The autocracy of Mussolini moves along unimpeded on the enthusiastic support of the Italian masses. The women, who were given the vote in municipal elections some months ago, find the right amounting to nothing, as the local governments for which they were to vote are now appointed by Mussolini.
The abolition of popular elections has raised the question of providing properly trained administrators for the dictatorship. Fascist intellectuals propose a special training school for a governmental aristocracy, to which youths shall be sent who have been adjudged by the Duce from among candidates-suggested by the officers of the Fascist militia to be of proper character to exercise authority as he may see fit to permit to others besides himself. By this method of “investure from above” it is hoped to make eternal the blessing of a people’s forgetting to govern itself. These future masters of the state are to be instructed in “the analysis of political phenomena, the science of organization, and Roman and Italian history with special attention to the dictatorial periods,” and are to be tried in minor administrative posts.
The Fascisti have been suppressing all sorts of anti-Fascist societies, much as though Republicans were to smash all Democratic Clubs in this country. The distinction between opposition to the party in power and treason to the country has not yet become clear to the Fascist mind. Under the new laws, five hundred and twenty-two especially active opponents of Fascism have been informed by the legally constituted committees that they must not pass certain “dead lines including moderate areas around their places of residence. If they can not earn a living within the dead line, the state will supply them with a minimum for the sustenance of life. In this convenient way, Mr. Hughes could be forbidden under a Democratic administration to go above 110th Street or below 42nd Street in New York, or a Republican ex-postmaster in South Carolina who persisted in advocating the defeat of the Treaty of Versailles could be restricted to the township in which he lived.
So exuberant has Fascist enthusiasm waxed that the French government has ordered two extra brigades of police to the border, not desiring any more Garibaldi business on their side of the line.
Southern Christian Advocate, Charleston, SC, December 9, 1926