The Waterbury Democrat., 1937-01-06

twist the lions tall ana ma put on an exhibition of play-act- ing seen nowhere else in the world. While inspecting . gov- ernment-built tenement for work CTS, he runs up the scaffolding, swing down a ladder like an ape, slaps a workman on the back, puts his arm around another :. It is grand stuff But he doesn't do 1t quite 50 much any more. II Duce 5
 II Duce is now 53--which he hates to confess. In these more mature years he is going in for reading and studying. In his younger days he reads voraciously Marx, Nietzche, Sorel, all the radical authors.
 Today he still reads them, plus everything he lays his hands on, including press clip pings about himself. He works only five to seven hours day, spends the remainder reading and exercising.
 There was . time when II Duce saw a steady stream of visitors. Almost every newspa- perman who came to town got an audience. Now his visitors are rarer.
 His executive work, for. the. most part, is done through memo randa. Like Roosevelt, Il Duce demand that all memos be re- duced to one page of writing, at the most two. He deals with them abruptly, writes "Yes," No, at the bottom, sometimes Scribbles suggestions. He works with tre- mendous rapidity, covers a great amount of work in a day. Also he reads and writes with great rapidity.
 II Duce's Shoes
 Mussolini's partial retirement from the firing line has come be- cause, at last, he wants to train others to fill his shoes. He wants Fascism to continue.
 Getting real substitutes for II
 Duce is . tough Job. Even his son-in- law, Count CianO, now Number Two Man in Italy, is 2 long way from being equal to the old man.
 Mussolini has been a great be- liever in youth. Now he finds himself surrounded by nothing but youth. And they are very cal- low youths, some being little squirts whose chief pastime, while attached to the Italian Embassy in Washington, was to get em- broiled in motor accidents.
 Most of those around Mus solini are afraid to move 2 step without orders from the top. They have been too long under a one-man dictatorship. That is the chief trouble with Italy. II Duce himself is not so bad. Those around him are terrible.
 Now, at time when the dec- tator finally has decided to give the others some rope, let them develop responsibility, THEY { CAN'T TAKE TT.
 NOTE-Don't get the idea Mus solini is going to walk out tonor- row. For years yet he will rule Italy with the same old iron hand. But the period of training his suc- cessors definitely has begun. British Slap Themselves
 Here is MussoIini's confidential version of his row with the British over Ethiopia, given to an import ant diplomat not long ago.
 T didn't slap the British In the face." said II Duce. They had agreed with me months be- fore regarding the entire Ethio- plan adventure. The only ad- monition Macdonald gave was Don't go too fast. Take 1t easy.'
 T did. was extremely care full of British suceptlbilities. The troops were sent in very slowly and with no publicity.
 "Then, after more than 1O0,- 900 men had been sent to East Africa. the British turned around and wanted me to com init suicide by withdrawing the entire expenditure.
 "Now," concluded Mussolini, "they accuse me of sending 8 fleet out against them. On the contrary. they sent their fleet after me-"
 German Alliance
 Il Duce also gave an interest ing and hitherto unpublished account of an olive branch he extended to the French at about the time sanctions were to be re- moved by the League of Nations. He gave this incident as one reason for negotiating his subse- quent alliance with Germany.
 "AIl the world knows," Mus sOlini told his diplomatic friend, "that I don't love Hitler. Furth- ermore. ! have never trusted the Germans. Hitherto have always preferred to do business
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