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War Mothers and Others Testify Before Congress
Excerpts from Statements in Support of Mothers’ Pilgrimages
“It was the mothers who suffered to bring these boys into the world, who cared for them in sickness and health, and it was our flesh and blood that enriched the foreign soil. Can you picture the anxiety of these mothers watching at the door for the postman every day for the little letter that was to come from her boy, and the agony and suspense when those letters stopped, and then only to be replaced with a telegram from Washington informing her that her boy was wounded or missing or dead?”
Mathilda Burling
Testimony before House Committee on Military Affairs, 1928
“I want to begin by telling you that you are all men and you have not and cannot feel the way a mother feels. It is a part of her body that is lying over there. She spent 20 years, anyway, in bringing up that boy; she gave her time, both day and night, and none of you can realize what a mother’s loss is.”
Mrs. Eddie Vedder of New York City
Testimony before House Committee on Military Affairs, 1924
“I think it helped to cure me; it gave me a little solace, and I feel certain if you send over the poor mothers who cannot afford to pay their own way, you will save the minds of a great many of them, because although five years have passed, the mothers’ minds are still in some chaos.”
Jennie Walsh, who made a private pilgrimage at her own expense in 1921 to see her son’s grave.
Testimony before House Committee on Military Affairs, 1924
“I think that this great mission of peace of these mothers who know what war means, who gave their sons for the cause of war, who gave their sons that we may put an end to war, meeting the mothers of the French boys and the English boys, the Italian and Belgian boys who died and getting together will be the greatest mission of peace, will be the greatest crusade of peace that the world has ever seen.”
U.S. Rep. Fiorello H. LaGuardia of New York
Statement before House Committee on Military Affairs, 1928
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Pilgrimage of Remembrance
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