The Waterbury Democrat., 1943-07-26

Rise And Fall
Continued from Page u

dictator with all the trappings of
ancient Caesarism and the talk of a
new order of social organization
when Adolf Hitler still was an OBJ
scure agitator hanging around a
Munich beer hall where he recruited
the followers for his Nazi move
ment of 1888.
Mussolini was born July 90, 1888,
at Dovia Di Predappio, village in
northern Italy where his mother
was a school teacher and his father,
AleSsandro, a blacksmith His father
named him Benito Juarez after the
Mexican revolutionary.
BraWling and various escapades
interrupted his schooling. However,
he was educated enough to become
a teacher before he started bum
ming his way through Europe. He
was arrested as a Socialist agita-
tor when he came back to his home
town and fomented farm strike.
Helped in Tavern
Then he moved in with his father,
married, and helped around the
fathers tavern. He founded a news
paper of agitation that led to his
being, by the time of the first
World War, man of some promi-
nence in Italy. But his Socialist
friends denounced him for suddenly
turning-some believe because of
financial considerations from
peace-lover to an advocate of Italy's
entrance into the war.
He had founded in 1915 what later
became the Fascist party. He served
in the army during the war, rising
to sergeant. He once suffered AZ
wounds when a trench mortar ex-
ploded.
His wife, Donna Rachele of Forli,
lived in obscurity. She bore her hus-
band five children.
Street brawling characterized the
rise of Fascism. Unrest was ram
pant in Italy. At its height, the
march on Rome occurred.
With an amazing vigor that in
fected all the country, Mussolini set
out to remake Italy. He accom-
plished many things, lettering for
a time the lot of workers, carrying
out pension programs, and govern
ment reforms but leveling heavy
taxes.
; Instituted Codes
He ruthlessly suppressed every
free monument, broke up all terror
list organizations and instituted
codes that keep Italy functioning.
Climax of this period came when
he started to work with Hiler, set
out to expand the italian empire
and eventually conquered Ethiopia
in 1886 in defiance of the League of
Nations and Great Britain.
After Hitler forced the second
World War on the world in 1899,
Mussolini hung back until France
was dying before Hitler's Nazi le-
gions Mussolini ordered Italian
troops in the French Riviera on
June 10, 1910.
Nov the die is cast" he said,
land our will has burned out ships
behind us. We are going to war
against the decrepit democracies. We
shall win and we shall give long
period of peace and prosperity to
Italy and the world
Dagger in Back
President Roosevelt said Musso-
lini's act put dagger into the back
of helpless France. Eighteen months
later Mussolini went to war against
the United States with Germany.
Mussolini's present health was not
known but he was believed to be
failing. Recent pictures showed him
losing weight although for years he
has been the most active of the Fas-
cists and forced his followers into
feats of strength to prove them
selves. He repeatedly summed
liquor.
Many times assassins have tried
to kill him. Once a bullet grazed
his nose. Another time bomb ex-
ploded outside his automobile. He
boosted of his allegedly charmed
life.
Bruno Mussolini, second son of
the dictator, was killed in an air
plane crash near Pisa on August 7.