May 13, 2025: Anti-War Origins of Mothers Day

Voices of Reason and Resistance gave a belated tribute to Mother's Day with Julia Ward Howe's 1870 Mother's Day Proclamation urging all mothers to arise to demand peace and wage more no more.  Her proclamation came after the bloody carnage of the USA Civil War and Franco-Prussian Wars.  She proclaimed that woman have a sacred duty to reject wars that take their sons or for their sons to take the sons of other countries.  She asked that June 2 be set aside every year to honor mothers and peace.  Howe, a suffragist, pacifist and abolitionist, who wrote the Battle Hymn of the Republic in 1861 as the Civil War was raging, was not successful in her efforts and it took until 1914 for Anna Jarvis to successfully petition President Woodrow Wilson to proclaim an annual Mother's Day without the focus on peace. 

Since Howe's Mother's Day Proclamation, the USA engaged in nearly 50 wars as well as numerous regime change coup operations in other countries, leaving mothers to mourn the loss of millions of sons, daughters, spouses.  Barbara, VoRR host, talked about the three wars that most impacted her and her father, partner and son--WWII, Vietnam, and Afghanistan and the genocide in Gaza aided and abetted by the  USA.  She asked us to put on our thinking caps and to respond to this question:  At this time when our country is engaged in devastating and costly wars killing soldiers and civilians and leaving so many veterans physically, mentally and morally wounded and traumatized, isn't it time for Mother's Day to return to its roots, to forget the flowers, the candy, the dinners, and give peace a chance.    She ended by reading 4 stanza of How's Battle Hymn of the Republic.

Next Tuesday, May 20, will be a pre-recorded VoRR, and we will return live on May 27 with a special tribute to Decoration Day, now called Memorial Day.