Evening star., 1925-01-18
WORLD AGAIN TURNING
GAZE UPON MUSSOLINI
Reversion to Force by Dictator Recalls
Circumstances Under Which Fascist
Came Into Power-Defeat Seen.

tion of CurbfnE the eXceSSeS OF those
who had saved Italy, to be sure, but
were now becoming a menace, per-
haps nuisance, in any event
Not impossibly the effort of Mus
soIini. to translate his dictatorship
into some solid constitutional edifice
was itself defeated by this very muir
der 1t was the signal. as l have said,
for the emergenoe of all the old poll
ticians, who had long awaited their
chance, but it was also the signal for
the creation of a new opposition,
which found in the measures OF the
dictator ground for legitimate pro-
test.
Founded Force.
After all, the difference between a
good dictatorship and bad dictator
ship must in many directions be in
discoverable. for the methods of both
Will be identical. Fascismo was
founded upon force. 1t represented
armed strength and the methods OF
violence it had employed violence
against its enemies, although, to be
sure, 1T did not go to the extremes of
the bolshevists of our own time or
the Republicans of the French Revo-
luton. But 1t had employed violence.
The press had been silenced, free
speech had been measurably abol-
ished. Murder had been notably rare,
but in the case of Matteott one mur-
der had been more disastrous than
many would have been in the earlier
period.
And 30 in the final crisis Mussolini
was thrown back upon the old
method. He found himself fighting
with his back to the wall. His effort
to change from violence to constitu
tional methods had encouraged his
iA- - II. haI xr-I
his friends, who knew no other thing
than resort to that force which had
won the first victory
My Italian friends who know Mus
solini acquit him OF any Napoleonic
ambition, of any desire to retain
power simply for the qualification of
vanity. Their judgment of the pres
ent crisis Is rather that Mussolini Is
the victim OF events; that he has
failed to escape a danger which he
foresaw and strove to avoid by
Transforming the charcter of Fascist
control For them this latest crisis is
a tragedy, because they see quite
clearly that to rule solely by force
is in the end to fall. since the day OF
the permanent dictator is over.
Difference Is Cited.
Now, if one compare the British or
the difference is impressive. Both
these older democracies went through
precisely tho same period of dis
fllusionment with respect of their
war leaders. Parliamentary govern
ment proved In London and in Paris
inadequate to deal with postwar
conditions and popular discomfort was
unmistakahle. Elections held while
the war emotions were still dominant
servative majorities, which lasted for
years after the end Of the fighting
But last year both France and
Britain passed into the control of
representatives of radical parties
We had Macdonald in Britain and
we still have Herriot in France
Nevertheless. neither the brief rule
Of the British Labor premier nor the
already limited control of the French
radical brought in their course the
evils which resulted from the
prompter arrival of radical control
In Italy. And in a brief time, and
by purely constitutional methods,
through the medium of another cleo
ton, control passed from the British
radicals, as 1t is bound to pass
shortly from the hands of Herriot and
his followers in France.
Had Previous Experience.
In reality, none of the disappoint-
ments Of the war or the postwar
periods served az a temptation to
either the French or the British peo-
pie to break with their systems of
government. More than ESQ years
had passed since in Cromwell the
British made their single experiment
in dictator. It is half that time
since the French turned to Napoleon
to translate into imperial forms the
results achieved by the revolution,
But the first Napoleon, after giving
France 10 years Of glory abroad and
order and prosperity at home, infict-
ed those disasters which cost the
French the Rhine barrier, while a sec
ond and tawdry Napoleon, later by
half a century, sacrificed Alsace and
Lorraine. Today, in the midst of as
grave problems as yesterday, when
the enemy was still within range of
Paris, France has not been tenlpted
to trust her fortunes to soldier or a
civilian dictator, and only a few
months ago expelled a vigorous man
from the Elysee Palace because as
President 1t was charged that he had
sought TO interfere with parliament
rary control.
Hard to Understand Here.
AS for the United States, not only
is dictator unthinkable with US, but
it is practically impossible for us TO
understand those processes of rea-
soning by which any people can per-
suade itself to surrender it's desttnies
to Mussolini, Napoleon or even a.
Cromwell.
Nevertheless, before our ewes In
Italy there is unfolding one more
experiment in national salvation
through the appeal to the individual
savior. Mussolini was not an ad-
yenturer who seized power by any
accidental stroke. He was not a sue
cessful general who by foreign vic
tory constructed a domestic dictator
ship. II he came to power through
violence, he was beyond debate the
expression of a nations will when
he actually took office, not by elec-
! tiOn, but the demand of a nation ex-
pressed by a monarch who was wise
enough to dissociate the crown from
that opposition to Fascismo which
had been discredited and was in the
act of being defeated.
Not Like LenIn.
Mussolini was not, like Lenin, the
master of a small group which had
itself laid hands upon the machinery
which controlled a vast empire and
was determined to use this fortuitous
control to fasten upon a great but
inert people theories and doctrines
| which were meaningless to those
whose ultimate misery they insured.
Fascismo itself was not the creation
of a few doctrinaires: on the con-
| trary, it was as Enthusiastically q ma
tional emotion, as much a national
faith as Risorgimento itself.
| Yet one is bound to note that while
| Rfsorgimento had Cavour as well as
| Garibaldi, Fascismo has had only
| Mussolini. Cavour knew when to in
tervene, when to take advantage OF
| Garibaldfs genius, when to impose
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