Evening star., 1943-07-21
Fascist Frenzy

Carlo Scorza has hitherto been
known as man of deeds rather than
of words. His unenviable reputa-
tion dates back to the "club-and-
castor-oil' epoch when he stood out
even among the strong arm mob
sters who bludgeoned their way to
power with Benito Mussolini in an
Italy fallen into postwar disintegra-
tion. This notorious roughneck
seemingly aspires to leadership in
Fascism's chaotic twilight. Using
his strategic post OF secretary gen.
eral to the Fascist party, much as
Joseph Stain did in his parallel job
after the death of Lenin, Scorza ap-
pears to be stealing the show away
from the aging and hapless Duce.
Recent pronouncements of the party
emanate from the secretary general,
instead of, as formerly, from Mus
solini. The latest performance along
this line is the fighting speech ad-
dressed to the italian people on the
eve Of the bombing of Rome.
This fiamboyant address is
masterpiece of Fascist casuistry and
invective. 1t contains all the ira
ditional cliches used by Mussolini
and his henchmen for upwards of
twenty years. Every possible appeal
to pride. prejudice, narrow patriot
ism and hatred of all that Is not
Italian is carefully marshaled and
elaborated. The Italian people are
adjured to fight on to save them
selves from an alleged slavery and
humiliation deliberately plotted
against them by the pluto democ-
racies," Britain and America, envious
of the modest place in the sun which
Fascist Italy had attained. Having
conquered the empire, which was to
be the theater of our work and the
land for our bread. great civilizing
work had engaged Italy in an effort
that would have assured her her
worthy place among the nations and
given the people that breathing space
which centuries of bondage and Of
foreign cupidity have limited for her
and often cut Off" Now, all this is
imperiled. 1.-TWO empires, the richest,
the most greedy are crushing Italy
and want her territorial and po-
litical unity shattered, her institu-
tions destroyed = !" This is war of
religions Institutions and bread.
What is Italy defending? Italy de-
fends her Catholic faith, which is
endangered with equal violence by
Red bolshevism and by the sectarian
and doctrinal confusion of the Anglo
Saxons, who are governed by
Judaism"
These are merely few typical
high lights of an amazing farrago of
untruths and fallacies which, to any
one who knows the actual facts, is
raving nonsense. To read Scorza,
one would never suspect that Mus
solini eagerly abandoned safe and
profitable neutrality to plunge Italy
into the maelstrom of war for what
he cynically speculated would be
cheap and easy spoils. No nation
threatened Italy. On the contrary,
the democratic world had shown
extraordinary forbearance through
two decades of sabre-rattling provo
cations and aggressions eliminating
In the brazen rape of Ethiopia and
defiance of League sanctions which,
more than anything else, under
mined and discredited the prewar
international order Now that a
well-merited Nemesis is overtaklng
these chronic disturbers of world
peace and stability, they mouth the
same old slogans and sophistries with
which they formerly misled their
people. But those false arguments
needed an atmosphere of apparent
success. With tragic failure written
grimly in the skies, the hypnotic
spell cannot last much longer. The
Italian people are in for rude
awakening But if. in the process,
they are quit Of their Duces and
scorzas, the ordeal will prove to
have been worth while.