Original Mother's Day Proclamation

livethe question · Post by **livethe question** » Sat May 10, 2003 6:53 pm

I offer the orignal Mother's Day Proclamation for your contemplatian. Seems like after over 130 years we'd learn something doesn't it.

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Original Mother’s Day Proclamation
Julia Ward Howe, Boston, September 1870

Arise, then, women of this day! Arise all Women who have hearts!
Whether your baptism be that of water or tears, 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 to 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 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 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 it’s objects, to promote the alliance of the different nationalities, the amicable settlement of international questions,
the great and general interest of peace.

lollycross · Post by **lollycross** » Sat May 10, 2003 7:38 pm

That was COOL!!!
I got a nice vase of flowers and the sweetiest pix of my
granddaughter!!!
Happy Mothers Day to the rest of you gals out there.
Lolly

Pat Cannady · Post by **Pat Cannady** » Sat May 10, 2003 7:45 pm

beautiful post. Not everything my mother taught me about mercy, charity, and patience was wasted.

Pat Cannady

PS well, maybe the stuff about patience was wasted, but I'm trying. I am an Aries, after all.

Soineanta · Post by **Soineanta** » Sat May 10, 2003 7:55 pm

Amen! Thanks for sharing. And Happy early Mom's Day to you all.

Whistlin'Dixie · Post by **Whistlin'Dixie** » Sat May 10, 2003 8:38 pm

I'm proud to be a Mom!!!! Happiest of Mother's Days to all!

And I got two cute Chinese dwarf hamsters from my sons! (They know me, all right

! )

Mary

Jack · Post by **Jack** » Sat May 10, 2003 9:41 pm

I'm proud to be a Mom!!!! Happiest of Mother's Days to all!

And I got two cute Chinese dwarf hamsters from my sons! (They know me, all right ! )

I'm not saying that you don't already know this, but I want to stress that when keeping any small animal (hamster, mice, rats, gerbils, etc) pine and cedar are TOXIC to their respitory systems. Any search on google with 'pine toxicity' will turn up thousands of results. It's only sold because people buy it. Aspen bedding costs $0.30 more and doesn't have the aromatic oils that are harmful to them. It's well documented in scientific literature everywhere, and all the respectable labs never use pine or cedar based beddings for that very reason. Ok, I step off of my soap box now.

I bought myself a betta for Mother's Day. I named him Chicken.

Zubivka · Post by **Zubivka** » Sun May 11, 2003 3:11 am

Interestingly, this "original proclamation" would be more aptly answered by the "International Women's Day" (now March 8th) sponsored by the UN, since it doesn't necessarily call up mothers but women generally. Anna's Jarvis Mothers Day may be inherited from this proclamation, but I don't know if it hasn't slipped into the big commercial trap it's here in Europe, where mothers get gifts... which usually range from cooking pans to electric blenders.

In France, the Mothers Day was mostly officialized by the Vichy government (1941, 42, 43), with heavy propaganda on the "social role" of the mother: please stick where you belong in-between children, kitchen and church. Aptly, this nazi-friendly regime glorified the old Bismarckian "KKK" idea of the woman, i.e. useless if not a mother.

jim_mc · Post by **jim_mc** » Sun May 11, 2003 3:38 am

A very happy mother's day to all the chiffy mothers.

madguy · Post by **madguy** » Sun May 11, 2003 4:40 am

Thanks for posting that original proclamation - it's the first time I've ever seen or read it.
A very Happy Mom's Day to all the mothers on C&F!

Just now an idea struck me.... crazy as it may be. I thnik in a little bit I'll drive up to my mother's (which is also my father's and grandmother's) gravesite and play something for her (them) on one of my whistles...

~Larry