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Home  Media Press Clippings Peace of Pie: Marblehead Reporter, MA
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Peace of Pie: Marblehead Reporter, MA |
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Letter: Roots of Mother's Day are in peace
Marblehead Reporter, MA
Thursday, May 11, 2006
by Sandra Winter
Long before the commercialism of Mother's Day, Julia Ward Howe envisioned it after the Civil War as a day dedicated to peace. The original Mother's Day Proclamation, written by Ms. Howe in 1870 stated:
"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 county to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs.'
From the voice 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 at 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 different nationalities, the amicable settlement of international questions, and great and general interests of peace."
Amid the cards and flowers and good wishes on Sunday, May 14, take a quiet moment to reflect on the original purpose of this day.
We are fortunate that even now, 136 years later, we still have an opportunity to work toward that same vision of peace through legislation to create a cabinet-level Department of Peace. HR3760 and 51756 are bills currently in committee in Congress that would establish such a department. Read them online at www.thepeacealliance.org and call your congressmen today to ask for their support in establishing this department.
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