Show Dorothy Dix T Talks alks PERHAPS YOUR PET ALIBI IS HEREDITY MID AND YOU BLAME YOUR FAULTS ON THE FAMILY PERHAPS FAMILY PERHAPS ITS IT'S NERVES OR TEMPERAMENT WITH V WHICH YOU EXCUSE YOUR WEAKNESS BUSINESS BUSINESS' BUSINESS IS MANS MAN'S FAVORITE AND CHILDREN WOMEN'S PERFECT ALIBI WHAT ZAT VTHA T Is your favorite alibi 1 All of ot us have our pet excuses by which U f we seek to camouflage our faults and weaknesses to to world orld and to Justify our shortcomings to our own souls 5 Perhaps the most overworked alibi i In the world Is I. heredity You rarely meet any anyone one who will S I his faults fault are arc his hie own Oh dear no 31 They are always poor or 55 S n. Apparently the chief advantage In fi having ancestors Is II to have some soma one ona oneto S. S to whom you can pass pan the tho buck Any Any- Anyway Anyway way did you ever know of a drunk drunk- r e ard who confessed that the reason that he drank was wu because he liked the taste of liquor and because he ho hoS S enjoyed the gorgeous sense It gave S j him for a while of sitting on top of S s 4 the world Not much He tells tella you 5 I between maudlin sobs soba that he Is the victim of heredity and that drink Is I DOROTHY DIX In his blood DID DD you over ever know a gambler who ho ho was one from choice and because LI he was too weak wuk to resist the lure of ot the tho green cloth 1 Never It ItIs ItIs Is always because he is one or-e of ot the gambling or Jones or Smiths I Did you jou ever know a virago of ot a woman who ho was ashamed ot of giving away to her temper or who tried to control it No On the contrary she ahe is rather proud ot of taking after grandmother who was wasso so 50 high strung high-strung strung that she kept everybody about her paralyzed with Ith fear Did you ever know a woman oman who was a slovenly housekeeper and who ho ho sat Bat her family down to meals that would kill an ostrich who blamed herself hersel for her laziness and inefficiency Not on your jour our life lite She merely remarks rom arks that it doesn't run la in her family to be good cooks cooke and goes on wallowing in filth and ard poisoning her husband and children Another alibi that Is called upon to do yeoman service Is Ia I temperament You never see a man who confesses that he Is shiftless and trifling and no account nO and that he would rather bum his way through the world than work his passage No Indeed The reason why he never sticks to a Job Is not because the very thought of labor sickens him or because he hasn't t the grit to do anything that Is hard and monotonous as any task gets to be that you ou have to do day after day No It Is la because he Is I. so temperamental that he just simply can cant can't t bring himself to do ordinary commonplace things HIS II'S HIS romantic soul shivers in horror at the thought of ot a butcher shop it or laying bricks His free Cree soul could not be bo confined In irs an office or a store His delicate sensibilities shrink away from the sordidness of ot commercial life lite and so he be loafs while mother takes In boarders to support him But he isn't lazy It Is only that ho can never find any any- anything thing thins to do that is suited to his temperament t Did you ever know an Irritable nagging petty tyrant of a woman who ever admitted to her faults and tried to reform Mercy no Her alibi Is nerves and she considers them a die dis dispensation of Providence for which she Is no more than she Is for the color of her eyes IT jT IS her poor nerves that make her fly fir into tantrums every time she sho I is crossed in any way wray and say things that stab like a knife but which she sho expects everybody to forgive and forgot forget when she sho gets In a good humor It is Jg her poor nerves that make her have hysterics until she ehe gets a new car or a new dress or a new fur coat Its It's her poor nerves that make her rule her family with a rod of ot Iron so that they dare not do anything that displeases her for fear Cear of bringing on one of her spells Heaven Hea only knows whet hot mean selfish bossy women would do without nerves They might Lave have to behave themselves The ever present ever present alibi for the failure Is that he never had hada a chance He wasn't born to riches He couldn't go to col cal lege He never had any pull He has lived all of his life where there was no opportunity He had people he had to help And so ao he sat all au of othis his life Ifo on the do nothing do stool with fold fold- folded folded folded ed hands without ever making an effort to achieve success IT IT IS a lovely excuse for lack of energy and Initiative and general generalI I shiftlessness but it doesn't go much in a country where nine sue Rue men out of ot ten have made their own chances and hammered at atthe atthe atthe the door of ot opportunity until they broke through it Mens Men's favorite alibi Is business which Is a blanket excuse that covers everything they want to do and desire to leave un Un- done Does a man want to stay tay downtown of an evening and play poker with the tue boys Miss Smith telephone my wife I J Iam Jam Iam am detained on an Important business conference Does Doe he want to take a trip Business calls calis him away from home Does he give up reading everything except the headlines and the sporting news newa In the Too busy to read good books Does Docs he prefer only the shows at the theatre that exploit feminine pulchritude Pity the poor T T. T B. B B MI DOES flOES he neglect his wife and show sho more affection for tor her or Interest U in her than if It she wore a piece of household furniture Does he let lethis Isis Ills children grow up perfect strangers to him It Is la because he is so absorbed in his business Is he grumpy and grouchy around the house and as pleasant to live o with as a sore soreheaded sore headed bear would be Business again And as aa long as a man can plead business ho he feels fools it Is perfect justification for Cor his Ills breaking his vIes wife's heart and alienating his drons dron's affections and being utterly disagreeable The womans woman's perfect alibi Is la her children With Wit that she h away with everything from not powdering her nose to tom murder m Coming and going It is the best double dou double action action Je excuse which works both ways that has hu ever been devised TilE THE TuB young wife gets sloppy and fat and doest doesn't t comb her hair or doll doil I herself up because she has to take care ot of the baby The untidy womans omans house Is like a pigpen because you cant can't keep things clean if you have children Wife WICe leaves husband to tol toil in the tho city in the sum sum- summer mer while she goes to a II cool tool place for or the health of the children The Tho family has to move into a better house In a more snore fashionable neigh neigh- neighborhood neighborhood because the children havo have to 10 have havo social advantages and mother has to run run runaround around to parties because she has to make friends for the tho children And so it goes Each of us has our alibi by which we ex cx- excuse cute CUlt our faults and weaknesses What Is yours youra DOROTHY DIX Copyright by Public Ledger |