Evening star., 1945-05-01

man, you suddenly know, without
question, what man 1t Is.
Through it all, you know him.
Here, in this box, lies Benito Musso-
| lini.
This pathetic, battered little lump,
this ludicrous caricature. this is the
strong man. This thing swayed mil
lions, changed the lives and cost the
lives of millions more Here was the
Caesar, the Duce. the dynamo that
sparked the terrible machine.
Raw Material of Fascism.
This never was man to laugh at.
Such a figure is the first necessity
of such a political structure Some
body must play God. This thing
did. You cannot laugh him off.
Let us move on, for we have more
to learn. Fascism lies dead in this
place, but we have not yet seen all
of it. Sprawled here in horrible
rows are the personalized remnants
of what We have been fighting
against.
Consider them-they are worth
considering-here is the raw mate
rial of Fascism, strange and cheap
assortment of big and little people,
some smart and some foolish. having
when alive the common qualities of
unscrupulousness and ruthlessness,
and an eye for the main chance
absurd now only because they are
all very dead
We will not bother with all of
Mussolini's henchmen, for We do
not have to. Nor will we concen-
trate necessarily on the important
ones. We will just walk around as
long as we can stand it and see
what We see.
Here is Roberto Farinaci. He is
big name in Fascism, but he does
not rate coffin. He lies on the cold
floor with the Paloi, one dead hand
stiffiy upraised.
He loved Germany, worshiped
the cult of force, helped lead his
people into an unholy alliance. A
former secretary of the Fascist
party, he was delegate to the Ger
man command in Italy. He beat
loudly on the terrible drum of racial
intolerance, teaching hatred and
persecution of the Jews. He was
smart man-the kind any regime
| can well use, for he did not care
what he did with his ability.
Mussolini relied on him. Do not
laugh him off
Pavolini Was Opportunist.
There is Alessandro Pavolini, a
young, ambitious Florentine, an op-
portunist; bosom friend of the
Cianos. He had been Minister of
Popular Culture and ended up as
party secretary.
1t was little surprising when he
stood by Mussolini when the Grand
Council overthrew their Duce on
July Is, 1943. He was too smart.
many said, not to have known that
Mussolini was finished. He did not
seem to worry unduiy when Musso-
lini had Friend Ciano shot. He
was adaptable.
In standing by the boss, many of
MS acqualntances say, he must have
believed that he could come out on
top when Mussolini finally went un-
der. Who knows? Anyway, there
lies the fellow traveller, off by him
self, his face hidden by crusted
blood. Like Mussolini, he is stripped
to the waist; they have burnt the
black shirt. He still has his rough
gray riding pants, and the battered
boots are stiffly extended.
They needed ambitious men who
wanted to come along for the ride,
and here they had one. He is an
important symptom of a dangerous
time. Do not try to laugh him off.
Starace, the Fancy Man.
Achille Starace occupies one of
the three coffins in the place. They
called him the fancy man. He in
vented the uniforms, the passo
Romano and the rest of the trap
pings. He was Fascism's Barnum
His left arm seems to have come
loose and has been neatly tucked in
beside the face of this man of al
most 60 years, youthfully and emp
tily handsome even in death. In his
superficial interest in circuses, he
was not alone. Do not laugh him off
too soon.
There is a man named Nicola
Bombacci, former Communist, a
nonentity who finds himself in this
august company today-naked from
the waist down-because he liked
laeF