Gompers Flayed

Capitalists licked their chops and Socialists ground their molars as II Duce Mussolini thundered before the Italian Senate:

"There is nothing more burlesquely comical in the whole Socialist doctrine than the effort to make people believe that human happiness depends exclusively on satisfying man's material needs. Was not the whole doctrine of Gompers* in America the most egotistical expression of proletarian chauvinism, leading to manifestations of uncompromising exclusion against all peoples, all races?

"If the nation is powerful even the humblest worker can hold his head high. If the nation is powerless and disorganized everyone suffers and everyone must assume an air of humiliation, as Italy has done for 20 years or more of her history.

"According to Socialist doctrine, capitalism is dying and the capitalist is a vampire, a Shylock. According to our doctrine all this is nothing but bad literature. Not only is capitalism not declining but it has not even reached the dawn.

"We must accustom ourselves to think that this capitalist system with all its virtues and defects will continue to rule the world for centuries. In countries where it has been physically suppressed it is again appearing.

"Capitalism has a function which Fascismo recognizes and approves. But Fascismo also recognizes that the fate of capitalism as well as the fate of the workers depends on the fate of the nation." Five to One. At the close of this oration the docile senators passed (139 to 27) a bill making strikes and lockouts unlawful in Italy and setting up special "Labor Magistrates" to settle all differences between employers and employes.

II Benito exulted: "This is the most courageous, most audacious, most radical and most revolutionary reform yet formulated by the Fascist Government in its 40 months of office."

* The late Samuel Gompers, President of the American Federation of Labor.