Mussolini’s Popularity
In this article, famed journalist Anne O’Hare McCormick went to great lengths to explain why the Italian people were so […]
Benito Mussolini
Find old Mussolini articles here. We have great newspaper articles on Mussolini check them out today!
His Popularity
(NY Times Book Review, 1923)
In the attached article, famed journalist Anne O’Hare McCormick (1880 – 1954) went to great lengths to explain why the Italian people were so coocoo crazy for the rule of Benito Mussolini. At this point he had only been in power for eight months:
“Mussolini has the people hypnotized, but he has been given so much rope that he is sure to hang himself in the end.”
Fascist Thought in Italian Literature
(NY Times, 1923)
“Fascism, which began in Italy as a political and social force, soon became cultural as well. Already the movement has produced a considerable literature of its own. It is a literature of thews and sinews, of conflict and aspiration: its appeal is to a people awakened to a new consciousness of the possibilities and responsibilities of a life, a people that is confident that it has recovered the elixir of youth and has faith in the future.”
”We Must Be Strong”
(Pathfinder Magazine, 1936)
Knowing his audience well, Il Duce served it up good and raw in this 1936 speech:
“We must be strong. We must be always stronger. We must be so strong that we can face any eventualities.“
Mussolini Betrayed the Italian Jews
(Liberty Magazine, 1939)
“What is the reason for Il Duce’s newly acquired antisemitism? Why the new laws degrading the Jews of Italy? There are hardly 60,000 native-born Jews in all Italy. Many Italians have never laid eyes on a Jew. Antisemitism played no part in Italian life until Il Duce determined to banish the Jews into a moral and material ghetto.”
Mussolini Betrayed Italian Labor
(PM Tabloid, 1943)
After Hitler drafted everyone who could possibly be drafted, he found that he now had a labor shortage. He reached out to his fellow Fascist, Mussolini, asking for additional workers – Italy complied and numerous volunteers went forth. These Italians returned two years later and told how they were consistently abused:
“They were treated by the master race like the millions of Russian, Polish, French, Yugoslav war prisoners who are forced to produce for the Nazi war machine. Far from home, cut off from their families, the Italian workers suffered hardships often as great as the workers from Nazi-occupied countries.”
‘I Am Not a Dictator”
(Liberty Magazine, 1938)
In 1938, Fulton Oursler (1893 – 1952), editor of Liberty, crossed the Atlantic Ocean in order to ask Benito Mussolini why he invaded Ethiopia and to get his thoughts as to whether there would be peace in Europe. We can’t say that Il Duce gave very thorough answers to those questions, but Oursler did find out what was eating Mussolini:
Why is it that the people of the United States are so against Fascism? What is the matter with them? Why is the whole press so bitter against Fascism? Can you answer me that?
Massacre
(Pathfinder Magazine, 1937)
Late last week 30 prominent Ethiopians were tried as ringleaders in the attempted assassination [of Marshal Rodolfo Graziani]. They were to serve as public examples of Italy’s determination to rule over her new African domain. All other natives found in possession of arms were shot by Fascist firing squads, more than 1,000 terrified men being mowed down in a bloody Mussolini-ordered revenge.
He Died Badly
(Newsweek Magazine, 1945)
An Italian partisan fighter described to an American correspondent exactly how Benito Mussolini met his end.
Italy Condemned
(Literary Digest, 1935)
Any of us born after 1945 have seen this before: the United Nations condemns a dreadful dictator and sends him a mean email and the dictator deletes it (Sadam Hussein was condemned 17 times by the U.N.) – but this was the first time it happened in the Twenties. The League of Nations condemned Mussolini for the Ethiopia invasion, and Mussolini couldn’t have cared less.