The Winslow mail. (Winslow, Ariz.) 1893-1926, 1925-05-08
MOTHERS DAY.

authority Ludu COuS1 SoS. lS
movement which resulted in tht
passage of this joint resolution Of
congress had its origin with Miss
Anna Jarvis in Philadelphia in 1908
1t quickly found popular favor.
Now, therefore l, Woodrow Will
son, president of the United States
of America, by virtue of authority
in me vested :. do hereby
direct the government officials tC
display the United States flag on
all government buildings and dc
invite the people of the United
States to display the flag at their
homes or other suitable places, on
the second Sunday in May, as a
public expression of our love and
reverence for the mothers of our
country.
That was the first Mothers Day
proclamation ever signed by a
president of the United States.
President Wilson signed it in 1914
and it is said that as he laid down
the pen he turned to William Jer-
nings Bryan, then his secretary of
state, and said with deep feeling
Bryan, that's the finest thing this
congress has done God bless the
mothers!"
That was the sixty-third con-
gress. And whatever it did or did
not do, the passage of such joint
resolution was a fine thing for any
congress to do. For, as President
Wilson most fittingly said, God
bless the mothers!"
Aye; God bless the mothers.
American cities and towns and even
villages have their public squares.
And in these public squares are
statues and monuments in honor
of the sons of those mothers. Why
no monuments to the mothers
themselves TO the mothers who
made possible those memorials, and
even those public squares? Here
and there we find the figure of a
woman whose fame has caught the
sculptor's fancy = Priscilla, the
Puritan Maiden" or Sacajawea,
who guided Lewis and Clark
through the wilderness of the Lou
isiana Purchase. Freedom" sur
mounting the capitol at Washing
ton, is woman. But no statues to
mothers as mothers. And yet, as
Herbert Quick most fittingly says
in "The Hawkeye":
The mothers of the frontiers
They felt the oncoming of another
day for their children. No life was
so laborious, no situation so I'M
propitious, no poverty so deep that
they did not, through a divine gift
of prophecy, see beyond the gloom
a better day for their children.
Doubtless the explanation is OBJ
vious. No monument made with
hands can be adequate Marble and
bronze are too material, too cold.
The fitting memorials of the moth
ers must be spiritual thing il
the hearts and souls of the sons.
Hence Mothers Day.
Whistler's Portrait of His
Mother" probably comes as near
to being a fitting memorial as can
any counterfeit presentment. All
the world knows the picture and it
has touched the heart of all peo-
pies.
We can not all have memorials
of our mothers like Whistler's
"Protrait of His Mother" but
every good American should have
the equivalent in his heart and
memory. And it should not be nee
essary to instruct the good Ameri-
can in the most fitting observance
of the day Fly your flag, wear q
white-or reclamation and lei
your affection program the rest.
Mothers day is set apart for spe-
cial observance in honor of the
home and of motherhood. It's pur-
pose is to recall the memories Of
mothers who have gone; to bright
en- the lives of those who remain
to stimulate men, women and chill
dren to honor home and parents
1t is to be observed by acts of affec-
ton to mother and father; by
services in the churches of al
creeds, and by wearing a flower
emblematic of the purity and beau
ty of mother love.
This twentieth century finds the
life of our modern civilization fas
and strenuous, with avocations as
engrossing as vocations. The
steam-heated apartment, the resi-,
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