ITALY: Purging the Party

The richest man in Italy five years ago was Signor Riccardo Gualino, clapped into jail last week. Like the Courtaulds of England, the Gillets of France, the American du Ponts, Italy’s Gualino reaped stupendous riches from the comparatively new trick of producing silk without silkworms. He became a billionaire—in lire. Only recently Billionaire Gualino was virtually sole owner of Snia Viscosa, the leading Italian artificial silk works. His philanthropies were on a scale approached by no other Italian. Sometime ago, when his affairs became entangled, “The Richest Man in Italy” was able to borrow from Banca Agricola Italiana half a billion lire ($26,300,000), which resulted in an eventual loss to the bank of seven times its capital. No charge was made against Financier Gualino when he was seized last week. His arrest was made not by police but by the Turin Fascist “political squadron.” His name was not inscribed on the jail register, only his initials, “R. G.,” and the laconic explanation: “For motives of public securitv.” Presumably Fascist higher-ups are involved, and in such cases the “purging” (as it is called in Italy) is always accomplished in profound silence. The party, absolutely absolute, is maintained above suspicion, the culprits expelled, the guilty punished.

Before three days were out Prisoner Gualino was arraigned before the Fascist Commission of the Province of Turin, sentenced to five years on the penal Island of Lipari “for having wrought serious and repeated damage to national economy.”