Mothers

So every year, we get this Mother's Day thing. Great for selling flowers and cards. One of the reasons I like the Internet is that it took me all of a second (or two) to turn up the Mother's Day Proclamation by Julia Ward Howe. It does make interesting reading, you know. And it was responsible for what became "Mother's Day".


Mother's Day Proclamation

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 unlearnAll 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 countryTo 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 solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means
Whereby the great human family can live in peace,
Each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar,
But of God.


In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask
That a general congress of women without limit of nationality
May be appointed and held at someplace 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.

 Okay, you go girl!


The way I would prefer to spend the day would be with a showing of my 16mm IB Tech print of "Gorgo". Sailor boys, somewhere in the vicinity of the Irish coast,  find a giant creature. They capture it and hustle it off to Battersea Fun Fair where it's named Gorgo and is exhibited in a huge pit. What wasn't realised was that Gorgo is a baby. And Momma comes looking for him. It's great fun.



In my NYC days, I used to show it with "Now, Voyager".



Ah, such fond memories.
Happy Mother's Day, everybody.