Mother's Day Proclamation - 1870
by:
Julia Ward Howe
about 1860
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.