For Mothers Everywhere

Proclamation for Mother's Day

Arise, then, women of this day!
Arise all women who have hearts,
whether our 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 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 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 to the means
whereby the great human family can live
in peace, each bearing after their own
time the sacred impress, not of Caesar,
but of God-
In the name of womanhood and of
humanity, I earnestly ask that a
general congress of women without limit
of nationality may be appointed and
held at some place 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
Boston 1870