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Show Italy's Law-and-Order Radicals By Robert Pitts wrpilB Fasclatl have saved Italy" la a a aaylng you hear on every hand In Italy today. I-ast summer thia waa not true. The Fascist! were then particularly active in combating Jhe Comuntstl and their alleged alleg-ed agitations, but they wers by no means generally beloved or praised. In a city like Home Bteady. humdrum citizens, innocent -of tbs slightest radicst tendency, even spoke bitterly sgainst tire FssciatI, calling them the hirelings of a few over-rich capitalista who were bent on stamping out strike In particular and, labor trouble in general by a regime of intimidation and force. The average Italian bourgeois waa much more apt to attribute the unreet in his country to the high-banded activities of the Faacinti thsn to any revolutionary preachments snd practices on the pert of ths extreme radical radi-cal element the Comunistl. aa they .-nil themselves eince their split from the ortho-dox ortho-dox body of evolutionary, but law-abiding. Socialists. In fset the comfortably law-abiding citizen cit-izen of Italy, be hia allegiance to the monarchist, ths Catholic ("Popolari") or the tVsislist Psrty, looks on the guerrilla warfare waged among Fasritl and Coma nisti groups as something more akin to a re rival of the marauding parties of the medieval medi-eval pillages than a bona -fide etmrcle between be-tween opposing principles of a patriotic .nationalism, .na-tionalism, as embodied by the Faciti, and an international communism, ss embodied by the Comunistl. And this comfortably law-abiding law-abiding citizen waa wont to throw the chief blame on the Fa "Wet i aa being made up of idle young-men who ought to 4!nd something better to do tbsn to sell their youth and tbeir muscles -to the unscrupulous potentates of aa overweening capitalism. But today the pendalum has swung fsr in the other direction. The FsscMi are now enjoying the -favor of the majority aa ths fores that baa carried Italy through the I most dangerous crisis of her national existence, ex-istence, saving her from anarchy and cbaoa, . perhaps from famine and pestilence. The roatleas youths, in their black ebirta and their crinkled manes flying belligerently to the breeze, are no longer the subjects of a .Diapered wsrning as they pssa in the streets. They are still far fronr deified, or even hailed with loud thsnkaglvtngs and pealms of praise, but they are widely roe-' roe-' ognized as the saviora of Italy, and so are riewe.1 with approval and gratitude. For the Fasclsti have put down n eery vigorous foot, forbidding strikes, frowning on sgitstion, snd reslly aertiring to people sho are eager to go about their work in peace the opportunity to accomplish that luudable desire. Home mil complain that Ihey have discouraged debate and esperls mentation. Other point out thst the present is no time for debate and experimentation. It even seems true thst the working clsases, from whom the msjorlfy of ths Hoclslista snd nesrly sll the Communists, except for s few leaders, sre drawn, hsre become heartily sick of striking and otherwise potting pot-ting inconvenient principles into uncom-fortsMe uncom-fortsMe operation, snd so finally hare come to the strength and energetic action of the Fasristi as the guaranty of their earning a livelihood under conditiona of relative tranquillity. T DON'T know tFiat sny one has sought to deny the partial truth of the charge as to the mercenary cbsracter of the Fascist!. The psrty has beei financed from moneybags money-bags snd some men seem to here enlisted in its ranks for gain. But we are told similsr things of ths Communist party, only the money -bagv and tbe covetous men are not the ssme. It seems to be a fact that aaide from some hired soldiers for hirelings enlist en-list under sny bsnoer and from a floating element that points with tbe weather-vanes, b'owlng Popolsri when the Catholics seem strongest. Fstsristi when the Fascist! seem ; strongest, Comunisti when tha Comunistl appear to be getting the uppev hand aside from both of these there la a powerful and principal element of convinced patriots In tho Fascistl psrty, men who believe that Italy can and muat bo tranqullised ; that If tha Government falla to turn the trick, tha nation na-tion must, and that they are tha aatloa; that peace and work, not theory and experiment, exper-iment, are the supreme need of tbe moment; that existing Institutions, of democratic government gov-ernment are sufficient onto these imperious needs, and that drastic modifications In the life of the nation and the world roust just now be relegated Inexorably to tha future that they would serve. In a word, the Tn-scisti, Tn-scisti, as at present seen, are patriota and "realists," democrats and men of practical action, and the turn of tbe Italian tide In the direction of peace and prosperity within the ststs is being gratefully attributed to -their brave and energetic course. Unquestionably during the last yesr socialism, social-ism, and especially, communism, have lost ground In Itsly. Signiflcant la tbe unwillingness unwill-ingness of the Sorlallet Party to accept power when tbe chance to form a ministry rsme Ita way. But if socialism has loot ground In Italy, the position of communism is really curious. Of all western peoples tho Italinns are, in the general acceptation ot the term, the moat democratic. But at the same time the Italian la anti-communist. Hia aense of essential human equality la part of hia eery bones snd tissue, but not a whit lees Ingrained Is his instinct for . persons! possession. The Itslisn is ss "real istlr," If not so logical, aa the Frenchman, tut he la without tha Frenchman's aptitude apti-tude for intellectual system and abstract reasoning. Every Italian in tbe bottom of hia heart knowa that be la just aa good aa tbe next man, be he who be may; but he also knows tbst this world's goods sre just ss good for him aa for the next maa. Tho Italian could never at the beheet of theory bring himself collectively to sny such systematically sys-tematically subversive national gesture aa the French Kevoiutioa. |