Arise, Then, Women Of This Day!

Julia Ward Howe
(1819-1910)
American abolitionist, social activist, & poet

"Arise, then, women of this day!

Arise, all women who have hearts, whether our baptism be of water or of tears! Say firmly: We will not have great questions decided 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."

~ Julia Ward Howe

(from the original Mother's Day Proclamation (1870), as a day for mothers to unite against war. Mother's Day became a national holiday in the United States in 1914 after the prompting of Anna Jarvis. Mere years later, she regretted ever coming up with the idea because of the commercialization of it.)