It has cultivated no illusions and it has disseminated no delusions, as did the demagogues of Socialism. On the contrary, it destroyed them. To its adherents it offered danger and sacrifice, in the name of Italy. From the beginning its progress was obstructed by the immense difficulty of combating party resistance and the resistance of individuals and institutions that had the protection of the State. It also had to encounter the apathy, skepticism and ridicule of the greater part of the public. In other words, it had to conquer public opinion. That it succeeded no one need be told.

Had it not been for Fascismo, Italy might have gone to Bolshevism. Many who know little of Fascismo aside from the name have pretended to be scandalized at its methods. Illegality is always shocking-in normal times. But Italy has not been in normal condition for several years. All classes of people save professional politicians and pescicani have been dissatisfied. Disgust with the régime was widespread and the men in power, Parliament, the bureaucracy, the institutions, were distrusted and ridiculed. A state of pessimism and skepticism had become prevalent, as it had in France before the great revolution. The war brought them into the limelight. A Bolshevik outbreak would have caused the complete collapse of Italy. The emergency which thus developed required emergency measures and methods. Fascismo came as a salutary reaction; not a new phenomenon, but a common one in life and history. Fascismo arose as a movement antagonistic to the influences which were sapping the State-a movement of self-defense when defensive action on the part of the State was nil.

As for the success that Fascismo will have now that it has assumed the responsibility of the Government, it is well to recall the old saying: "The Tarpeian Rock is next to the Capitol." It is risky to prophesy, and this for several reasons. In the first place: We are confronted with a social compound which is rapidly changing. Fascismo of tomorrow may not be the same as that of today, just as the latter is not the Fascismo of yesterday. The ranks of the party have swollen tremendously with deserters from Socialism and Communism. It has been an abnormal growth, and Fascismo may not be able to assimilate these aliens

without undergoing a change. Men who for thirty years have contemplated and planned the Socialist and Communist Utopia may change their minds in twenty-four hours, but can reliance be placed on these sudden conversions? Some surely are due to fear, some to self-interest, and some are not sincere. And no one is likely to deny that there is danger that the unstable mass which has passed to Fascismo may force the hand of its new leaders as it did with its former Socialist leaders in 1919.

Then again: The Liberal Party, many of whose members had, in this last generation, flirted with the Socialists, has recently sensed the change in the political aura of Italy, and in consequence has reorganized itself "along lines more in harmony with its old glorious principles ", that is, turned toward Conservatism. Also recently the Liberals have claimed that Fascismo is the offspring of Liberalism: flesh of their flesh. The political secretary of the Fascisti party recently said: "The Liberal Party was a revolutionary bourgeois party during the Risorgimento. When the task of making Italy was accomplished it became the boss, the owner of the State, the breeding farm of all statesmen. Fascismo, with the whole nation behind it, has now taken its place. The Liberals, who are applauding the defeat of subversionism, fail to see that Fascismo has inherited the Socialist mission and all the problems which Socialism had failed to solve. Forty years of Socialism stand between Liberalism and Fascismo. The latter denies its would-be progenitor.

What Mussolini's foreign policy will be remains to be seen. That it gives much concern even to his admirers cannot be denied. He does not believe in the possibility of coöperation with the Slavs. He looks upon Yugo Slavia as an artificial construction in opposition to Italy; he maintains that the Treaty of Rapallo should be revised; that Italy's aspirations in the Near East are just and legitimate, and that the romantic period of foreign policy must be closed forever and Italy be guided in her external relations by financial and economic considerations. "Nothing for nothing" is the motto of his foreign policy.

His internal policy may be formulated, but it is subject to diurnal modification. He is not going to be a defender of the interests of Capitalism. His ambition is to create the Fascist

Democracy of work. He has declared against the Governmental bureaucracy which has Italy in a Laöcoön grasp. But can he or Fascismo change it, reduce it, get rid of it? That they cannot make it efficient is the belief of many serious students of the science and art of government. It is a tool that they are bound to use without being able to improve or substitute, for even though they had the courage to undertake it a generation would not suffice to accomplish it. Fascismo may become the prisoner of the bureaucracy. Italy's administrative machine is the "selva selvaggia ed aspra e forte" of Dante. In the entanglements of that forest Fascismo may lose itself.

When the Fascisti held their meeting in Naples in October, 1922, it was evident that there were two governments in Italy: the Constitutional and the Fascismo, the former of which was trying to preserve its existence and the old political system against threatened extinction by the latter. It was the courageous decision and good sense of King Victor Emanuel, who would not permit the Facta Government to use armed forces against the Fascisti, that precipitated the coup d'etat. In the last days of the Congress at Naples, Bianchi, the SecretaryGeneral of the Fascisti, proclaimed that the King should invite Mussolini, the leader of the Fascisti, to form the succeeding Government, this party being stronger than that of the Government. When Facta tried to remonstrate, Riccio, Ministèr of Public Works, stampeded the Cabinet and resigned, and Mussolini, thirty-eight years old, journalist and agitator, son of an ironmonger, was invited to Rome and became Prime Minister. His first declaration was: "Fascismo is neither revolutionary nor reactionary, but it is against a demagogue State. I am loyal to the Monarchy and to the House of Savoy."

And now Italy awaits the forthcoming election with perfect confidence, while anxiously scanning the horizon for a new Cavour. Meanwhile the outside world waits to see if Benito Mussolini can sacrifice his personality to the public cause. JOSEPH COLLINS.

DID THE KAISER TELL THE TRUTH?

BY STEPHANE LAUZANNE

The outcome of the treacherous malady which killed the Emperor Frederick III was frankly predicted to me at San Remo by the German physicians who had been called into consultation as experts by the English physician, Sir Morell Mackenzie. My deep grief and sorrow augmented in view of the fact that it was almost impossible for me to speak to my beloved father privately. He was guarded like a prisoner by the English physicians, and although newspapermen from all over the world could look in on the sick man from the physicians' room, all kinds of obstacles were put in my path to prevent me from being at my father's side. I was even prevented from keeping in constant touch with him by writing, my letters being often intercepted and not delivered. Moreover, among the group of observers, an infamous campaign of organized slander was launched against me in the newspapers.

I Do not know why nor how it happened; but when this passage from the ex-Kaiser's Memoirs came to my attention, a whole episode, replete with romance and tragedy, came back to me from the reaches of memory. I saw once more in my mind's eye, some thirty years ago, there by the shore of the eternally blue Mediterranean, a white villa lost in a group of flowering orange trees. A man was suffering quietly on the veranda of the villa. A woman, upon whose features pride and energy inscribed themselves, was nursing him, while the doctors standing about discussed and argued the ways and means of saving the man's life. Nearby stood a boy-almost a child—who, eyes wide with curiosity, gazed upon a scene portentous in world history. The white villa was the Villa Zirio at San Remo. The sick man was the Crown Prince Frederick William, father of the future Kaiser William II. The woman was the Crown Princess Frederick, daughter of Queen Victoria of Great Britain. The boy was myself. I was covering the first assignment of my life as a cub reporter.

I was not quite fifteen years old; and I had come that Spring morning of 1888 to visit a man who was my uncle and at the

same time one of the most celebrated newspapermen of the epoch, Blowitz, the well known correspondent of The London Times. I found him holding a letter in his hand, written on mauve colored paper. The writing was large but delicate, indicating a woman's hand, and was composed of but a single sentence: "If you want to know the truth about the San Remo tragedy, why don't you see Mme. Zirio?" I naturally asked him whom the letter came from, and who Mme. Zirio was.

"I don't know who sent me the letter," my uncle replied, "but I've often received similar missives since I entered the newspaper game. The mysterious and anonymous suggestions were not always written on mauve paper, nor were they always in a feminine handwriting; but I've always followed them up and never regretted doing so. As to Mme. Zirio, I've met her several times in the South of France. She was married to an Italian, Signor Baptistin Zirio, who was always ill. I can't see what connection there can be between her and the dying heir to the German throne. Yet, I feel a presentiment that it will be worth my while to see her. Will you come with me?"

I was only too glad to do so. We left at once for San Remo, and found the villa of Mme. Zirio, not far from the big white villa occupied by the Crown Prince of Germany. We were ushered into the parlor, where we noted on a stand, well in evidence, a large photograph autographed Wilhelm. It was a photograph of the future Kaiser, William II.

The lady of the house, a tall, handsome woman with brilliant black hair, did not keep us waiting very long. After exchanging the usual greetings, my uncle came to the point at once, thinking that the simplest course would be the best, and showed her the letter he had received. Mme. Zirio blushed, and then smiled.

"How strange!" she exclaimed. "I also received a similar letter, yesterday. It contained the single sentence, 'If you receive the visit of the well-known Blowitz, why not tell him the truth about the San Remo tragedy?'"

The three of us laughed heartily at this. But we were not long in deducing that, at any rate, the mysterious person who had written the two missives knew what she was about, for Mme. Zirio, whose name had never been pronounced before in con