Excerpts in italics from “Appeal to women throughout the world (Mother’s Day Proclamation)” by Julia Ward Howe, 1870
I put my boys under the waters
I bathe my children in the stream
High hopes for the future daughters
Who live in the in-between
This world is a mask of fury
This world is a wreath of wraiths
I cannot exact a surety so
My children must live by faith
Arise, then, women of this day! Arise, all women who have hearts, whether our baptism be of water or of tears!
We put our boys under the waters
Sent them off in railroad cars
To fight the mud and menace
under European stars
The damsels left behind them
The damsels in despair
Marched off into the factories
And cut off all their hair
We, women of one country, will be too tender of those of another country, to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs.
The arms are all around us
Their grip is surely tight
But still I’ll tell my children:
You do not need to fight
To plant a victory garden
You do not need a gun
You do not need the lie that
We are propping up the sun
Show love unto your neighbor
The rain it falls for free
This world is a ball of splendor
This world is a ball of splendor
This world is a ball of splendor and
Its beauty burns for thee
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.”
I am my grandfather’s granddaughter
Because he did not sink under the water
My sons are faith’s fresh fodder
I put them under the water
Photo: Maxo Vanka murals, St Nicholas Croatian Catholic church, Millvale, Pennsylvania
