Newark leader. ([Newark, Ohio]) 1917-1946, 1923-01-19
Italian CO-Operatives Are
Violently Sup
pressed

The Italian cooperative movement
has suffered heavily from the at
tacks of the Fascist, the "black shirt"
revolutionits of Italy, says a state
ment just received from the Italian
Cooperative League by the All Ame-
rican Cooperative Commission.
"Co-operative Societies have been
violently suppressed" the statement
reads, "while hundreds more have
been paralyzed owing to the fact
that their managers are expressly for
bidden to live in the same places
in which the societies operate. Again,
hundreds of societies, under the men
ace of destruction, have been obliged
to pass into the hands of the Fas-
cisti." Persistent attacks, acts of
violence, massacre of hundreds of the
leading co-operators of the country
burning of property, devastation and
pillage, have been experienced in
nearly all of the Italian provinces and
are the marks of destruction which
the Black Shirts have left behind
them in their seizure of the govern
ment by force,
Appeals to local and national gov
ernment authorities have brought no
relief to co-operators. Complaints
to the Kings projects and protests
to the provincial governments er-
ports. All the executive organs of
the state from the Royal Guards
to the Courts of Justice-show them
selves to be accomplices and parti-
sans of the most atrocious acts of
violence of the Fascist. In many
localities the authorities of public
safety, under pretense of preventing
conflicts, search the cooperative
stores, which are shortly afterward
attacked and devastated by the Fas-
cisti. The assaults on the labor tenn
Piles, Socialist communes and cooper
ative societies have been prepared
with military strategy and conduct
ed with great parades of men armed
to the teeth. These armed exploits
have involved enormous expenditures
which in the case of Genoa mounted
to over a million lire.
One of the most serious aspects of
this brutal reactionary campaign by
the new power in Italy is the credit
crisis which has crippled those CO.
OpCIdclNCo INV dCoLlOySo NY Vic L oO-
cisti. The governments financial aid
to cooperative societies, which in
1919 amounted to over 100000 lire,
ceased at the moment when
it was most needed. The National
Cooperative Credit Institute, to
which the state had granted three
billion lire of capital, has since been
refused all new credit demands. Co.
operation is unable to- obtain aid from
the small banks, with the result that
many of the financially sound organi-
cations see their existence imperiled.
The Italian Cooperative, with it's
5000 affiliated societies, has already
it's reserves in its efforts to
aid the local societies.
Co-operators throughout the world
stand aghast at the campaign of ter
ror, assault and murder directed
against cooperative and labor insti-
tutiOns which has characterized the
usurpation of power by the Fascist.
The cooperative movement in Italy
has been led by the nations most dis
citizens and has hitherto
received the governments complete
approval and support. The future of
Italian cooperation under the strong
arm rule of the Fascist is not bright.
The close alliance which the Black
Shirts have always maintained with
the big capitalists of Italy is largely
responsible for this reign of terror
against the co-operatives, which will
doubtless continue until the Italian
people regain possession of their gov
ernment.