One of the earliest anti-war songs, "I Didn't Raise My Boy to Be a Soldier" tells the other side of sending your son off to war. Though a popular sentiment which was felt across the anti-war movement, the song was heavily ridiculed to the point of nonexistence. Former President Theodore Roosevelt remarked that someone who didn’t raise their son to be a soldier might as well not raise their daughter to be a mother, and several parodies of the tune were developed in response. Nevertheless, the song was popular among pacifists and suffragettes, as well as anti-war immigra-nts such as Irish and German-Americans and Church officials.

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"I didn't raise my boy to be a soldier,
I brought him up to be my pride and joy.
Who dares to place a musket on his shoulder,
To shoot some other mother's darling boy?
Let nations arbitrate their future troubles,
It's time to lay the sword and gun away.
There'd be no war today,
If mothers all would say,
'I didn't raise my boy to be a soldier.'"