Mother of Lebanon for 1950

Among the outstanding events of this spring was the meeting of the American Mothers' Association and their naming the Marquise Alice de Freige Mother of Lebanon for the year 1950. The Marquise addressed a letter to the president and members of the delegations of the mothers' associations in America on the day they gathered to deliver the certificate to Madame Francis Kettaneh, as Madame de Freige was unable to attend that memorable day. This is the text of the letter:

"With great pleasure I send your gracious assembly my best wishes for a happy and successful meeting. And with greater pleasure still I express to the members of the American Mothers' Association my thanks for their generous gift — the bestowal upon me of the most honorable of decorations, and then the naming of me Mother of Lebanon for 1950. I do not know at which of the two things I am more delighted: at the honor coming to me from so respected a body as your association, or at being named 'Mother of Lebanon'? Truly I have been showered with blessings, and truly your letter will remain the dearest surprise that has gladdened me in my life.

I confess now that all my life I have striven to be a good mother! This longing was the firmest and warmest longing I have felt in all my days. And I ask myself whether I have truly succeeded, despite your assembly's assurance and your honoring acknowledgment. In this acknowledgment there is pride for me, because it is pride for my children.

I have long believed that motherhood is the noblest and holiest fulfillment of a woman's being. This belief of mine was one of the reasons for my striving to show the importance of the mother among my countrymen, just as I found in it the greatest comfort, which I feel the moment I answer the needs of mothers in want of tenderness and care; it is as if there were in this a give-and-take among mothers in a world of understanding and love, even if one of them does not know the other, for motherhood is the common bond among women. This bond can become a power in the world; if the mothers of the earth united to deliver their children from the problems of modern society and from wars and their woes, they might well succeed. It may not be given to us to prevent wars, but we shall succeed in any case in turning world opinion against them — and what is world opinion but our opinion and the opinion of our children — and we shall succeed in making our governments more understanding of the dangers of wars and more conscious of their responsibility the moment they drag us into them, or the moment they allow our peoples to fling themselves into their fire.

I do not doubt that the American Mothers' Association took a great and happy step when it understood its world responsibility. And I believe with certainty that Lebanon will share in preparing a program that unites the mothers of the earth.

Let us all strive to glorify motherhood and to work together to create a better world, and may the Almighty Lord help us and grant our children mutual understanding, peace, and harmony."

The members of the Red Cross invited Mrs. Salma Sayegh to deliver an address on Radio Lebanon on Mothers' Day in honor of their venerable president. She said:

Madam President of our Red Cross: I hastened, the moment I was invited, to take part, in the name of Lebanese women's letters, in the celebration of a day held for you — the day you are consecrated Mother of Lebanon for this blessed year, and the day you receive a precious decoration from His Holiness, the happy bearer of the cross of the Lord of Mercy and Love.

I say on this memorable day of yours — and it is one of Lebanon's finest days — that I have accompanied your labors in our country for thirty years, that is, since the branch of the Red Cross was founded, while we were still in the era of tutelage.

My testimony, though it comes humble after the testimony of the throne of Rome and after the testimony of the mothers of America, is in any case a testimony from Lebanon, from this shore whose sands were trodden by the feet of the Lord of all who call for understanding and harmony. Before this sea, our sea, the Lord stood — no doubt of it — stood two thousand years ago, the evening breezes playing with his hair and the roar of the waves echoing his voice. From here went forth the call to gentleness and to the unity of this world. And from here I hope you will carry our cries — heavenly Providence having opened a road for you — to the ears of those who preside over the fortunes of this crucified humanity.

And if we missed your attending Mothers' Day in New York and carrying to those people the voice of the mothers of Lebanon, we shall not miss your sending that voice, resounding, to the responsible world circles.

Yes, my gracious friend: it is the Lord of the Cedars who smooths the road for you and opens the doors before you. It is the Lord of Lebanon who cleaves the horizons before a mother from Lebanon.

Go, madam, and lay before the women of America the injustice that has made your heart bleed, and the hearts of the mothers of Lebanon. Tell them that the driving from their homes of seven hundred thousand of God's creatures — through no sin they committed — is a black, heinous crime with margins and trailing consequences.

Go, madam, into the circles of the Israelite mothers in New York and warn them, with this endearing gentleness of yours, of the dangers of this violence and this dispossession. Tell them that thorns do not yield grapes, that injustice brings explosion, and that the Mother of Lebanon, when she asks justice for the dispossessed, does so only to avert a catastrophe, and to put out the fire of a volcano blazing today in the hearts of wretched people who long — like all people — to live with dignity in their homelands, and who refuse the shame of begging and the humiliation of asking for alms.

I say to you — you who believe in God! — it is in God's hand to smooth before Lebanon — before a mother from Lebanon — the way to a singular and great deed in the cause of peace and love.

Go forward, my friend: you may succeed where men have failed.

"The Woman's Voice"