MOTHERS' DAY REALLY!

[Guest guest]

MOTHERS' DAY REALLY!

Dear Mothers;

>

> Some of you may be unaware that, before Mothers'

Day was twisted into little more than an orgy of

card-buying by the Hallmark corporation and others, it

> was an antiwar convocation of mothers motivated by

the carnage of the Civil War. So I send this to

express love and appreciation to all mothers in the

> REAL spirit of Mothers' Day

>

>

> Ward Howe's Mother's Day Proclamation - 1870

>

> 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 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,

not of Caesar,

> But of God (Goddess) -

> 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.