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Show i Dorothy Dix Talks j TO HUSBANDS AND FATHERS. I Byjyj:nTirY. .DJ:3;,JJ,h.fJ. ."'.'rId g SfeJU?g5g Writer I Utention Mr. Husband and Father! These few lines are written especially ioT you. Please read them. Have you made your -will? And if vou have made it, have you tied up whatever money you are leaving your vife and daughter in some sort of a fool-proof trust, so that they can neither spend it, nor give it away, nor 1,e cheated out of it? If you have not done this you have committed a crime against those who ,;. pi ndcnt upon you and who look 1 0 vou. and have a right to look to you, to defend thorn against a world that j hard and cruel to penniless women. If you le not done this, go this verT day to your lawyer and make vour will, and leave your property in trust to your wife and daughters. Man men put off making their wills because they hate to face the thought cf death. This is puerile cowardice The oDe certain thing in an uncertain world is death. It is bound to como to ich one of us, and the most com porting thought that an man can have when he comes to lay his head on the now for the last time is that he is Qeaving those he loves safeguarded against want. rf there is a hell it can have no -worse torment than the remorse a juan must suffer if after death, his spirit can visit the earth and see hist joor, helpless old wife eating thei bitter bread of dependence, and his tenderly reared daughters battling hopelessly against poverty because he -was too stupid and careless to make ia will settling the money he left them Ion them in such a way that they could lot lose it. I repeat again with all the em-mhasis em-mhasis and earnestness of which I am capable, Mr Husband and Father make a will ad leave your wife's and daughters' property in trust so that Ithey cannot touch the principal Fiftv years hence when women have' tpone into business, and every girl is brought up to follow some gainful occupation, oc-cupation, women as a class may know how to handle money and it may be l ttafe to leave them their property out-Tight, out-Tight, but at the present time they lack this knowledge, and it is not safe to leave it to them unsecured. Even- man knows this He knows that he wouldn't trust his wife to handle han-dle his business or decide on his in- that his death will work some sort of a miracle in her that will inspire her with sufficient financial acumen to handle his estate when he is gone0 Of course no such miracle occurs, and the familiar tragedy that you have seen happen to a dozen of your friends' families will happen to your own. Mr. Husband and Father, unless you are wiser thaji your friends were. Think of how often a little scene like this happens You are seated at jour desk and your office boy comes In and says that Mrs A wants to see you She comes in, a pathetic shabby little creature in black, with hair that is suddenly gone gray, a figure that Beems to have shriveled up all at once, and a face that has lost all of its Jolly middle aged pTettiness. You look once into the haggard, desperate ;md .swallow hard, and haven't the courage to meet them again. For Mr?. A is the widow of your old friend Many ta the good dinner you've eaten in her beautiful home. Many is the jolly ride you've iakn in her automobile., for A was a rich man, and when he died his family came into a comfortable pot of money. But they haven't a cent now. oome-how. oome-how. the whole fortune slipped through Mrs. A's fingers. Bad invest nirmts, (reckless extraY agance, people who cheated her. relatives who borrowed and couldn't pay back Same old story, and Mrs. A has come to you to ask you if you won't help her to get some work, something whereby she can support herself. What can you say to her. What can you do for her? What, in all this busy j world that demands good and competent com-petent work, can a middle-aged worn- Ian who has never been trained to any (occupation do She's too old to learn new tricks. She lacks the strength and stamina to do manual labor. She's handicapped by the habits of luxury and ease of half a century of rich living. She lacks alertness and high spirits, th. brightness and charm that makes people peo-ple want to have young girls about them. You would be only too clad to make a place for her in your office ii you could, hut there's absolutely nothing that she Is capable of doing, and so! you rell her some polite lie, and hold i out a few vague promises that vou'll! try to get her off, because you are : thinking, what if you were dead, and' that was your poor old wife going like a beggar from door to door, and you cannot bear the thought of 11 Or perhaps it is A's young daughter daugh-ter that you run across in a store, sagged back utterly exhausted against the shelves She looks so thin, worn! and tired and she's just the age of your blooming Betty, who is dancing through the picnic time of life. And then you curse A for his stupidity stu-pidity in not having left his propert so those fool women couldn't beggar themselves. Yet very likely you are! doing the same thing that A did. and j your family may come to the same end, I do not need to tell you, Mr. Hus-, band and Father, that there are men who are human ghouls, who amass for- I tunes by preying on widows and orphans. or-phans. You know that these men i come to women in the guise of religion, of friends, even of relatives to ruthlessly ruth-lessly rob them You can cite a dozen widows whom you personally know, who have been induced by the deacons in their churches to invest their all in phoney slocks, or to back scheme so transparently trans-parently fraudulent that the promoters would never have dared to propose them to a man. You have seen tbo sudden affection that Cousin Thomas develops for poor Mary until he borrows bor-rows all of poor Mary s money without with-out any security. You know that women consider a good inestment the one that pays the biggest interest without reference i to its stability. ou know that, women will sign any document without read- ' ing or understanding it, because it seems to them discourteous to be BUS-picious, BUS-picious, and what does a little thing i i like writing your name amount to j anvway? Mr Husband and Father you can't ; make women over much as they may need it and much as you might like to But you can protect your own wife and daughters from their own 1 folly In money matters, and save them ' ; from starvation and want by tyine up what you leave them in trust, so that ! 1 they will get only the interest in i sums small enough for them to know j how to handle. I As for leaing your daughters' prop- j erty in trust so that their husbands can't spend it, and the girls can't give it to them, remember this tin- right sort of a husband will be glad lor his wife's property to be settled on her so 1 1 hat she will be safe no matter what ; happens to him And n he's the wrong I soi t of a husband, the wife especially j needs to have her money so tied up by law that her husband can't get his greedy hands on It. Make your will today Mr. Husband , and Father. And leave your money to I your wife and daughters in trust. on |