The Waterbury Democrat., 1942-08-28

| VIII DC ILlC SkgCS1AAN
 aSsi g n men t oi Colonel Pacciardi. To Count Sforza falls a larger task of building uI an Italian National Council of Fret Italians all over the world to work for the liberation of Italy from Fascism. This Free Italy or Italia Libre movement will not attempt tC set up new Italian government ir exile, but will work for the idea that when the war is over there shall be a constitutional convention in Italy to determine what form of gov- ernment the country should have
 Mandate to Court Carlo Sforza to head this movement comes as a result of the conference just love- ment comes as a result of the con- ference just held in Uruguay, to which some 400 delegates were sent from Italian anti-Fascist societies in both North and South America. The story behind the holding of the meeting in Montevideo and maneu- veringS of Americans of Italian descent over the past few months make it one of the more intriguing nationalist movements of the war. It is a movement which may in the end be just as important as the Free French activities, or the CzechoSlo- vakian and Jugoslavian independ- ence movements in the last war.
 PICTURE CHANGES
 Until the fall of France, opposi- ton to Fascism and MusSolini had centered among Italian exiles in Paris. Italian liberals who were able to get out of France then made their way to the United States and to Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina. But with the shift of the anti -Fascisa headquarters to the new world, the character of the movement under went complete change. In France, the anti-Fascists had been merely another political party in exile. In Pan-American countries, however, the movement was taken over by the majorities of Italian emigrees who had left Italy to escape Fascist oppression.
 In launching a new Italia Limre movement, therefore, the emphasis was shifted to restoring Italy to the ranks of the democracies in order to give the people of Italy the same opportunities which the Italian Am ericans had found under the Pan- American republics. To these Ital- ians, the formation of a Free Italy movement was in no way considered treason against the mother country. They regard Italy today as another occupied country, dominated by Germany. For the crown and the House of Savoy these new world Italians have lost their loyalty. They feel the once-liberal mon- archy has missed every opportunity to free itself from the control of the Fascists and Nazis.
 Organization of the Montevideo conference and the Free Italy movement have in no sense been a revolutionary activity. It has all been done in the open, and since Pearl Harbor. Leading spirit of the movement in South America has been Torqualis Di Tella, a prominent and wealthy industrial ist of Buenos Aires. The confer ence could not be held in the Ar- genuine, for though that country has the largest Italian population in South America, the right of as- sembly has been suspended in state of siege. In Uruguay, how ever, the latchstring was out. A century ago it was Garibaldi him. self who led the revolution for Uruguayan liberation. A further factor in the choice of Montevideo as the meeting place was the de- sire to free the movement from any taint of U. s. domination.
 It is in the United States, how ever, that the Italia Libre move ment has It's roots and it is here that the new Italian National Coun- Gil under Count Sforza will prob ably receive it's greatest stimulus, through Italian American societies already in existence. POWERFUL BACKING
 Count Carlo Sforza is recognized leanirgs. Behind him is the power full Mazzini Society organization found in every large Italian center. In New York 1t is headed by Dr. Max Ascoli, now an American citi- zen, a political scientist of note who left Italy when Mussolini came into power. Its secretary is Alberto Tar chiani, Editor of a liberal Italian daily in Paris before the fall of France. In general, these Mazzini Society organizations are groups of elite intellectual.
 The Free Italy movement has labor backing in the United States, though it has kept out the Italian Communists.
 It is from such diverse clements as these that this new Free Italy movement and it's Italian Legion will get support.