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MOTHERS DAY FOR PEACE
PROCLAMATION

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, May 1872

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               Mother's Day for Peace - by Ruth Rosen.

Honor Mother with Rallies in the Streets. The holiday began in activism; it
needs rescuing from commercialism and platitudes.

Every year, people snipe at the shallow commercialism of Mother's Day.
But to ignore your mother on this holy holiday is unthinkable. And if you
are a mother, you'll be devastated if your ingrates fail to honor you at least
one day of the year.

Mother's Day wasn't always like this. The women who conceived Mother's
Day would be bewildered by the ubiquitous ads that hound us to find that
"perfect gift for Mom."  They would expect women to be marching in the
streets, not eating with their families in restaurants.  This is because
Mother's Day began as a holiday that commemorated women's public
activism, not as a celebration of a mother's devotion to her family.

The story begins in 1858 when a community activist named Anna Reeves
Jarvis organized Mothers' Works Days in West Virginia.  Her immediate
goal was to improve sanitation in Appalachian communities.  During the
Civil War, Jarvis pried women from their families to care for  the wounded
on both sides. Afterward she convened meetings to persuade men to lay
aside their hostilities.

In 1872, Juulia Ward Howe, author of the "Battle Hymn of the Republic",
proposed an annual Mother's Day for Peace.  Committed to abolishing war,
Howe wrote: "Our husbands shall not come to us reeking with carnage...
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".

For the next 30 years, Americans celebrated Mothers' Day for Peace on
June 2.

Many middle-class women in the 19th century believed that they bore a
special responsibility as actual or potential mothers to care for the
casualties of society and to turn America into a more civilized nation. 
They played a leading role  in the abolitionist movement to end slavery.  In
the following decades, they launched successful campaigns against
lynching and consumer fraud and battled for improved working conditions
for women and protection for children, public health services and social
welfare assistance to the poor. To the activists, the connection between
motherhood and the fight for social and economic justice seemed self-
evident.

In 1913, Congress declared the second Sunday in May to be Mother's Day. 
By then, the growing consumer culture had successfully redefined women
as consumers for their families.  Politicians and businessmen eagerly
embraced
the idea of celebrating the private sacrifices made by individual mothers. 
As the Florists' Review, the industry's trade jounal, bluntly put it, "This was
a holiday that could be exploited."

The new advertising industry quickly taught Americans how to honor their
mothers - by buying flowers.  Outraged by florists who were selling
carnations for the exorbitant price of $1 apiece, Anna Jarvis' daughter
undertook a campaign against those who "would undermine Mother's Day
with their greed."  But she fought a losing battle.  Within a few years, the
Florists' Review triumphantly announced that it was "Miss Jarvis who was
completely squelched."

Since then, Mother's Day has ballooned into a billion-dollar industry.

Americans may revere the idea of motherhood and love their own mothers,
but not all mothers.  Poor, unemployed mothers may enjoy flowers, but
they also need child care, job training, health care, a higher minimum wage
and paid
parental leave.  Working mothers may enjoy breakfast in bed, but they also
need the kind of governmental assistance provided by every other
industrialized society.

With a little imagination, we could restore Mother's Day as a holiday that
celebrates women's political engagement in society.  During the 1980's,
some peace groups gathered at nuclear test sites on Mother's Day to protest
the arms race.  Today, our greatest threat is not from missilies but from our
indifference toward human welfare and the health of our planet.  Imagine,
if you can, an annual Million Mother March in the nation's capital. 
Imagine a Mother's Day filled with voices demanding social and economic
justice and a sustainable future, rather than speeches studded with syrupy
platitudes.

Some will think it insulting to alter our current way of celebrating Mother's
Day.  But public activism does not preclude private expressions of love
and gratitude. (Nor does it prevent people from expressing their
appreciation all year round.)

Nineteenth century women dared to dream of a day that honored women's
civil activism.  We can do no less. We should honor their vision with civic
activism.

                     Ruth Rosen is a professor of history at UC Davis