Mother’s Day (for Peace)

Over the years, the feminist call for peace in Julia Ward Howe’s 1870 proclamation for a Mother’s Day for Peace became lost. Today, thanks to mass commercialism, we are told by advertisers to “remember Mom” with flowers, sentimental cards, brunch or at the very least -- a phone call.

It is 140 years since Howe penned her call for women worldwide to  unite in a shared mission of creating a peaceful world, but the challenges to peace, equality, economic justice and environmental security are still staggering.

What better way to honor women and humanity on Mother’s Day than to practice and promote the unconditional love we equate with motherhood? Imagine peace.

Mother's Day Proclamation – 1870

-- Julia Ward Howe

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 bosom 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 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,
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.

Howe (1817-1919) was an abolitionist who also worked for disarmament and women’s rights. She was a published poet and co-publisher of the The Commonwealth, an anti-slavery newspaper.