the anti-war origins of mother's day for peace
The Anti-War Origins of Mother’s Day
Poet and pioneer Julia Ward Howe (1819-1910)
Editor’s note: This article was originally posted in 2007.
In 1870, Julia Ward Howe responded to the horrors of the Civil War by issuing her “Mother’s Day Proclamation,” calling on women around the world to rise up and oppose war in all its forms.
It would be decades before Americans officially began celebrating Mother’s Day, and much of the original spirit of the proclamation has since been lost.
The Brave New Foundation, Code Pink and No More Victims are leading a movement to restore that spirit to the day, and for that we applaud them.
Mother’s Day Proclamation (1870)
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 voice 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 our 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.
—PZS
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20070513_the_anti_war_origins_of_mothers_day
The Original Anti-War Mother's Day
by
Gary Kohls
In 1870 - 140 years ago - the disastrous human consequences of the American Civil War were becoming increasingly apparent, especially to the mothers of sons and the wives of husbands who had watched as these men proudly and patriotically marched off to "glorious" war a decade earlier.
Some of these women had probably (and regretfully) participated in the pre-war flag-waving fervor that war planners and profiteers cunningly elicit from the poor and working classes who will be doing the dirty work.
Everything changed, however, when the killing and maiming started and the permanent war wounded struggled back home with desperate needs for medical and mental health care.
Julia Ward Howe was a life-long abolitionist and therefore probably a reluctant supporter of the Union Army's anti-slavery rationale for going to war against the pro-slavery Confederate South.
. . . .
http://www.commondreams.org/views/2010/05/09/original-anti-war-mothers-day
mother's day for peace