No. 1 Thresher

One day last week Benito Mussolini hustled down the steps of his Villa Tor-Ionia in Rome, popped into his Alfa-Romeo and scorched southward deep into the malarial marshes of the Pontine. A motorcade of 200 cars pursued him bearing officials and newshawks most of whom wrote that night "Today I rode with Mussolini." Suddenly Il Duce's car slit) screaming to a halt at a blue plaster farmhouse known in the new Fascist reclamation project at Sabaudia as Podere (Farm ) No. 685. The black-shirted peasant homesteader on No. 685 who had won the Dictator's notice by begetting seven children, had neatly stacked good golden wheat in the front yard. A flag flapped atop the stack and a government threshing machine stood behind it.

Mussolini strode up to the wheat with leg-stretching strides, threw off his coat and hat, seized a pitchfork and began heaving wheat into the maw of the thresher. There was no need for the photographers to hurry. Sweating mightily, Thresher Mussolini pitched wheat into the machine for one full hour while the peasants of Sabaudia, hoarse from their usual heavy doses of quinine, sang folk songs to him. An official called time and then handed him a pay ticket for 2 lire, 10 centesimi (18-c-), the usual wage for an Italian farm laborer's hour of work. Puffing and bedewed, Mussolini felt that a speech was indicated. He climbed the threshing machine and shouted breathlessly: "On July 9, in the year 12 of the Fascist Revolution, Mussolini threshed the first wheat at Sabaudia!"

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