As Cindy Sheehan calls us to Washington, DC this weekend, I hear the echoes of
Julia Ward Howe (1819-1910). I learned about Julia from
Chris Bell's sermon in Newton, MA last Mother's Day.
Julia Ward Howe is most famous for writing the "Battle Hymn of the Republic", but during the Franco-Prussian War, she began a one-woman peace crusade, and wrote a proclamation of a Mother's Peace Day that resonates with all that Cindy Sheehan says today. In 1873, women in 18 cities in the U.S. held Mothers Day for Peace gatherings, and some continued annually for 30 years. We'll feel it again this weekend.
See below to compare what Julia Ward Howe said 135 years ago with what Cindy Sheehan says today.
In 1870, Julia Ward Howe reacted to the carnage of the Franco-Prussian War, following the Civil War:
"The question forced itself upon me, 'Why do not the mothers of mankind interfere in these matters, to prevent the waste of that human life of which they alone bear and know the cost?' I had never thought of this before. The august dignity of motherhood and its terrible responsibilities now appeared to me in a new aspect."
She wrote her Mother's Day Proclamation and sent it worldwide, translated into at least six languages:
Again, in the sight of the ... world, have the skill and power of two great nations exhausted themselves in mutual murder. Again have the sacred questions of international justice been committed to the fatal mediation of military weapons. In this day of progress, in this century of light, the ambition of rulers has been allowed to barter the dear interests of domestic life for the bloody exchanges of the battle-field.
Thus men have done. Thus men will do. But women need no longer be made a party to proceedings which fill the globe with grief and horror.
Despite the assumptions of physical force, the mother has a sacred and commanding word to say to the sons who owe their life to her suffering. That word should now be heard, and answered to as never before.
Arise, then, ... women of this day! Arise, all women who have hearts, whether your baptism be that of water or of 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 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 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 then solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means whereby the great human family can live in peace, man as the brother of man, each bearing after his own kind 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 also organized for international peace, fought slavery, and helped initiate the women's movement -- at a time "when to do so was a thankless office, involving public ridicule and private avoidance."
Julia's niece described her as
"a small woman of no particular shape or carriage, clothes never quite taken care of, her bonnets never quite straight on her head; and yet there was about her presence an unforgettable distinction and importance. Her speaking voice was very beautiful, and her face had a sensitive gravity, a look of compassionate wisdom, until a twinkle of fun rippled over it and a naughty imp laughed in her eyes."