Show DOROTHY DIX T TALKS S r P Ri DOROTHY DIX the he Worlds World's Paid Faith 1 Woman oman rile THE BEST INTENTIONS IN THE WORLD WONT WON'T KEEP YOU FROM HURTING THOSE YOU LOVE UNLESS MOST MOST UNLESS YOU THINK BEFORE YOU ACT OR SPEAK T I boys who rocked j i a boat and overturned It thereby drowning two other boys who couldn't swim have been Indicted for tor Involuntary And heres here's hOping that they will ivill he be heI I r convicted and anft get a good stiff sentence IIII In III I prison as a just punishment for their crim- crim crimS e S 1 Inal carelessness and I a warning to the multitudes of people who ho consIder that they excuse all their sins of omIssion and corn com commission i mission by saying that the they think I didn't think I didn't think I It Is the of an I 5 Idiot yet we are arc forced to accept It c 4 every day dy from intelligent individuals as an explanation of why they I failed In the common courtesies and andl decencies of life or for their hav hay tail Ino done things so cruel that they might have been inspired by malice g itsel itself After all the tie motive matters I little It Is the deed that counts count DOROTHY DIX u a The victim of the fool who pointed a gun at him that he think had been Intentional mur- mur murdered murdered murdered dead If he was loaded Is Ie I Just as as dered It doesn't console the wife or mother who weeps above bove the coffin of her husband or only son to know that he hc was slain slain through carelessness and arid not by design office boy toy who unthinkingly throws a lighted In a aste M THE T waste ste paper basket can start just jUlit as bIg Us a Hie fhe and wreck w reek a factory just as completely as aa the most accomplished arsonist could It doesn't save the manufacturer from loss and tind perhaps bankruptcy to know his half smoked he ho was that when the office boy nuns flung away thinking about the baseball score and nothing else and had not the me faintest desire to ruin his hia employer Very few of us ua have enemies who ho openly revile lIe us and seek to todo todo do UE us harm hal Most of us go through life lICe without anybody es e ever eer er concoct concoctIng concoctIng log Ing any deep dark sinister plot against us But Dut none of us escape beg Ing be lag Ing tolled Soiled In our ambitions and checkmated In our plans and hurt and ana wounded rounded In iii a thousand ways that destroy our oui peace and happiness And nine times out of ten the unconscious villain who up- up upsets sets our applecart Is some member of our own family or some friend some one who loves us and who would not willingly do us an evil turn but who through criminal carelessness does us more harm In Jn a our deadliest foe ioe could do In a week A N IRATE father Impatient with the follies ot or i proclaims to toA AN A all nil who will listen to him bim that John Is a v oung fool tool and a loafer and waster and the tho boy has ha to go aVo away ay from home homo to get a start lart because hIs hia father has prejudiced the community against him A gar gar- gar gar- garrulous wife who tells tolls that her ber husbands husband's business Is In a bad shape and that he ha doesn't know whether he la is going to get the tha money to meet his obligations kills a mans man's credit at the bank and throws him Into bankruptcy A babbling mother complains that Janie Janle was out till all hours of the night that she aha will run with that fast tast cro crowd d and that she doesn't know what the worlds world's coming and to-and to and Janle's Janies reputation Is hopeless hopeless- hopelessly ly smirched An Indiscreet friend happens to find about some property you are thinking of ot buying and casually mentions the tact fact tact and the deal on which you stood to make a neat little turnover Cr goes None of these people set out setout with malice aforethought todo to todo todo do a deadly Injury to anyone least of all to their families Noth Noth- NothIng Noth- Noth NothIng Nothing ing was farther from fathers father's thoughts than to kill his sons son's prospects The wife would have been horrified at the mere suggestion that she was ruining her husband The mother would have died sooner than blacken her lier daughters daughter's name Nothing would have bribed the friend to have betrayed your business secret yet they all commItted these crimes want of thought They never stopped to consider the conse conse- consequences of what they said and the results just the same Game as JS If they had been Inspired by malignity And Its It's the results that matter THERE MS 12 are very few people eople In the world who ho arp are cruel enough to 1 enjoy deliberately to torturing ing a fellow tellow creature but there are arc are Ie Ic glens glons of people who could quality qualify as chief through through the criminal carelessness of what they say These are they who tell teU a sick person how their grandmother died of the same disease he has bas after she had bad spent a fortune going to the best physicians They rhey Imitate the stumbling gait of ot cripples In the presence of ot a lame man They have an unceasIng fund of ot anecdotes about old maids ef- ef efforts ef efforts forts torts to capture a husband that they tell to spinsters and they de delight light to tease the wife of o e a a philanderer about her husbands husband's affairs with other othET women Let anybody have han a skeleton within their closet and such a one Is dead sure sura to rattle its bones not on purpose but simply because he think how bow his words open a n door on a bitter memory or tear apart an art old wound or stab anew a pride that always Vay bleeds bled And If we are criminally careless In doing the things we should not net do we are equally guilty In not doing the things we should do The letters we meant to write the we meant tg to pay to the eld old and lonely the tha d of praise we meant to say the appreciation we meant to voice and that we never do A A DOCTOR told me once that the tho most heartrending scene be he ever witnessed was at the deathbed of a woman who ho lied d h d literally per perIshed of heart hunger Her husband was wits a hard bard cold stern stenn man wan who ho had nes ne never neer er said Bald one affectionate word is ord to her In the whole of their mar mar- married ned ried life But Dut when ho he knew that his wife nile Ire was dIng d ing on bended beaded knees I he sobbed out to her the devotion and admiration he had always felt tolt I for b her Why W hy did you not tell teU m me this before asked ased the wife wite I could I have lived and been so happy It H I had bad only known that ion vou ou cared for me mc I 1 never thought said aid the man Its too late Jato now the w woman oman oman replied and turned her face to the wall and died An old colored woman I once knew used to punish her chil dren severely whenever they made the excuse that they didn't think think didn't think she else would exclaim What did God give you a thinker for if you dont don't use It it So say we all God help us to use our thinker and not to be guilty of ot criminal carelessness DOROTHY DIX CopyrIght 1923 by Public Ledger Company |