Mother’s Day wasn’t always another excuse to consume. Julia Ward Howe’s “Mother’s Day Proclamation,” proclaimed quite a different purpose for such a holiday in 1870. It seems particularly relevant these days:<\/p>\n
Mother’s Day Proclamation Mother’s Day wasn’t always another excuse to consume. Julia Ward Howe’s “Mother’s Day Proclamation,” proclaimed quite a different purpose for such a holiday in 1870. It seems particularly relevant these days: Mother’s Day Proclamation Arise, then, women of this day! … Continue reading
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\nArise, then, women of this day!
\nArise, all women who have hearts,
\nWhether our baptism be of water or of tears!
\nSay firmly:
\n“We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies,
\nOur husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage, for caresses and applause.
\nOur sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn
\nAll that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience.
\nWe, the women of one country, will be too tender of those of another country
\nTo allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs.”
\nFrom the bosom of the devastated Earth a voice goes up with our own.
\nIt says: “Disarm! Disarm! The sword of murder is not the balance of justice.”
\nBlood does not wipe out dishonor, nor violence indicate possession.
\nAs men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil at the summons of war,
\nLet women now leave all that may be left of home for a great and earnest day of counsel.
\nLet them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.
\nLet them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means
\nWhereby the great human family can live in peace,
\nEach bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar,
\nBut of God.
\nIn the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask
\nThat a general congress of women without limit of nationality
\nMay be appointed and held at someplace deemed most convenient
\nAnd at the earliest period consistent with its objects,
\nTo promote the alliance of the different nationalities,
\nThe amicable settlement of international questions,
\nThe great and general interests of peace.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"