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Show Kathleen Norris Says: Breaking a Soldier's Heart Bell Syndicate. WNU Feature. 'ijvilJ My mother and listers say they will not see me again if Marylin and I are reconciled. What shall I do? I feel like I have no home, no family and no friends." By KATHLEEN NORRIS EVERY woman, in the next tremendous years ' of our country's history, is going to be either a taker or a giver. Every old, old woman, with the end, of her labors and the quiet of death in sight, and every very young woman ten, twelve, seventeen seven-teen years old, must put herself her-self into the class of the takers or that of the givers. We have come of age in the last terrible years, we Americans. We begin to see the great future that opens before us, a future In which the nations of the world shall aU be friends, shaU be speaking, as it were, the same language, shall solve together the age-old problems of want and excess, bitter need and extravagance, inflated currency, depressed de-pressed currency, overproduction, underproduction. x But this glorious future, that shaU remake the whole history of man, wiU not be reached without acts of separate and individual heroism, on your part and mine. It cannot be reached without our determination to achieve it. It Is there the glorious glori-ous tomorrow, without fear, without with-out poverty, without war. But the statesmen and diplomats and soldiers sol-diers who are at the top of aU our governments cannot accomplish it. It is only the people, ourselves, who can do that. Hence it is needful for every woman In the world this summer morning to look her own circumstances, circum-stances, her own conduct, severely in the eye, and decide just where she falls short. Just how much is she helping her neighbors to become be-come loyal and useful Americans? Just what sum of happiness,, security, se-curity, service is she rendering to her own people? 'Devil of a Mess.' Here is a letter that gives the dark side of the picture, I quote it only in part, "I've come home," writes Pvt. Bates McVayne, "to a devil of a mess. Maybe my nerves are stiU shaken from a pretty rotten time in the Pacific. Well, anyway, when I left two years ago our kid was three days old. It was Uke death to part with them, but the arrangement arrange-ment was that MaryUn and the baby were to live with my mother and sisters, and everything was going go-ing to be sweU. "Marylin and the girls quarreUed, and Marylin took the baby and went and Uved with a woman friend. Here the baby was so neglected that my mother went and got her one day and brought charges against my wife, in court. Marylin then went to Uve with a man she'd met and faUen in love with, and is stiU there, and the baby too. The baby seems happy, and doesn't know me, of course, and Marylin wants a divorce, but the man she is with wants me to pay for it as he thinks charges of complicity or aUenation of affection could be brought against him if he pays for it. Marylin says she wiU come back to me if I say so, as she feels she treated me badly. My mother and sisters say they wiU not see me again if Marylin and I are reconciled. recon-ciled. What shaU I do? I feel Uke I have no home, no family and no friends." There is a warm welcome home Get hold of the lit tit girL ... for a tired soldierl I am advising Bates to wait; to get hold of his Uttle girl and take her to his mother for a long visit, this without antagonizing antag-onizing Marylin or anyone else. Under the circumstances he will have no trouble in getting hold of the child. His sisters wiU probably be especially gracious with this arrangement, ar-rangement, and time to cool off and view the situation dispassionately will be given everyone. Such Women Are No Help. But what takers these five women wom-en are, and how far from their conception con-ception of things is the idea of giving! Giving help, hospitality, friendship, giving service, cooperation, coopera-tion, comfort. Their letters to Bates might have been family chronicles fuU of content, family gossip, cheering cheer-ing reports, hopeful plans. They might have made it impossible for him to forget that he is loved, needed, missed every hour. Instead they have regaled him on petty suspicions, quarrels, scandals, law suits. He has been tormented by anxieties for his child, regret for his mother's distress, resentment at the infidelity of his wife. If America and the world are ever to emerge from today's terrible ter-rible shadow of war, it wiU not be through women like these that they wiU be saved. We never can solve national and international problems while our own Uves are a confusion of discontents, debts, doubts, idleness, idle-ness, indifference, selfishness. We need strong doses of the old-fashioned virtues of faith, hope and charity. Charity toward starving China of course, stricken Europe, of course, the claims of the Red Cross, the War Chests, the homes and aides and drives and institutions, institu-tions, of course. But faith and hope and charity first of aU for our own people the people with whom we have breakfast, and for whom we set the dinner table at night. If each of us plants the three cardinal virtues vir-tues in the home circle, the world wiU one day become one great home circle and very close to the Kingdom of God. |