The Way It Is – May 2011
May Dates
by Marvin Miller
Some dates in May worth remembering:
May 1, 1886:
When some labor leaders in Chicago called for a demonstration in support of their demand for the eight-hour work day. May 1 is celebrated as Labor Day almost everywhere in the world except in the country where it originated.
May 4, 1970:
The day on which four students at Kent State University, Ohio, were shot and killed by the Ohio National Guard at a demonstration against the Vietnam war.
May 5, 1862:
Commemorated by Mexicans and Mexican-Americans as the day of the battle of Puebla, won by Mexican forces against a French army sent by Napoleon III to try to make Mexico a French colony.
May 30 1937:
When ten people were killed and thirty wounded, nine permanently disabled, by Chicago police. The victims were strikers at the Republic steel Co., who were seeking a union contract, and members of their families.
Mothers’ Day:
The original idea for a Mothers’ Day came from the poet Julia Ward Howe. I found an article about her and Mothers’ Day by Jone Johnson Lewis, the Leader of the . Howe’s call for Mothers’ Day was not for greeting cards, flowers, and restaurant dinners, but for a day when mothers in all countries would come together to call for an end to all wars. Here is her proclamation:
Arise then women of this day!
Arise all women who have hearts,
Whether your baptism be of water or of tears.
Say firmly:
“We will not have questions answered 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.”
From the bosom of a 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 some place deemed most convenient
And 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 interest of peace.