Mother's
Day Proclamation of 1870
Mother's Peace Day

The
first person to fight for an official Mother's Day celebration
in the United States was Julia
Ward Howe. You may be more familiar with her name as the
writer who wrote the words to the Civil War song, The
Battle Hymn of the Republic:

"Mine
eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord;
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath
are stored;
He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift
sword;
His truth is marching on.
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! His truth is marching on.

Howe
was born in New York City on May 27, 1819. Her family was
well respected and wealthy. She was a published poet and abolitionist.
She and her husband, Samuel Gridley Howe, co-published the
anti-slavery newspaper The
Commonwealth. She was active in the peace movement
and the women's suffrage movement. In 1870 she penned the
Mother's Day Proclamation. In 1872 the Mothers' Peace Day
Observance on the second Sunday in June was held and the meetings
continued for several years. Her idea was widely accepted,
but she was never able to get the day recognized as an official
holiday. The Mothers' Peace Day was the beginning of the Mothers'
Day holiday in the United States now celebrated in May.

The
modern commercialized celebration of gifts, flowers and candy
bears little resemblance to Howe's original idea. Here is
the Proclamation that explains, in her own powerful words,
the goals of the original Mother's Day in the United States...

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
bosum 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.

Wouldn't
it be wonderful if on some distant Mother's Day, the wishes
of Julia Ward Howe could be fulfilled and the human race could
celebrate a day when, all over the world, no mother would
have to mourn the death of her child lost in war or terrorist
attacks...

To all of the mothers whose
children are fighting in wars - and to mothers whose children
are growing up with wars raging around them or with terrorism
threatening their safety... Wishes of strength, peace and
hope for this Mother's Day...

[Ed.
note: "From the voice of a devastated Earth a voice goes
up..." has been corrected to "From the bosum of
a devastated Earth a voice goes up..." Thanks to Sam
for catching the typo and letting us know!]