https://identityhunters.files.wordpress.com/2017/07/benito-mussolini-1922-hope-of-youth-italys-man-of-tomorrow-interview-with-the-nyt.pdf
Mussolini, Hope of Youth, Italy’s ‘Man of Tomorrow’
by Alice Rohe
Copyright, ©, 1922. The New York Times.
This text has entered the Public Domain in the United States
Everything is possible in Italy. The speaker was Benito Mussolini, the new Italian Premier; the place was Rome; the time—just the other day. Since then his words have become reality. He has been swept into the seats of the mighty on that overpowering wave of Fascismo. Just as Fascism is a political phenomenon without parallel in history, so is Mussolini a leader without political precedent. He is the political phenomenon of modern Italy, risen like a flame from the ashes of her cumbersome, confusing, parasite covered bureaucratic régime.
To interview Benito Mussolini not only was to interview Italy’s “Man of the Hour,” but Italy’s “Man of Tomorrow.” He is that person, to the lack of whom Italy has long attributed her political misfortunes — a strong man.
Mussolini has brought into the Italian situation that which it has lacked, and his achievements are proof of what discipline and organization, guided by an indomitable will, personal fearlessness, powerful intellect, profound learning, straight thinking, direct action can do.
The things that he foretold in our first meetings, when the Fascisti practically forced the July ministerial crisis during the fiasco of the general strike, gloatingly holding aloft the broken spine of Bolshevism, and what he said in the months following, have come to pass without a comma changed in his program.
It took me less than two minutes to discover why Fascismo had been able to blaze a trail to the seats of government, while the wise ones were still saying: “Oh, the Fascisti served their purpose when they saved Italy from Bolshevism. They have no significance now.”
In addition to an iron will, a genius for organization and uncompromising discipline, Mussolini has a contempt for futile conversation. Actions, not words, is his motto. We sat talking, this dark, smooth-shaven man of 38 and myself, in the parlor of his Rome hotel. I noticed as he waited — rather critically, I thought — for me to launch my questions, that his eyes were almost as contradictory as his mouth. They were piercing, commanding, blazing eyes, but they also were brooding and melancholy eyes. Mussolini’s mouth is strong, determined, domineering, uncompromising. The lips are neither thin nor thick, but the upper lip is so curved as to accentuate an unmistakable sensuousness. His teeth are white and even. His nose is large, well formed, suggestive of power. His head, upon which the short black hair is thinning on top, is of that dominating, aggressive, powerful type one associates with old Roman leaders.
When I asked him a question he had a concise reply, sometimes condensed to one word. He is a man who counts his words and whose words count. In place of the streams of oratory so often associated with leaders he utters one word. But in response to that one word the youth of Italy rises! Surely the power of a single word never has been so demonstrated in oratory-loving Italy.
His terseness and directness was sometimes disconcerting to one accustomed to the old Italian method of wordy evasion.
A Man of Brevity.
“What would be you very first step as head of the Government?” I asked.
He answered in one word: “Discipline.”
“And then?” I queried.
“Discipline for every one — that is a good beginning,” he replied.
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