Kankakee Valley Post, Volume 11, Number 3, DeMotte, Jasper County, 5 December 1940 — Kathleen Norris Says: The Quick Way to Peace [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Kathleen Norris Says: The Quick Way to Peace

(Bell Syndicate—WNU Service.)

IN THESE exciting times try to live one day at a time, and do your best by that day.

Take it hour by hour and minute by minute, and polish those fragments of time as if each one was priceless —which indeed it is. Stop worrying along vague and general lines, and take firmly into your hands those lines God has given you to hold. Ask yourself how much serenity and cheerfulness and courage you impart to the family circle; whether its members like to get home to you—look to you for inspiration and comfort and reassurance. You may be very sure that in the great first war that gave us America, that gave us our new world of independence, there were women who were frightened, sneering, despairing, doubtful, helpless. There were other women who held firmly to hope' and courage through the darkest hours, who knew that the ideals f-or which their men were fighting were the true ideals, who never lost heart or faith.

They- had mighty little to go on, those early colonial women who saw the shabbiness, the poverty, the lack of training, the six-week enlistments, the treachery of congress when Washington’s ragged army was marching. But that didn’t matter. They knew that issues in this ‘ife aren’t decided by anything you can write on a blackboard or prove by a chart. They knew that the final and deciding factor is what "is in men’s hearts and souls, and of that they were sure. Be Brave —lt’s Contagious. Solve YOUR problem today, with charity and energy and cheerfulness, and never doubt that that bravery will unite itself to a thousand—a million,, more scraps of bravery and hope everywhere in the world, and bring us all out to a freer and happier future. Keep the house clean and peaceful. Keep your , own soul and mind the same. Keep out of agitating arguments and contentions; don’t let anyone scare Or depress you with glib predictions of dismay and ruin, and if you must think of the madhouse that is Europe today think of It with prayer. These are the days in which to see life as an adventure, not a flowery stroll through the Garden of Eden. Sometimes a scary adventure, sometimes a breath-taking adventure, but of nothing of which to be afraid—except fear. Don’t let children hear discouraged talk; don’t let the man of the house come to discouragement. An Optimistic Spirit Marches On. You’ve of course had the experience of sometimes meeting a friend m the market or at the club—a friend who is irrepressibly optimistic and heartening. She doesn’t know any more about world conditions than anyone else, but at that she probably knows as much as the smartest politician, statesman or press agent does. She says that things are better everywhere. People’s spirit is wonderful. The nations we love are showing wonderful courage, and the nations we dislike are merely mis-

led and will come back to their senses one of these days. Dictators wall die and peace will be re-estab-lished on firmer ground and ifter the darkness of this temporary fury, we «will see the dim beauty that means a new dawn. .Well, you may not fully believe her but what a tonic she is! In spite of yourself you find yourself more hopeful; and when you quote her at home everyone of the same hope. Civilization Will Survive. And why not? She is at least as reasonable as the fearful and dismal prophets who, see nothing but gloom ahead. For all wars HAVE ended, and although Napoleon and Cromwell and many others Were all supposed to destroy civilization in their day, and wipe great nations from the face of the earth, somehow they never did. Sanity crept back again, schools reopened, fields were sown; mourning and poverty held sway for awhile, and then the spring came back, and with it lovers and lilacs and new plans. After the war the world is going to need everything that we can give it of help and service. They are going to need food, over there, clothes, bedding, medicine, tools. We have to be ready with all that, and the only way can give it is to get our oWn house in order. Solve America’s problems; lessen the need for r elief; lessen unemployment; replace un-American plots and “isms” with a good healthy revival of the spirit that created the Declaration of Independence. And that has to begin with individual homes like yours and mine. Homes free of debt and disorder, of complaining | and discontent. One million such homes, scattered all over the continent, would be the beginnings of a new America. - Ten million would make us.the strongest, happiest, richest, most independent nation on the £arth. Put Own House in Order. So do your share by establishing one smalT unit of perfection. A home in which a man and woman love each other and their children. A home with a clean, warm kitchen, and a little garden, and a telephone and a radio and a gas stove and an electric refrigerator. A home to which outsiders look with admiration and envy. A home with books in it, and winter fires, and laughter, and a flag, and pleasant voices. One small oasis of perfection in a turbulent and troubled world. For it is only when we get many such tiny solved individual problems that we can hope to solve the bigger ones. Too few women—honestly eager to do their part in great national crises, forget that those crises are caused and brought on by the inefficiency and ignorance and discontent of millions of apparently unimportant citizens who won’t live the day for ihe day, and the hour for the hour, and make perfect those things they do control and so lift from the world just one. more fraction of its age-old pain.

Do your share by establishing one small unit of perfection. 4 home in which « man and woman love each other and their children. It is only when we get many such tiny solved individual problems that we can hope to solve the bigger ones.

/f A PPM ESS Kathleen Norris says there is no need to worry ,about, the rest of the world, or what will happen to us at some distant time, in the future. She. advises everyone to live one day at a time, and to make the best of that day. Stop worrying about the trouble elsewhere in the world, Miss Norris says, and concentrate on your own home and family-—make them as happy and perfect as you can.

By KATHLEEN NORRIS