The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-10-22

i My friend is now nearly forty years old. He has fallen in love with a splen- did woman and wants to marry her, but he cannot do so if he has to be the sole support of his mother. He has applied to his brothers and sisters for help. but with one accord they make excuse. This one has many children, that one is buying home. Another has poor ly-paid job. Another wants to take
 postgraduate course at college, and so on.
 Not one is willing to do his share.
 or her share, toward caring for the old
 mother. Not one will lift an ounce of
 the load from the bent back of the brother who has carried the burden so long, yet the mother is just as much
 their mother as she is his mother. Their duty to her is just as great as his duty to her.. Their filial obligation is pre-
 cisely the same as his.
 But somehow they have shunted
 the whole business on him. By , some process of selection that mo- body can explain, he has been elected the family martyr, and while all the others have felt free to love and marry and follow wherever fortune lead, poor Will liam is left at home with the bag
 to hold.
 have cited this case because it
 is typical You know hundred similar instances, for almost every
 family offers up some one member of it as a living sacrifice on the altar of parents duty so that the balance of them may go scet-free.
 And in all the category of crimes H. IL ~S.,n, H- fer, nor crueler.
 You will find thousands of Williams ' who missed the education they yearned e for to go to work to help support their families who gave up their ambition. n and stayed along on the farm, or wen o up into the little village store to try tC .- help father wiring living out of 1t h who have never had a chance at any | life of their own because they have r never been anything but bond servants
 to their families.
 n You would think that when these t younger brothers and sisters, for whom ;, William has sacrificed his youth and d his ambitions and his chances in the e world, grew to manhood and woman d hood they would be filled with grati N tude to him, and that they would fec Il that he had done enough and that they t would set him free.
 S I have never known a single case iT t which, they did. Neither have you.
 They are so used to seeing Will il iam's bent back that they think = he likes to be hump shouldered. They are so accustomed to having 7 him do the unpleasant things tLat
 they persuade themselves that he F enjoys being uncomfortable. They r selfishIy want to spend their own f money on themselves, and so they !. try to silence their consciences by
 saying that poor, old William is a
 stick-in- -the-mud who never goes d anywhere, or does anything, and so {, he really doesn't need any money. 1t You never heard of William get e ting any back pay for the food they l. have eaten, the clothes he has e bought them, the schooling he has IS paid for them. You never hear I them say that as William has sup le ported father and mother for all of a these years we'll provide for them Il the balance of their lives. 70 And you know hundreds of Marthas n Thin, worn, gray, tired little old maids .S It is hard to realize that they wer
 once young and pretty and had higl 10 hopes and that men desired them. Ii 't their younger days they looked fOrwart
 to the normal life of women--husban' m and home and children of their own. " But somebody had to look after moth .n ----r----