I am looking for two things:
First,  specifically for the first place (newspaper? book? private
letters?) in which Julia Ward Howe's mother's day proclamation of 1872
was published.  Or was it first heard as a speech?
Second, I have found many versions of the declaration on the web, but
they vary in the second line.  Was the original "...whether your
baptism be of water or of TEARS" OR "...whether your baptism be of
water or of FEARS"
Any help is greatly appreciated.

Hi there,

Firstly, the correct title of Julia Ward Howe's Mother's Day
proclamation is "Mother's Day Proclamation 1870".

Facts Canada describes its original form as a poem, although elsewhere
it usually just says that she issued a declaration:

"In fact she wrote a Mother's Day proclamation in the form of the
following poem"
http://www.factscanada.ca/sunday/sunday-2001-19-05-13.shtml

Issued a declaration:
http://womenshistory.about.com/library/weekly/aa013100d.htm
http://216.239.35.100/search?q=cache:KUu4apLEk-cC:www.jjnet.com/jjtalks/howe.pdf+%22Mother%27s+Day+Proclamation+1870%22+declaration&hl=en

An excerpt from Howe's own book "Reminiscences, 1819-1899", partially
explains the history of the proclamation:

"I could think of no better way of expressing my sense of these than
that of sending forth an appeal to womanhood throughout the world,
which I then and there composed."
http://www3.edgenet.net/fcarpenter/howe.html

This appeal is dated Boston, September, 1870. 

Online are chapters from "Julia Ward Howe, 1819-1910 Volume I" by her
daughters Laura E. Richards and Maud Howe Elliott. This chapter covers
the declaration/poem/proclamation:

http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/richards/howe/howe-I-XIV.html
(chapter)
http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/richards/howe/howe-I.html
(contents page)

The same page says:

"The appeal was translated into French, Spanish, Italian, German, and
Swedish, and sent broadcast far and wide."

I would take this to mean it was like a press release, being
transmitted by post and telegraph, simultaneously to many people.

The above book extract has the word "tears" in the disputed line. I
would expect that her daughters would be the most likely to get it
right! Tears also makes more poetic sense, because they are similar to
water. There appears to be many different versions of this line
floating about, with your/our also being interchanged, and sometimes
just "or" instead of "or of".

Google searches used:

"julia ward howe"  "baptism be of water"
://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22julia+ward+howe%22++%22baptism+be+of+water+%22

"Mother's Day Proclamation 1870"
://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22Mother%27s+Day+Proclamation+1870%22

I trust that this answers your query. Feel free to request
clarifications on any aspect of my response.

Thanks for using Google Answers, and best wishes 
from robertskelton-ga

Thanks for the very prompt answer.  You found several sources that I
could not find. After looking things over,  I agree that your
hypothesis of the "press release" type of original publication is the
best one.  This will be a great help to me!
Regards,
j68