Black Farinacci

ITALY

With a solemn flourish and a little very black ink His Majesty Vittorio Emanuele III last week signed away the Constitutional right of Italians to democratic government. This was the last act in a drama which began three years ago--a great drama for which Signor Mussolini supplied the livid theme:

FASCISM HAS ALREADY STEPPED, AND, IF NEED BE, WILL . . . STEP ONCE MORE, OVER THE MORE OR LESS PUTRID BODY OF THE GODDESS LIBERTY!/-

The royal signature was first affixed, last week, to a decree dissolving the last (27th) Chamber of Deputies of United Italy, which recently adjourned (TIME, Dec. 31). Even this chamber was none too democratic. Its members were elected under Dictator Mussolini's peculiar Acerbo Electoral Law of 1923. That measure gave 66 2/3% of the seats to whichever party should lead the others and poll at least 25% of the popular vote. In a country such as Italy, where the chamber was normally composed of perhaps a dozen parties, none greatly preponderating, this law gave to the leading party (Fascismo) absolute and wholly disproportionate power. Result: prior to its royal dissolution the 27th Chamber passed over 2,000 laws pleasing to Il Duce, without possibility of their being effectively debated or opposed.

The second decree signed last week by Italy's short, bantamweight King, established the new supreme organ of state, the Fascist Grand Council (TIME, Oct. 1), by appointing 44 puissant Fascisti to sit as "the first two categories" of the Council. Il Duce was understood to be powerfully meditating on which Fascists he will tell His Majesty to appoint in the third category.

Keenest interest focused on the First Category, since its 16 members will constitute a sort of extraordinary upper house.* One name eclipsed the other 15 in significance--Roberto Farinacci. His role has been the most sinister in Fascist Italy, and the most obscure.

Originally swart, nervous, cynical Roberto Farinacci was famed as the Castor Oil Man of Fascismo. Politicians who rashly opposed Il Duce were ambushed and forced to swallow a pint, a quart, even a sickening gallon of what Farinacci called his "golden nectar of nausea." As Secretary General of the Fascist Party he wielded Ku-Klux powers of life and death. His last notorious, outrageous exploit was to warp the very fibre of Italian Justice and get off virtually scot free the Fascist murderers of the multimillionaire Socialist Deputy Giacomo Matteotti (TIME, April 5, 1926). Leading U. S. correspondents have since revealed that at the time they and the Italian press were compelled to suppress material details of the trial-- especially all indications that Signor Mus solini might himself have ordered the crime. After the trial successful Signor Farinacci was allowed to pass into discreet eclipse. Soon his post as Secretary General of the Fascist Party was taken by the present incumbent, harsh but not fanatical Augusto Turati. People were allowed to forget Castor Oil & Bludgeon Man Farinacci. His re-emergence last week on the very pinnacle of power, at the right hand of Il Duce, seemed of black omen for Italy.

*So-called parliamentary elections will be held March 23, 1929. The voter will receive a ballot containing the names, and only the names, of candidates approved by the Dictator in Council. If 51% of the electorate vote "yes," the entire slate will be declared elected, and Italy will have a 100% Fascist Chamber. Jokers in the law will almost certainly prevent a 51% vote of "no"; but in that remote contingency new elections would be held, and so ad infinitum until Fascismo triumphs. There are no local constituencies under this mock electoral procedure. In U. S. terms this would mean that the whole nation would vote to elect or reject a Congressional candidate in, for example, Rhode Island or Arkansas. /- See page 329 of The Life of Benito Mussolini by Margherita G. Sarfatti (TIME, Feb. 8, 1926)