Well knock me over with a feather! I did not know that this proclamation existed! Having never seen it before, I was surprised and a little saddened when a friend sent it to me. Surprised that in all of my education I had never come across this before and saddened that Mother’s Day has departed so sharply from this original proclamation!
Now, don’t get me wrong, whatever one does on Mother’s Day is their business, but can you imagine if all of us women used this day as a time to promote peace instead of eating brunch? I am sending this in hope that we can remember the original proclamation and do something to promote peace on Mother’s Days to come.
Julia Ward Howe (27 May 1819 – 17 Oct 1910) was a prominent American abolitionist, social activist, and poet most famous as the author of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.” Her “Mother’s Day Proclamation” was one of the early calls to celebrate Mother’s Day in the United States. Written in 1870, it was a pacifist reaction to the carnage of the American Civil War and the Franco-Prussian War. The Proclamation was tied to Howe’s feminist belief that women had a responsibility to shape their societies at the political level.
By Julia Ward Howe
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 answered by irrelevant agencies, Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with 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, the women of one country, Will be too tender of 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 often forsaken the plough 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 own 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, May be appointed and held at someplace deemed most convenient And 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.
WOW! What do you think about this?
May 11, 2009 at 1:35 pm
I think you would fast put NATO out of business. Arise then…women of this day!
May 11, 2009 at 3:50 pm
I can imagine a world without war and I am willing to move toward that ideal! Peace.
May 17, 2009 at 11:25 pm
Thanks for sharing this Diane.
Very interesting. I was able to visit Gettysburg National Military Park on our trip around the country this last year. I can understand Ms Howe fervor to make her proclamation. I don’t understand how mothers, daughters, wives could let their loved ones go and reek such carnage.
I really didn’t want to visit Gettysburg because it seemed too many mothers lost sons in that place, 53,000 in three days. But a librarian at my local PA library reminded me each of those who chose to go fight & die there did so for an idea they felt deserved fighting for – she point out I need to respect their memories.
Still, I just can’t understand killing another human for an idea?? How do we get to these impasses?
I understand that I live a wonderfully,charmed life of personal freedom here in the United States of America – pretty much unequaled in human history. I owe my freedom to those who were willing to fight for me – part of the future generation – but at what cost?
Is it true women would look for other ways of working out differences other than battle? Do we get so busy in our work-a-day lives that we forget to think about the rights of future generations and the impacts my decisions will have on them? So many questions . . .
Janna Stern