ITALY: Soup and Snap

Il Duce was reported as chuckling in Rome last week over the following whimsical tribute to his acumen in the Liberal Manchester Guardian, most genteel of Fascist-baiters:

“Not the smallest factor in the success of Mussolini has been that kind of common sense demonstrated by an event at the Italian maneuvers. Mussolini was making some inspection and was about to drink a spoonful of the soup prepared for the troops when he saw a photographer about to ‘snap’ him. He stopped and cried imperiously ‘I will NOT be photographed while I’m eating.’

“There spoke the higher dictatorial wisdom. There is nothing more dangerous than eating or drinking within reach of a camera. If Mussolini had had an inferior sense of dictatorial values he might have thought it a good advertisement of his solicitude for the troops that he should have been ‘caught’ in the act of tasting their food. He was wise, no doubt, to put dignity before popularity.”