2687th Birthday

Rank on rank, Fascist crowds piled into the spacious Piazza Venezia last week to honor the 2687th birthday of Rome. Nervous after an exhausting week in which he had endeavored to balance Italy's lopsided budget by cutting government salaries from 6% to 12%, ordering rents and the prices in government-controlled stores reduced from 12% to 15%, and raising bachelors' income taxes 10% and 25%, Benito Mussolini strode to the balcony to make a speech.

Suddenly he found himself hemmed in and surrounded by the black silent ears of innumerable microphones. Irritably he swept the lot of them aside and bellowed viva voce to his people. Only the first few rows could hear him while those in back chatted loudly, sang Fascist hymns. Sharp ears in front heard their leader say:

"No people in any part of the world present such a spectacle as the Italian people--disciplined, understanding, tenacious. It is certain that with our discipline and our indomitable courage we will overcome these hard times. And, once through them, the Italian people will have the right to a life which is not full of restrictions and hardships, a life worthy of the Fascist era."

Next day was inaugurated one of the high spots in the Fascist public works project, an elevenmile double-track railway tunnel through the Etruscan Appennines between Bologna and Florence which will cut seven hours from the run between Naples and Milan. Because work on the tunnel was first started 20 years ago, it was inaugurated not by Benito Mussolini but by little King Vittorio Emmanuele III, who stopped in his private car at the tunnel's mouth to dedicate a fountain to the memory of 98 workmen who lost their lives while the tunnel was building.

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