Mother’s Day as we know it developed over decades beginning in the mid 19th century. During the period of its formation, it meant different things to the different women who promoted it. To some it was a day of activism to combat unsanitary living conditions and fight infant mortality.
To Julia Ward Howe it was a day for peace and to call for the eradication of war.
Julia Ward Howe was a wealthy heiress, philanthropist, abolitionist, suffragist, and poet. During the Civil War she worked with the U.S. Sanitary Commission to provide sanitary conditions for the care of the sick and wounded. She is best known as the author of the poem “Battle Hymn of the Republic” which brought her great fame.
In 1870 she called for a creation of a “Mother’s Day For Peace” dedicated to the eradication of war and the promotion of peace. Having witnessed the horrors of the Civil War, she was not alone in her desire.
She believed that Mothers should lead the way as they are the ones who most acutely pay the price of war.
The militarism and wars of the 20th Century caused the idea to lose popularity and the Mother’s Day For Peace eventually faded away.
In these troubled times plagued with wars and rumors of wars, it is worth remembering Howe’s words, especially today of all days. We publish Howe’s full proclamation in honor of all mother, especially those mothers who have lost husbands, sons and daughters in the long wars of the 21st Century, the century in which we have never known peace.
A Mother’s Day For Peace Proclamation
by Julia Ward Howe
“Arise, then… women of this day!
Arise, all women who have hearts,
whether our baptism be that of water or of tears!Say firmly:
We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies.
Our husbands shall 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, 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 the 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 vindicate 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 council.Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.
Let them then solemnly take council with each other as to the means
whereby the great human family can live in peace,
each bearing after his own kind the sacred impress, not of Caesar,
but of God.In the name of womanhood and of humanity, I earnestly ask
that a general congress of women, without limit of nationality,
may 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.“
