"Profoundly Humiliated"

The Chamber of Deputies passed through two momentous, enlightening hours last week. Benito Mussolini came and spoke from the tribune in reasoned, winning, even humorous fashion.

"Honorable Fascist Deputies," he said, "I am very sorry and profoundly humiliated to announce to you that my speech today will not be as short as mine usually are . . . I need to take the Italian nation and place it in front of itself. . . .

"Besides, after this speech I propose to place upon my tongue not the usual Athenian bull, but a couple of oxen, and I shall not speak again till next year. . . .

"My speech, therefore, will be necessary, irritating and amusing.

"Necessary because I have decided to say all that is necessary. Not a word more.

"Irritating because I shall say some unpleasant things. Perhaps I shall shatter some false axioms on which we were reclining.

"Finally, the third part of my speech will contain a polemic, a part for which, as you know, I am particularly fitted [laughter], and during which I wish to amuse myself by goading all internal and external enemies of the Fascist regime [approval], . . ."

Even from this, the U. S. correspondents present failed unanimously to sense the approach of a great moment, ignored the super-news interest of a speech by the Dictator not in wild, bombastic vein, but warmly and humanly ruminative over the whole fertile land of his endeavors. The correspondents, plowing their usual rut, cabled in distorted and sensationalized form only what II Duce called the "goad" of his speech. Still worse, the correspondents twisted this until it meant almost the opposite of what Premier Mussolini went on to say.

They cabled that II Duce "thundered": "... We must at a certain time be able to mobilize 5,000,000 men. We must be able to arm them. We must fortify our navy and make our air force so strong and numerous that its roaring motors will drown all other sounds, its shadow hide the sun over Italian soil. We will be able then, between 1935 and 1940, when I believe there will be a crucial point in European history, finally to make our voice heard and see our rights recognized. . . ."

This was enough for headline writers, for rewrite men clever at jazzing copy, for editors honest but forced to conclude that Benito Mussolini had confessed at last to militarist, imperial ambitions scarcely expressed more recklessly by Wilhelm II as Kaiser and All Highest War Lord.

The story was treated in the U. S. press like the confession of a man who publicly admits that he is going to buy a rifle and expects some day to practice on his neighbors. The real story was that Signor Mussolini spoke as might a sturdy householder who said: "There are burglars in this neighborhood and so I am going to keep a pistol under my pillow."

It became clear that Signor Mussolini's declaration was "defensive," not "offensive," in intent when once there was placed before the passage quoted another which altered, almost reversed its meaning. Correspondents did not quote this key passage in the original transmission, and it only came to light, 48 hours late, when the New York Times had the whole 9,000 word speech cabled at thrifty week-end rates.

Said Signer Mussolini, in extenso, to explain and defend his well-known anti-Locarno -and anti-League policy:

"The structure of the Pact of Locarno was the following: France . and Germany pledged themselves not to be mutually aggressive, having on their side a coupie of policemen, namely, England and Italy, watching that the pledge is not violated. It was important for Italy at that moment to join England in order to guarantee peace on the Rhine, which in reality is the peace of Europe.

"But something better was done at Locarno, it was the operation of the pure chemistry of distillation; the spirit of Locarno was manufactured. Gentlemen, the spirit of Locarno today, at scarcely two years' distance, is extraordinarily discolored [hilarity].

"I mention this here without any intention of starting a polemic. What has happened? The Locar-noist nations arm themselves furiously by land and sea, indeed some of these nations have even dared to speak of the war of doctrine which their democracies should have waged against this irreducible Fascist Italy which is antidemocratic, antiliberal, antisocialist, anti-Masonic [applause].

"Besides, there have been manifestations which it would be criminal for us to ignore. What must reproach democracy for is that it creates one type of man and really believes that this man exists. This leads to atrocious disillusion, tragedies, butcheries.

"Gentlemen, only the other day a great Berlin parade of spiked helmets occurred. There were 120,000. This is of mediocre interest for us, but one of the posters they carried bore the following inscription: 'From Trieste to Riga.' It is mad, paradoxical, grotesque, but it is a fact. Therefore the precise, fundamental duty of Fascist Italy is to reach a maximum strength with her armed forces on land, sea and air [repeated, prolonged applause].

"Hence we must at a given moment be able to mobilize 5,000,000 men thoroughly armed, we must strengthen our navy; while aviation, in which I believe more than ever, must be on such a large scale and so powerful that the noise of its motors must surpass any other noise, and the area of the wings of our airplanes must obscure the sun from our land. Then between 1935 and 1940, when we shall reach the crucial point in European history, we will be able to make our voice heard, and see at last our rights acknowledged [loud, repeated applause]. This preparation requires some years more."

Not a defi to the world, but an expose of what Premier Mussolini believes to be the wreck of Lo-carno-this was suppressed, not by the Fascist censor but by the gentlemen of the U. S. press.

Thoroughgoing distorters, they quoted from Signer Mussolini: "The policeman is more important than the professor"; whereas he actually said: "Gentlemen, it is time to say that the police must be not only respected, but honored [applause]. Gentlemen, it is time to say that man, before feeling the need of culture, felt the need for orderliness. It can be said that the policeman preceded the professor in history [laughter], because, if there are not hands armed with handcuffs, laws become dead letters. . . ."

The first quotation might have been the remark of an imbecile or an ignoramus who hated professors. The second formed the prelude to a portion of the speech in which II Duce dealt with the widespread rumor that his police are a veritable tsar's cheka. He said: "It was necessary to weed out police, especially the plain clothes police. . . . When police are in plain clothes and have not the check of uniform they must be composed of picked men-zealous and silent citizens. . . .

"Fortunately, Italians are now ridding their minds of the residue left by the memory of past foreign dominations, of the Habsburgs, of the Bourbons, of the Grand Dukes, as a result of which that of the police was looked upon as an odious and abominable profession which was to be avoided at all cost. . . ."

II Duce continued:

"Now for those guilty of political offenses. One thousand, five hundred and forty-one individuals have been warned, 1,959 have been admonished, 698 have been sent to forced domicile. I defy any one to deny the absolute correctness of these figures. . . .

"It is time to tell the world, because it has been said abroad that they amount to 200,000 [laughter]. It has been said that in Milan alone 26,000 persons have been sent to forced domicile. All this is stupid, even more than it is cowardly. . . .

"Some people talk of amnesty. No, gentlemen, there will be no amnesty. . . . But the fact that I refuse to grant collective amnesty does not prevent me from issuing pardons in certain individual cases. . . .

"What plan do I follow when I pardon somebody? First I examine his War record. Evidently, if he is maimed or has won medals or passed several years in the trenches he has higher chances for clemency than one who has not. Then I examine the state of his health and his family. Finally, I examine what the deportee himself has to say for himself.

"Is this terror, gentlemen? No! It is hardly even severity. Is it terrorism? No! These measures are measures of social hygiene, of national prophylactics. I remove certain individuals from contact with their fellowmen, as a doctor would segregate one affected with infectious disease. . . ."

Point after point, policy after policy, fact after fact, were dealt with by Signer Mussolini for two hours and a half, while the Chamber buzzed with comment, indulged in a spontaneous laugh, or applauded the Duce.

He set as goals: larger, healthier families; compulsory temperance, not prohibition; continued Italianization of the provinces absorbed from Austria after the War; suppression of the Black Hand and Maffia, which he declared had been virtually accomplished by the new Fastist police; and finally, as the supreme goal: The Corporative State.

This ominous phrase, simplified, means, explained II Duce, that with-in the next twelvemonth the present Chamber of Deputies will be replaced by a parliament elected from the "corporations" or committees which alone now represent in Italy the classes of employers and employed (TIME, May 2).

Throughout Signer Mussolini's speech, which was promptly hailed by Fascists as great, definitive and prophetic, he was watched by a young girl and a man greatly resembling Premier Mussolini, who sat together in the Diplomatic Gallery. These intent watchers were Dictator Mussolini's daughter, Edda, and brother, Arnaldo. They applauded fiercely when II Duce cried at last:

". . . Five years ago I thought that after five years I would have finished the major part of my work. Now I see I have not, 1 am convinced that, despite the gradual creation of a directing class, despite the discipline of the people, I must assume the task of governing the Italian people for 10 or 15 years more, if necessary, not because I am lustful for power but because it is my precise duty. ... [A pause, arms folded, then, challengingly] My successor it not yet born! [Applause, quickly stilled]."