Evening star., 1935-02-17

OGRQn 10 QlI1CulIleS
peculiar to rule without or
L y ganized opposition. The gen.
erations are piling up, and
there are not enough jobs to go
around
The Fascist song is "Giovanezza,"
which means youth; Fascism claims
to be the revolution of youth; more
money and time have been spent on
training youth than on any other
phase of Fascist activity, not except
ing the military establishment. Amuse-
ment often may be found in the efforts
made by leaders to keep up the illu-
sion of youth.
The birthday Of Premier Benito
Mussolini is taboo for all newspapers.
When a beard begins to show streaks
of gray, it must come off. The black
Winter uniform of the party, made
from a Sandman wool called orbace,
Is q marvel Of tailoring illusion. 1t
seems to be designed especially to
conceal the growing paunch and sag
ging line. All members Of the Cham
ber Of Deputies must wear it. Had
wig also been made part Of the
equipment. even the Chamber might
pass for an assembly of young men.
Elders Hold Key Posts.
Neither the censor, the razor nor
the tailor, however, have been able to
conceal from watchful aspirantS that
the key posts are not in the hands of
young men One of the many notices
Mussolini has flung out to his cohorts
is "Obey! Endure! Combat" There
Is joke about 1t among the younger
men, to the effect that some of their
elders seems to have interpreted En-
dure!" to mean cling to the job as
long as possible"
Three generations of Fascism are
now available for use: The contempo-
rarieS Of MuSSolini who led the revo-
luton of 1922 and have held most of
the fat jobs since; the younger men
who were in the rank and file of the
revolution and are just beginning to
want to get their hands on important
posts, and the still younger genera
ton who were children at the time of
the revolution, but have had IL years
of Fascist training.
Especially in politics, the conflict of
the generations is old
The leaders Of the party are by no
means unaware of the situation which
has begun to form Some methods of
considerable ingenuity to deal with it
have been devised by Mussolini and
Achille Starace, the faithful Wheel
horse, who is national secretary of the
party.
Most Criticized Person.
Starace is probably the most criti-
cized person in Italy. The criticism,
whatever else 1t may imply. certainly
is evidence of the difficulties of his
post. A recent predecessor had the
job Of purging the party of 100000 or
more tepid Fascists. Another secre-
tary, some years in the past, had to
keep the party from splitting over the
Matteoti murder The difficulties of
both tasks are obvious. but it is doubt
full whether either required the tact
and skill which it Is taking to parcel
out jobs among three generations of
deserving Fascists. Misplaced honors.
not punishments, spreads the germs of
sedition.
In the strictest sense, the problem
might not be considered a party queS-
ton. Party jobs are not the only ones
at stake. Indeed, numerically they are
perhaps the least important There is
certain amount of irony in the fact
that the Fascist government is faced
with such problem, for it probably
has created more state and party con-
trolled jobs than any other govern
ment.
In addition to the ordinary party
and government bureaucracies. there
are the thousands of jobs attached to
the National Balilla organization, the
vast new bureaucracy of the so-called
cooperative state-the entire news
paper, motion picture and radio
fields, which are now government Cor
party jobs: the entire school system
the national organization for the con-
troll OF every form of sport activity
and the many new state or semi-State
institutions for insurance, banking,
touring. land reclamation and others
Party Fills Key Posts.
The party. however, has the con-
trolling hand in all these fields Per-
haps it would not be strictly accurate
to say that party standing is the sole
criterion for job-holding in all of
them, but it would be difficult to find
key post which was not held
through party influence and by a
tried party member.
One tendency which has restricted
the number Of available posts has been
that Of individuals to accumulate as
many honors as possible. 1t Is not
rare to find an officer in the party
holding jobs also in the cooperative
state structure, editing a newspaper
or perhaps filling a post in the gov
ernmental bureaucracy or loaded with
provincial honors in his native dis
Tict.
However, one of the first steps
taken by the secretary to meet the
demand for jobs was to issue an edict
ordering the unloading of jobs" To