ITALY'S ACTION.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 217, 12 September 1940, Page 5

ITALY'S ACTION.

AMERICAN DISGUST. CONTEMPT FOR DUCE. "AFRAID TO RISK A BRUISE." America's swing towards the Allied Cause began with disgust and contempt for Mussolini, says Mr. F. Alexander, head of the department of history m the University of West Australia, who is now in the United States ae a Rockefeller travelling fellow. "The time and the manner of Italy s intervention," he says in an article in the Melbourne "Herald," "produced a profound change in the attitude of many Americans towards Fascist Italy and its leader, Mussolini. The tolerance previously felt, and a certain sympathy, if not also a sneaking regard, often displayed by many Americans for Italy under the Duce, has given way to widespread disgust and contempt. "Mussolini was not the approved American type of leader, but he had succeeded in capturing the imagination of many Americans. The Duce's diatribes against democracy were often discounted as emptv declarations deeitrned for domestic consumption. I found a widespread belief among Americans that Mussolini would outwit both Hitler and the Allies and that he would keep Italy out of the war. With " la went the hope that, by holding the balance in western Europe, the Duce mijrht not only benefit Italy, but would also serve the interests of other neutrals aiid of the world at large. ... Sudden Change. "Down to the end of May, there was no reason to believe that the course of the war in Europe would seriously injure Italo-American relations or that it would lessen the sympathy or destroy the sneaking regard which many Americans felt for Mussolini, notwithstanding the widespread American aversion to Fascism. Down to May it can

tit least be said that Americans distinguished sharply in their minds between Fascism and Nazi-ism, between Mussolini and Hitler. In this they were able to follow what looked like a clear lead from Washington. "To-day all this is changed. A superficial observer of American life might perhaps have expected that the Duce's ability to participate in the defeat and humiliation of France with the minimum cost to his people would have heightened American admiration for his statecraft. The very opposite is the case. I can still recall my own feeling of shocked surprise and satisfaction as I listened to the President's broadcast graduation address in Virginia, and heard his angry and contemptuous reference to the "stab in the back." I have eince been told that the surprise was universal, and extended even to the newspapermen reporting the speech, whose exclamations were the more marked because the phrase hal not appeared in the manuscript of the epeech which had previously been circulated. The Bubble Pricked. It is clear, however, that on thie, as on so many other occasions, Mr. Roosevelt revealed 'his uncanny skill in detecting and expressing what is the prevailing trend in American opinion. Although his deliberate insult to the executive head of a "friendly" nation was delivered at a time when party opponents were looking for sticks with which to 'belabour the President, the incident was allowed to pass without domestic challenge. On the contrary, it received confirmation in public utterances and in private conversation which revealed in surprising fashion the extent to which the American people may be moved by acts which conflict with their sense of decency and honour, of which they have at times an almost medieval conception. The bubble of Mussolini's American reputation was pricked, and, instead of an heroic figure, he appeared as a despicable poltroon. From the dozens of hostile editorials and other Press comment, the following extract from the daily column of the writer Westbrook P?gler may be cited to indicate the prevailing temper of the American people. I quote from the Xew York "World Telegram" for June 20, although the Pegler column appears in many other newspapers throughout the country: "Let us take up the proposition that Americans who caine from Italy or who

were born of Italian parents should feel pride in the achievements of Italy under Mussolini ....

"The greatest stroke of jthe new Italy, I of which these Americans are asked to speak with pride, was the most spectacular and wanton act of cowardice that has filled the character of any nation in civilised times. At an hour when the people of France were gasping for breath in a horrible struggle, whenj their women and children. were stumbling over country roads and dying of wounds and exhaustion in dirty ditches, when the men and •> boys of | France were opposing ordinary shoulder: guns and bayonets against clanking' monsters and bombing 'planes, thej proud, valiant Italy of Mussolini, whose j indomitable legions had run away atj Guadalajaro, still-held the stiletto poised on the southern frontier, afraid to risk a bruise from a victim who was down but not yet out. The Italians will never be allowed to forget that the brave Duce withheld the deadly stab until he was absolutely certain that the French people were so weak from loss of Wood that they could not even twitch. "That is a damned spot that will not out. It will be remembered long after Mussolini and Hitler are gone, and even the. Germans, in time to come, will taunt them and despise Italians for the cowardice of their nation under the I Duce. "If Mussolini had gone into the war at once or had moved in while the battle of France was still developing, thus risking a small blow in behalf of thei new Italy's aspirations, he might have! saved some shred of respectability. But the man who for many years had exhorted Italians to die like lions rather | than live like sheep disgraced the Italian j nation and its people eternally. . . ." Strange though it may appear, there is a lesson in all this for us as Australians (says Mr. Alexander). In our,, ignorance of American life and thought too many of us—l am ready to include myself—have in the past thought or spoken of Americans as a materiallyminded people, whose major decisions are influenced primarily by consideration of profit or less. '. , , Where foreign policy is concerned. 1 nothing could be further from the truth.! Statesmen who would win the goodwill j :mrl. later perhaps, the material aid ofi the Aniei-ii-ai: people niik-t appeal to, their hearts, uui to their pockets. ;