. Some rich people
| who heard her sing offered to send
an opera singer. She would I'M
! doubtedly have ranked among the
| greatest artists of our time had she
been permitted to accept this oppor-
tuntty thus presented to her. But to
her parents. Paris and the stage
| were simply other names of perdi-
ton, and So they slammed the door
of opportunity shut IN her face. To-
| day she is poor overworked drudge
| doing her own cooking and washing
and baby tending.
l think of another woman who in
her girlhood fell in love with brill
liant and handsome young chap full
of energy and ambition. But he be-
longcd to an humble family. and the
| girls father and mother would not
let her marry him because his blood
was not as blue as theirs. Today,
the girl. a soured and disappointed
| old maid. Is earning her own living
as a clerk in store, while the man
who has been governor of his state
and is now senator. rolls by her in his
limousine.
7 think of dozen men l know
who have been kept from fame and
fortune in the work nature fitted
them to do and forced into uncon-
genial occupations where they have
been failures by fathers who thought
they had a right to decide their sons
careers for them.
I think of fathers who have bled
their children numerically to pay
their debts OF men who shift the
burden of their families onto tho
young shoulders Of their children, and