"Authoritarians"

Into the Berlin office of Editor Theodor Wolff of the great Berliner Tageblatt strode Editor Benito Mussolini of Il Popolo D'ltalia--eight years ago. Came news last week of the first meeting between these friends since then. In the Dictator's imposing quarters at Rome they argued with friendly heat about Democracy. Il Duce, soon after he seized power, said:

"We have passed, and if necessary will pass again, without the slightest hesitation, over the more or less putrid body of the goddess of liberty" (TIME, April 7, 1923).

Times have changed. When gruff, penetrating Herr Wolff barked, "You are the Fascist regime, we a democracy!", Il Duce bridled, made an answer of utmost significance : "I am a democrat [pause] that is, an authoritarian democrat."* As though he found his new-coined phrase especially apt, Il Duce reintroduced it during the argument again and again. "We are creating moral order, not police order," he added earnestly. "We are not reactionaries: quite the contrary." A little plaintively, knowing well that he will always be considered ruthless, the Dictator spoke at last of his penal islands (notorious as "Devil's Isles" but recently shown by a neutral investigator to be much as Il Duce proceeded to describe them).

"I will tell you what conditions really are," said he to Herr Wolff. "There is an island in the Gulf of Naples where two or three hundred people are living, having been sentenced there for their political activities. They are not all opponents of the Fascist regime. Some of them are Fascists, and when I find them guilty of any offense I am more severe toward them than I am toward others. The political exiles live apart from the ordinary criminals. Each of them receives ten lire a day and when it is necessary their families also are supported. Each man is allowed to follow his profession on the island. The climate, which is the same as that of Capri, is healthy. Nobody--now remember this--ever has had to stay there his full term. Not one of them has been compelled to serve all the time for which he was sentenced. I leave no one there for more than two or three years and after that time the men released are not compelled to live in a certain place. They can dwell in any part of Italy they choose. Every day I receive petitions for pardon and one of them that I have just signed lies before me on my desk at this moment. When my daughter was engaged innumerable appeals of this kind were made, for, as you can understand, that was a period of sentimental excitement. I told my daughter, 'Everyone who makes a petition for clemency will be granted his request,' and that is actually what occurred. I do not like to talk much about these matters and do not often make them public, but if you want to you can reveal what happened."

*Living Age translation.

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