Original Mothers Day Proclamation,
Julia Ward Howe: 1870
Arise then, women of this day!
Arise all women who have hearts, whether your baptism be of water or of tears!
Say firmly:
'We will not have questions decided by irrelevant agencies.
'Our husbands shall not come to us reeking of carnage for caresses and applause.
'Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn all that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy, and patience.
'We women of one country will be too tender to those of another country to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs.
'From the bosom of a devastated Earth a voice goes up with our own, it says "Disarm! Disarm!"
'The sword of murder is not the balance of justice.
'Blood does not wipe out dishonor, nor violence indicate possession.'
As men have forsaken the plow and the anvil at the summons of war, let women now leave all that may be left of home for a great and earnest day of counsel.
Let them meet first as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.
Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means whereby the great human family can live in peace, each bearing after his time the sacred impress not of Caesar, but of God.
In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask that a general congress of women without limit of nationality be appointed and held at some place deemed most convenient and at the earliest period consistent with its objects, to promote the alliance of the different nationalities, the amicable settlement of international questions, the great and general interests of peace.
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In 1870, Julia Ward Howe of Boston, Massachusetts, the famous lyricist of 'Battle Hymn of the Republic", appalled at that time by the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War, wrote the above proclamation, had it translated into French, Spanish, Italian, German, and Swedish, and disseminated it internationally.
In Julia's own words, "The question forced itself on me, 'Why do not the mothers of mankind interfere in these matters to prevent the waste of human life, which they alone bear and know the cost? I had never thought of this before. The august dignity of motherhood and its terrible responsibility now appeared to me in a new aspect."
Julia went to London in 1872 to try to organize her conference, and when an established peace organization there would not let her speak to them because of her gender, she hired a hall and conducted her own meetings. However, this work did not come to any quick fruition, and Julia returned to Boston.
But Julia Ward Howe did not give up. She began to promote a festival to be known as Mothers' Day, to be devoted to the advocacy of peace, and to be celebrated on June 2 each year, which in Boston is a good time for outdoor meetings and in the midst of the flower season.
This initiative was successful, and Mothers Day was celebrated for many years in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Edinburgh, London, Geneva, and even in Constantinople (Istanbul). However, a later effort organized by Anna Jarvis to commemorate her mother's death eventually also became popular, and since it did not include the same controversial call for peace and conflict resolution, it eventually gained the political 'upper hand'. Motherhood itself, not the more controversial idea of women coming together in activism for peace, prevailed.
However, what Julia wrote in 1870 is generally considered to be the original Mothers' Day proclamation. The 'Festival of Peace' she called for and worked so hard for did not take place until 1904. However, it was decided there to set aside one day in the year to prompt women to work toward resolving conflict peacefully.
In 1914, by popular demand and without reference to its actual pacifist origins, US President Woodrow Wilson proclaimed the second Sunday of May as Mothers' Day in the United States of America.
Happy Mothers' Day!
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