Evening star., 1925-01-18

IenJlon WnaI mas Deen, perhaps, the
most interesting and significant single
political episode since the close of
tho World War.
For the Anglo-Saxon, perhaps one
may say for the northerner, the whole
episode OF Fascisimo and its master has
been incomprehensible. There have
been about it details which were out
side the experience and beyond the
grasp of nations which have been ac-
customed, as have we and the Brit
ish, to the dull routine of parlia-
mentary and representative democ-
racy. MussoIini the dull has seemed
TO adopt the gestures OF Napoleon
and the language of even less recent
conquerors in the age of moving pic
lures and of radios. The anachro-
nism of the whole affair has been for
us astonishing.
Event Is Mystifyiug.
Yet there is also no escape from the
reality. In It's moment of arrival
Fascisimo. beyond debate. represented
some profound and significant stir
ring in the Italian spirit. To this day.
one can hardly have Italian friends
without becoming accustomed to ref
erences to this Italian phenomenon in
terms which are quite as mystifying
as the event itself.
When Mussolini and the Black
Shirts marched on Rome, Italy was
obviously sick. The red flag had made
its appearance everywhere. Not alone
political but economic life had brok-
en- down. Parliamentary govern
ment had shown itself incapable of
maintaining order, the nation col
1ectively felt itself better than its
masters, felt that through the inert
hands of so-called leaders Italy was
Slipping into chaos.
The older of politicians, GioNtti-
trained, seemed to have no other rem
eoy than to let events take their
course; something akin to anarchy
seemed inescapable, Italy was drift
Ing toward a bolshevism in fact
which was only a little less menacing
TO other nations still suffering from
the exhausting and misery of war
than to Italy herself.
Step to Avert Ruin.
Then. of a sudden, in some curious
FASH. I, the will of a great people to
live seemed to make itself felt. 1t
disclosed itself in extraordinary ges-
lures and disguises, yet the Black
Shirts of Mussolfni were no more
theatrical than the red shirts of Carl
baldi, and the supreme adventure of
Fascisimo, the march on Rome, no
more astonishing than the departure
OF Garibaldfs thousand for Sicily, The
carrier venture had been to liberate
Italy, to bring about the union
which was the ultimate expression of
risorgimento; the latter affair was
undertaken to save a liberated Italy
from domestic ruin.
And, at the outset, 1t cannot be de-
hied that FasCisimo brought relief and
that the dictator, Mussolini not mere
~ arrested the disintegration of the
nation economically as well as politi-
cally, but In brief period and by
drastic measures restored the eco
nomic life, arrested the PARALYSIS of
industry, brought order In the demor-
allied railways. Force applied to the
problems which had bafied parlia-
mentary prime ministers achieved
miracles. The violence which ac-
companied the operation, inevitable
in all such incidents, seemed dispro-
portionately small when contrasted
with the benefcent results attained.
Aware of Dangers.
Musso1ini. however, from the out
set, seems to have been well aware
of the dangers of dictatorship. His
problem, from the beginning, was to
find some method by which, when
force had done its necessary work. to
translate what was no more than an
Illegal dictatorship, justified by the
conditions which had called it forth
and accepted by the vast majority of
Italians, into some to1erable reIa-
tion with democratic institutions, to
get back to the basis of sover eighty
founded upon popular will, once
popular will had been satisfied by the
achievement OF the ends for which
1t sanctioned violence.
By the march to Rome, by the
seizure OF power, Mussolini and his
followers had swept all the old polit-
ical leaders into the discard; he had,
himself, pronounced sentence upon
the Parliament, sentence of DEATH so
far as it was then constituted, but
1t was plain that when the danger
had passed, when order had been
restored, it would be impossible to
continue to employ the method which
had been necessary in the supreme
crisis. Tn a moment of deadly peril a
nation will endure and even welcome
a Dictatorship, but the more success
ful the dictator in exercising the
peril the smaller the permanent war
rant for his survival
Need for Curb.
Again, Mussolini was faced with a
second danger. He had drawn his
lieutenants by accident, there were
men of every sort in the Facisti
movement, and it was itself violent
expression of a national emotion.
Could he restrain the zeal, the vio-
lence. the passion of the extreme
wing Of his following when victory
had come? Would it be possible to
bring back his fighting followers to
the ordinary restraints of life, when
the need and the excuse for violence
had vanished?
1t is difficult not to believe that
Mu5soltni early realized the acute
danger which would come to him
through the ill-advised acts of his
followers. Yet, 1t was not easy to
restrain those who had shared with
him in the great adventure and con-
tr1buted nightly to making it a
success. He must risk either losing
the support of his friends or he must
hazard the slow, but certain growth
of resentment against these friends
as their continued violence gradually
affronted public sentiment which,
feeling itself safe from the dangers
OF the past, naturally now sought to
escape from the discomforts incident
to the conduct of some of its
saviors.
Hurt by Murder.
The murder of Matteoti, the ac-
counts of which have for weeks filled
the foreign dispatches was for Mus
solini a deadly injury. 1t was beyond
debate the work Of some of his fol-
lowers. 1t was not alone indefens-
ihle in itself, but it outraged the
sense of the nation which was now
eager to pass from the first stage
of recovery to the later condition of
health, of peace, of order
And this murder gave to the
hitherto silent opposition it's first
legitimate and advantageous basis for
attack. The problem was no longer
the salvation of Italy from that chaos
ana bolshevtEm into which 1t had
hmau al heP Ciufi m N