Glenn Beck, Julia Ward Howe, and Mother's Day

Transcript: Our sponsor this half hour is the Vermont Teddy Bear Co. Vermont Teddy Bear is getting ready for Mother's Day weekend. Can you believe Mother's Day week -- by the way, Sarah and I were talking on Saturday and she didn't believe me, or it was on Friday, and she didn't believe me. And I said, Mother's Day, it's a scam. It's a big business scam. And I said, I bet it was started by Woodrow Wilson. Look it up, Sarah. And she didn't. I said, look it up. She's like, no, I'm not going to look it up. I said, look it up, I'll bet you, I'll bet you. Mother's Day? Started 1914. Woodrow Wilson. Hate that guy. Love my mom. Hate the holiday. Now, you could go to Hallmark because Hallmark and Woodrow Wilson would like you to do that. But there's something new from Vermont Teddy Bear. Three handmade teddy bears in pink, green, and white. The bears are scented, each one with a different scent: strawberry, watermelon and cupcake. It's like a bouquet of flowers, only it's a bear bouquet for life. Call 1-800-829-BEAR or go to VermontTeddyBear.com, VermontTeddyBear.com. Something new for mom this year to let her that you love her and you're thinking about her. The bear bouquet. From Vermont Teddy Bear. Delivery before Mother's Day is guaranteed. Don't forget guys, it's Sunday. 1-800-829-BEAR or shop online at VermontTeddyBear.com.

Just for the record, Mother's Day has been around about half a century too long to have been Woodrow Wilson's idea. Julia Ward Howe, best known for writing The Battle Hymn of the Republic, became an anti-war activist when she saw the carnage of war up close. In 1872, she wrote this proclamation for the first American celebration of Mother's Day:

The Original Mother's Day

"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 decided by irrelevant agencies. Our husbands shall not come to us reeking of 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 women of one country will be too tender to 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 forsaken the plow 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 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 be appointed and held at some place 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."

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