Julia Ward Howe, 1819-1910Richards, Laura Elizabeth Howe
History
Julia Ward Howe, 1819-1910
Richards, Laura Elizabeth Howe
Authors, American -- 19th century -- Biography; Feminists -- United States -- Biography; Howe, Julia Ward, 1819-1910
"I could not," she says, "stay away from this meeting. My heart was
here, and I came, not so much to speak, as to hear what is to be done
about this dreadful trouble. For something must be done. I have to pray
God night and morning that He would find some way to stay this terrible
tide of slaughter....
"I recall the first action of Florence Nightingale when she went to take
care of the sick and wounded in the Crimean War. She found many things
wanting for the comfort of the soldiers in the hospitals, but she could
not get at them. Some seal or mandate was waited for. 'The men are
suffering,' Florence Nightingale said. 'Break in the doors--open the
boxes--give me the blankets and medicines. I must have them!'--and so
she did. Now, the fleets of the Western nations are waiting for some
diplomatic development which shall open the way for action. I think that
we, the United States of America, are now called upon to play the part
of Florence Nightingale; to take our stand and insist upon it that the
slaughter shall cease. Oh! let us give money, let us give life, but let
us stand by our principles of civil and religious liberty. I am sure
that if we do so, we shall have behind us, and with us, that great
spirit which has been in the world for nineteen centuries past, with
ever-increasing power. Let us set up in these distant lands the shelter
of the blessed Cross, and of all that it stands for, and let us make it
availing once and forever."
Soon after this the Friends of Armenia organized as a society, she being
its president. Among its members were William Lloyd Garrison, Henry
Blackwell and his devoted daughter Alice, and M. H. Gulesian. Singly or
in company they went about, through Massachusetts, holding meetings,
rousing the people to aid in the protest of Christendom against
heathendom, of mercy against cruelty. "Spoke for Armenia," is a frequent
entry in the Journal of these days.
In one of these addresses she said:--
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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