This open letter speaks of Christmas, but it’s a natural fit for this week leading up to the observance of Memorial Day in the United States. Without taking one iota of respect, honor, or mourning from those who gave their lives in military service, wouldn’t it be better if we could reduce the need for any more to go to war?

November  27,  1936

Dear Sisters:

The problem of Peace is one of the most serious problems facing the world today. It is a problem in which the Relief Society, as women and mothers, is vitally interested. It is the responsibility of mothers in the home to help build a world that is “peace minded,” and not “war minded.” There is an opportunity now at this holiday season, to do a very constructive piece of work by refusing to buy the toy weapons which are on display in all toy stores. Following, we are giving you some material which we are asking you to use as the basis of a short talk and discussion in each Relief Society meeting until Christmas.

It is Christmas time and toy time! Millions of mothers are busy selecting playthings for eager children. (Children should play, they should have toys. There is nothing quite as tragic as a play-starved childhood, or a man or woman who has never learned to play.) But great discrimination and good common sense should be used by elders when providing the play things.

In the first place we should be sure that the toys we choose are safe. Guns are extremely dangerous. Parents should avoid particularly toys that are dangerous to the eyes. Each year following the holiday season, a number of children are blinded because a playmate with a B.B. rifle missed his aim. Any gun should be taboo. Even the pop gun, with its cork and string, looks harmless enough, but children like to insert stones, beads and dirt, and many serious accidents have resulted. Toys that give the idea of destruction or of callousness toward human life should not be given.

Does the possession of play weapons stimulate anti-social impulses? There are arguments both for and against. But every parent knows a child begins to learn almost the moment he is born, and continues to learn, to learn by doing. Toys are the most treasured possessions during the most impressionable years of life and cannot help but leave their mark on the character and development of the child. Men in various scientific fields have often found their first inspiration in the toys that fascinated them in childhood. Edison spent all his time playing with tools. The Wright Brother splayed with balloons.

The world today is crying for Peace. Every mother hopes that her son will never have to go to war. One of the surest ways to insure peace is to raise a generation which does not think of war – which in childhood has not had war glorified. In 1932 a measure was introduced to the League of Nations Disarmament Conference that, from 1935 on, all countries prohibit the manufacture of warlike toys. The motion was referred to the Committee on Moral Disarmament, where it died, and since then the military section of the toy industry has flourished. The counters of the toy stores are covered with tanks, cap pistols, soldiers, machine guns and cannons. The merchants provide the toys that sell. If this Christmas parents do not buy this type of toy, another Christmas they will not be stocked by the stores. How inconsistent it is on the holiday honoring the birth of Christ, to put into the hearts of the children, by means of their toys, the very opposite of the message that heralded His birth – Peace on Earth.”

With very best wishes for a Happy Holiday Season, we remain, cordially yours,

NATIONAL WOMAN’S RELIEF SOCIETY

LOUISE Y. ROBISON
General President

JULIA A.F. LUND
General Secretary