Mother's Day - A Day for PEACE and PEACE activism

The mother of Mother's Day was Julia Ward Howe, who declared the first Mother's Day in the United States in 1870 with the "Mother's Day Proclamation"in order to promote peace and protest the carnage of war.


This holiday (later approved as a national holiday by Woodrow Wilson in 1914) was initially a day to celebrate the role of mothers as peacemakers.  Howe, the author of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" (written as anti-slavery song), had seen one too many sons and husbands killed in the American Civil War and in the Franco-Prussian War.  "This proclamation was tied to Howe's feminist belief that women had a responsibility to shape their societies at the political level" Wikipedia article.


 "In the1870s, during the Franco-Prussian war, Julia felt "the cruel and unnecessary character of the contest. . . . a return to barbarism, the issue having been one which might easily have been settled without bloodshed." She began a one-woman peace crusade that began with an impassioned "appeal to womanhood" to rise against war. She translated her proclamation into several languages and distributed it widely. In 1872 she went to London to promote an international Woman's Peace Congress but was not able to bring it off. Back in Boston, she initiated a Mothers' Peace Day observance on the second Sunday in June and held the meeting for a number of years. Her idea spread but was later replaced by the Mothers' Day holiday now celebrated in May." Biography of Julia Ward Howe (click here)


In the true spirit of the holiday, I wish all the mothers of the world peace this day.  Let us remember the words of Julia Ward Howe and celebrate the powerful message of this MOTHER'S DAY PROCLAMATION.

Arise, then, women of this day!

Arise, all women who have hearts,
Whether our baptism be of water or of tears!

Say firmly:
"We will not have great questions decided 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 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 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 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.

Julia Ward Howe, mother of six, American abolitionist, 
social activist, poet  and  peace  maker
(1819-1910)