Each Mothers Day Weekend, we have an enactment of Julia Ward Howe at the garden. This past year we held a concert after the enactment by our actor-member of Veterans For Peace/Peace Action Narani O’Shaughnessy dresses in1870 style for her portrayal of Julia War Howe. The point she makes is that Howe’s Mother’s Day Proclamation was a call to mothers to help end war and violence. Julia Ward Howe’s appeal took place just five years after the horror of the American Civil War. It was both a demand for women not to thank their husbands for their service, their murderous ways, and for their sons not to kill other mothers’ precious sons.
“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.””
At our Mother’s Day Weekend Concert of 2025, the band Bluestoone selected anti-war songs dating to the most hated song of tough guy super patriot, Teddy Roosevelt in 19176 Rossevelt dreamed of being part of the carnage in the European War and resented most the song that might damage our American addiction to war: “I Didn’t Raise My Boy to be a Soldier” (to kill some other mothers loving boy) was the opening and closing song following the portryal of Jusla Ward Howe.
I Didn’t Raise My Boy to Be a Soldier
Lyrics: Alfred Bryan
Music: Al. Piantadosi
Year: 1916
Ten million soldiers to the war have gone,
Who may never return again.
Ten million mother’s hearts must break
For the ones who died in vain.
Head bowed down in sorrow
In her lonely years,
I heard a mother murmur thro’ her tears:“I didn’t raise my boy to be a soldier,
I brought him up to be my pride and joy,
Who dares to place a musket on his shoulder,
To shoot some other mother’s darling boy?
Let nations arbitrate their future troubles,
It’s time to lay the sword and gun away,
There’d be no war today,
If mother’s all would say,
I didn’t raise my boy to be a soldier.”This song was originally posted on protestsonglyrics.net
What victory can cheer a mother’s heart,
When she looks at her blighted home?
What victory can bring her back All she cared to call her own.
Let each mother answer
In the years to be,
“Remember that my boy belongs to me!”
Few Americans know the origin of Mother’s Day. It was not about greeting cards, flowers, and nice dinners–all fine– but far from the original point of the need for mothers to teach peace, not war.
Today, we have women trained to kill for the Imperialist system now ravaging the world. What would Julie War Howe think?
This year, 2026, we will once again hold a Mother’s Day Ceremony at our Children’s Peace Garden. Our Mothers Day Concert will be the night before at the First Congregational Church in Binghamton, featuring socio-political commentary and satire of musician Tom Neislon https://tomneilsonmusic.com
Jack Gilroy
Stu Naismith VFP Chapter 90 Bingamton, NY
