Evening star., 1933-04-02

all the weary and heaTy-iaoen pfhe sueA
burdens to her, certain Of sympathy and under
standing and such help as one human crea1uie
can extend to another.
probably no other person in the world has
been the recipient Of so many conieSslons
Certainly no other one person has been prlvl-
lodged to look so deeply into human HE For
all Of these countless letters that come 70 ne1
are lust cross-section Of life, every one OF
them some sorrow some problem that has been
torn out of bleeding heart.
,oBoDY knows quite as do in just what
IN light her readers regard her, for 1t Is my
blessed, If somewhat staggering, privilege to see
the thousands upon thousands Of letters that
constantly pour into her mail from all parts
of the world.
II there is a question she hasn't been asked,
I wish some would hurry and ask it, be-
cause then I'd know there is something new
under the sun. Her correspondents have
wanted to know what to call girls ukulele
club how to name a lodging house on the
highway, If it's bad luck to have baby on
Friday how to start 10-cent store, where 10
market old coins, stories, songs, antique furni-
ture. needlework, cakes, paintings and what-
have they; how to go to bed on Pullman, to
play volleyball, to eat a stuffed tomato, TO
master calculus to fix leak in hivver; what
TO name an Airdale dog, how Christmas cactus
can be made to bloom, and when will the next
war start?
Among her fans are judges Of Supreme
Courts authors of international fame, doctors,
lawyers, leaders in all professions, great teachers
and great psychiatrists. Murderers have con-
fessed to her. fallen women have turned to
her for hope, able lawyers have sought her
opinions!
People are always asking how Dorothy Dix
began her work and how she elected nefseH
2 mentor to the lovelorn To this query she
ALWAYS replies that she didn't choose the work
it chose her.
She began her newspaper career as very
young and green girl cub reporter on the New
Orleans Picay,me. Among her duties was TO
write an article every week for the wornans
page, at that time largely devoted to recipes for
spongecake and knitting pink baby socks Il
was appalled," she says, "at the assignment
and pondered long on what line should take,
and then it came to me that everything in
the world had been written about women and
for women except the truth They had been
celebrated as angels. They had been patied
as martyrs. They had been advised to be
human doormats. knew that women knew
they were not angels and that they were tired
of being martyrs and doormats. They were
fed up on fulsome fattery and weary Of suf-
fering and being strong.
$50 began writing for my sex the truth
as I have seen it about the relationship Of
men and women, and for nearly 40 years !
have laughed and cried and sympathized with
and jol1led and lambasted and advised millions
upon millions Of my sisters and brothers with
whom have had heart-to- heart talks through
the papers the world over.
ItiT is interesting in looking back to see how
! the quality Of the questions I am asked
has changed. So many topics that were taboo
then are subjects Of general discussion now.
So many points Of view have altered. Women
look at life so differently that It might almost
be new world IN which we are living.
'"Thirty-fve years ago. for instance, girls
wrote me asking If it was proper for q young
lady to help gentleman OF with his overcoat.
In those days no girl with any vestige Of re-
spectability would have admitted to getting
drunk. Now girls write me that they know
they're funny when they are drunk, but they
don't see that 1t gets them anywhere, and
they make no bones Of telling that they have
fixed their greedy little eyes on some rich
man and intend to take him away from his
WIFE His wife has been rolling IN luxury for
80 years. wrote one of these hard-boiled young
damsels. Shes had her share of his money
and now I'm going to get mine, and If it's
hard on her to go in the discard, well, that's
Just her bad luck
"Thirty-five years ago practically every girl
that got married expected to stay married, but
with the modern girl marriage is sporting
proposition, and If it doesn't come up to her
expectations she's of to the divorce courts.
Frequently girl will write she's going to
marry some man she knows to be immoral
and drunkard and utterly worthless, but
she'll say she can always get divorce and
she'd rather have him a few years than not
have him at all.
"But one thing about the modern girl is
that she is more honest and better sport
than her ld-fashioned sister. In another
day. when girl loved not wisely but too we'll
she always represented herself as the victim of
mans perfidy and implored me to tell her
some way by which she could make him
her claa hat