The Evolution of "Dodd" / A pedagogical story giving his struggle for the survival of the fittest, tracing his chances, his changes, and how he came out

by William Hawley Smith

This statement should pass for an axiom, since it needs no proof. You have had dollars of your own that have been appropriated thus, have you not?

And of all habits that tend to demoralize a man, this one of dead-beat borrowing is the worst. It will sap the last germ of manhood out of a soul sooner than anything else I know of. It is one of the meanest vices in society, and one of the most prevalent among a certain class of young men.

I will not say that every person who asks to borrow money from a friend without offering security is a dead-beat. Such a statement might be somewhat wide of the mark. I only assert that I have always found it so!

It was not without misgivings that Mr. Bright advanced "Dodd" the ten dollars spoken of in the last chapter. But alas, poor man, he was yet blind to the fact that whoever thus assists a person in the condition in which "Dodd" now was does that person more harm than good.

There is any amount of light nonsense current on this point. See how the method worked in this case.

"Dodd" really meant to do better when he left Mr. Bright's. People in this condition always do mean to do better. He had made pledges to his friend and he hoped to keep them. It takes more than hoping to succeed in such eases, however.

I would by no means intimate that when a drunkard signs the pledge he is always lying and does not mean to keep it. On the contrary, I think the great bulk of those who thus write their names with a trembling hand, do, at the time of writing, really mean to keep all that they promise. But as a rule they change their minds when the trial comes, and "Don't count this time!"

This statement is a sad one, but it is terribly true. There is a reason for it.

And the chief reason is that these "unfortunates," as they are called, get into the habit of being carried when they should walk on their own feet. Your drunkard is always expecting sympathy, and help, and upholding. He leans down on you; he lies down on you. He pleads misfortune, disease, or something, and makes himself out a poor, weak victim of circumstances. He asks for help, and of a kind that most suits himself. He should not get such.

Help he should have, but of a kind that will make him help himself. Because, when such a person is merely helped by another he becomes helpless himself, and the last state of that man is worse than the first.