Pro Concordia Labor
1. Make the sacred spirit of peace a living power in your life, and contribute all possible time, thought and money to its diffusion.
2. Never listen, without protest, to insinuations, vituperations or unjust accusations against the members of your family and your fellow-citizens.
3. I promise to seek to understand the spirit of the national laws and to obey those that exist; to interest myself fervently for the modification of all those which uselessly tyrannize upon any class of citizens.
4. Dedicate your thought and use your influence to develop the national and patriotic spirit, and do not criticize without purpose the administration of the family and of the nation.
5. Treat all birds and beasts, and all existences of the animal and vegetable world, with justice and gentleness. Do not destroy, save for self-preservation, and for the protection of the weak. Instead, make it your object to plant, to nourish and to propagate all that will lead to the moral and physical amelioration of the family, the home and the nation.
6. Teach your children and your dependents what you may learn with regard to justice and peace, and seek to develop in them sentiments of harmony.
7. Seek each day to utter some work or perform some little action which may promote the cause of peace, whether at home or abroad.
Formulated by Countess Cora di Brazzà - who also designed the Pro Concordia Labor Flag and the Universal Peace Badge, The Seven Rules of Harmony provide concrete guidance to individuals who wish to undertake the work of peace. First presented in 1897 by delegates from the Universal Peace Union to the first National Congress of Mothers (held in Washington, D.C., USA in February 1897), these rules were widely disseminated that year and especially recommended to the consideration of parents, guardians and teachers because they were in a position to teach the rules to children. But the rules are no mere child’s play. When taken seriously, they have the power to open latent channels of compassion and direct those channels to the progressive reform work of an activist.
