MOTHER'S DAY PROCLAMATION
Julia Ward Howe
Written in 1870
Arise all women who have
hearts, whether your baptism be that of water or of fears!
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
devasted 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 plow 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 then solemnly
take counsel with each other as the means whereby the great human family can
live in peace,
And each bearing after
her 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.
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