Evening star., 1926-05-23
way, with a peculiar snap. stretching
t to the angle of an acute accent.
Crowd Greets MussOlini.

Crowd Greets MussOlini.
Instantly in the crowd thousa nds
of arms surged up and now at last
there burst out the full-throated roar
of the masses. 1t was something of
the cheer that used to greet Theodore
Roosevelt in his greatest days, some
thing / imagine of the shout of the
Roman crowd when the favorite and
famous gladiator had made his kill.
but more than all, l fancy the cheer
that greeted Napoleon when he pass.
ed on horseback before his old guard
on the evening of a famous victory.
1t was the shout of fighting men to
a fighting leader. it had all the vol
ume of the cheer which once greeted
Babe Ruth when he made home
run, or the hero of a Harvard Yale
foot ball game scoring a touchdown.
But in the boundless enthusiasm there
was something else, note Of ferocity.
the unmistakable not which only
comes when the man cheered is a
leader in the full sense, the hero of
a struggle and of a real struggle.
I had thought to see in Musso-
iini something of the theatrical, to see
him caught up by the emotion and
passion of the crowd as even the late
President Wilson was once on a mem
orable occasion when he, too, encoun-
tered an Italian crowd. But Mussolini
was calm, quiet. His face was partly
covered by the white plaster which
protected his nose, the mark of his
recent experience. This served to
heighten the effect of darkness his
photographs show. Nor was thre any
evidence Of that physical weakness
which has been so frequently sug-
gested. Rather he stood forth. a me-
dium.sized, powerfully built figure of
a man, vigorous, alert and to use the
most familiar of all present Italian
adjectives, virile.
Cheering browns Everything.
For minutes on end cheering con-
tinued, spread down the street, into
the nearby square and then In all
directions, rising and falling in volume.
While it continued, Mussolini waited,
quietly, patiently, looking intently
down at the sea of faces below him,
his own face lighting up with the in
evitable qualification Of this tre-
mendous tribute. Several times he
undertook to speak and each time the
cheering interrupted him. Certainly
it was 10 minutes after he appeared
before the crowd were at last willing
to give over their expression OF JOY
at seeing him. and hear him.
With his first words, too, one had
the immediate and complete sense
Of being in the presence Of a great
orator, who knew his audience, his
own mind and the impression which
he purposed to produce. This voice
was only at rare moments audible
to me, yet the effect Of it upon the
crowd was unmistakable. You could
see hundreds and even thousands of
faces eagerly thrust forward, hang
ing on every word and every syllable,
lighting up with pleasure and ap-
proval. Never did a speaker seize his
audience and carry 1t off and along
with him more completely and more
instantaneously.
In the midst of the speech, which
flowed on smoothly, quietly, but with
ever-increasing effect, there suddenly
came an interruption. From the
fripges of the front some one called:
What about the stranger" 1t was
a question obviously in all minds; 1t
was a question which produced.an in
slant and impressive pause. For a
moment Mussolini paused, too. Then
squaring himself off, taking something
WAICIl AlA6hI UC OCSCA1Ucu DIS d ASHl-
ing posture, an old Rooseveltian atti-
tude, he answered in sharp, incisive
tones.
"Will Face Stranger"
"And II the stranger has to be faced
he will be faced. That Is what you
wanted me to say, isn't it?" Then a
sort of shiver of sheer delight passed
over the crowd and once more it burst
into full-throated applause, with a
new note of passion in it. You had
suddenly a startling glimpse of how
.,aly, the Italians, this new, enor.
| mously vital and insistent Fiscismo is
looking out upon a world in which II
believes Italy has so far Jared badly
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