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Show Kathleen Norris Says: Don't Be Scared by Your Oun Children (Bell Syndicate WNTJ Service.) They aren't satisfied to read that the coming-out party of one young girl costs sixty thousand dollars, and that another young girl, tired and hungry, slips into the cool river to end it all in despair. By KATHLEEN NORRIS CfG ago, when as a young woman I found life filled with heavy responsibilities responsibili-ties and burdens, I worked out a little scheme for myself. It has worked for forty years now, and I believe it will always al-ways work, for anybody at any age. The scheme was simple. It consisted merely in picking out the worst of my troubles, looking it firmly in the eye and deciding two things; first, whether it was my fault, and second, , whether there was anything to be done about it. If it positively wasn't my fault and there was nothing more that I could do to cure it than I had already done; then I experienced a certain relief, a certain peace of mind from the mere contemplation and analysis. For example, if one of the younger children was ill, and I inordinately worried, just the thought that the doctor had the case in charge, and that the child was being carefully watched, did something to reassure me. Or suppose I had to deny one of the younger members of the family the money or the luxury lux-ury or the advantage that some other child had; to remind re-mind myself that that advantage, ad-vantage, however large or small, simply could not be afforded, through no blame to myself, instantly instant-ly stabilized my own position. Face One's Problems. ' And so with older and more serious se-rious problems, in all the years, the habit of facing them, analyzing them, dismissing them, has proved to be the successful way to escape them. That's why I'm recommending this process of analysis today to all the mothers and fathers of America who are worrying about one of our latest national epidemics. I mean the tendency our children have, in high school and college years, to yearn for other sorts of government, other social experiments, other isms of all sorts. Too often we dismiss this tendency tenden-cy and it is widespread with a mere nervous "I don't know what's getting into schools and colleges nowadays, they're turning out perfect per-fect REDS!" And to the eager student we say coldly: "I don't want to hear any more of that nonsense! You don't know one thing about Russia. People Peo-ple buying divorces the way you buy theater tickets, and no religion, and everybody living in one room! Don't you let your father hear you talk that way, and don't you bring that red-headed boy to this house again!" Look to the Constitution. Now, it seems to me we ought to take quite a different attitude. It seems to me we ought to try rather to convince these young revolutionaries revolution-aries what the simple truth is: that there is no ideal social system that is not perfectly compatible with the principles upon which this greatest of all republics was founded. There is no system of the sharing of labor, wealth, land that is not practicable under our own Constitution. Constitu-tion. It has been called the noblest document ever emanating from the heart of man, and it deserves the description. If we were true to it, if we spent upon the study and de velopment of it one half the time we spend upon strange despotic ide- ( ologies from war-torn, hate-enveloped Europe, we would have no time to look across the water to what goes on over there. For that matter if THEY had saved their powder and their guns for a few hundred years, and taken a good look at the Sermon on the Mount, which they all profess to believe, we never would have heard the names of Stalin or Hitler. If the czars and the military and the Greek priesthood of Russia had not been sunk in luxury and oppression and taxation the bitter scenes of 1917 in that country never could have taken place. A Practical, Sane Solution. Today, if we in America stopped wringing our hands over the strange tendencies of our children to adopt drastic means of settling the questions ques-tions that disturb the national peace of mind, and set ourselves seriously to supply these rising young Americans Ameri-cans with sane and practicable means to accomplish the ends they desire, we would find ourselves still safe under the Constitution, and in a much improved world. How often, when they are spouting their young complaints and criticisms criti-cisms at the dinner table, do we answer an-swer them with a simple "What do you want changed? Just what are you working toward?" Well, they want equality, they want security, they want work for everyone and a fair living for everyone every-one who works. They aren't satisfied satis-fied to read that the coming-out party par-ty of one young girl costs $60,000, and that another young girl, tired and hungry and coughing her life out after too many hot hours in the cotton mills, slips into the cool river to end it all in despair. And I say more credit to our children chil-dren for caring, for not taking their own privileges and advantages for granted, as the more fortunate folk have done for so many generations, but determining to do something to make right the age-old wrongs! There is no reason why general indeed, universal peace and prosperity pros-perity and opportunity should not flourish here, without disturbing one word of the Constitution. There is no country in the world that will offer of-fer them a better opportunity for Utopian experiment. Nor need our basic laws be upset. Those of us who will may still worship in our churches; those of us who love simple sim-ple home life and privacy may still preserve these privileges. And those who hate work, who refuse to assume family responsibilities responsibil-ities who won't go to church and will go to roadhouses, will be permitted per-mitted to pursue their own lives peaceably, as they do today. In other words, the freedom of the individual, in-dividual, that precious heritage that was given us by the founders of our country, will still be respected by all who chance to come into contact con-tact with it. Cure Lies in Co-operation. Far better than the fear or scorn with which we treat our young reds today, would be an analysis of their motives and desires. What got them into this way of thinking, anyway Why, just what we all felt at 18 and 20 and 22. A passionate resentment of the injustices of life; a passionate desire to cure them. Find out what they want, and then see if it isn't something easily achievable and practicable. Help them to get inter-ested inter-ested in the native problems of adjusting ad-justing wage scales, clearing out slums, increasing employment by in. creasing trade, opening Up new tracts for new cities and farms, and they will discover that instead of the leprosy and typhus that the coun-tries coun-tries of the old world have had to handle, America's troubles are only heat rash and chickenpox. |
