MUSSOLINI: THE WILD MAN OF EUROPE
CONTENTS:
(1) ODE TO THE LITTLE LIBRARY
(2) THE WILD MAN OF EUROPE
(3) FREEMASONS, KLANSMEN AND OTHERS
(4) ANTI-CATHOLICS AND ANTI-ITALIANS
(5) JOHN BOND IN ROME
(6) MUSSOLINI AND ITALIAN FREEMASONRY
(7) THE MUSSOLINI MOMENT IN AMERICA
(8) MUSSOLINI, VALENTINO AND "THE STAR SYSTEM"
(9) WHO WAS JOHN BOND?
(1) ODE TO THE "LITTLE LIBRARY"
After decades abroad, one of the great joys of life back in the United States is the proliferation of Little Libraries —chockful of fun things to read, all for free and in English too!
I love having the fates guide my reading, tossing me into literary byways I barely knew existed.
Still, I live only a few blocks from Politics and Prose, in the raised-consciousness bubble of Ward 3 (Upper Northwest Washington DC).
So, my discoveries —while endlessly intriguing— often run through predictable local channels.
This is Washington after all, a strangely unquantifiable place.
It is perpetually at the center of the world's attention, superpower capital and all that.
Meanwhile, it remains an oddly shapeless town, craving a unique sense of place that might or might not exist.
God knows, they try!
I could easily fill my living room— floor-to ceiling— with eager Washingtoniana from Little Libraries within a one-mile radius of my home.
There are serious historical studies, for sure, and shrewdly observed novels —but far fewer of the latter than you might expect.
But above all, Little Libraries overflow with bright-eyed feel-think from the talking heads of yesteryear (often concocted on their way out the door).
Also "inside glimpse" picture books from every presidential administration, now looking more or less alike.
Then— perhaps most intriguing —we have a steady stream of "collectibles" with the shelf life of unrefrigerated crème fraîche.
You can't imagine how much DC whimsy I scoop out of Little Libraries and then —coming to my senses —offload in others before returning home.
At times, however, I wish that I had held on to the Bill 'n Hillary Bobbleheads, the Road to the White House Board Game and and a few of those recurrring sets of DC Politicards.
(2) THE WILD MAN OF EUROPE
Washington's Little Libraries can be endearingly silly.
But sometimes—in their randomness —they crack open the past and make us rethink what we know.
Like it or not, this qualifies as Washingtoniana too.
The Fellowship Forum and the Independent Publishing Company were joined at the hip in the Nation's Capital and exerted massive influence in their day.
But first, let's take a look at Wild Man.
Bond was not a born wordsmith, piling up shapeless paragraphs where single sentences would do.
Meanwhile, he compensated— almost obsessively —with vehement headings from hither and yon.
Vanity and violence... Unpleasant Traits... The Old Ego Remains...
Bond— it seems —had "Marvelous Mussolini" stuck in his craw, right out of the gate.
The Duce's media assault on American values is clearly working.
But what motivates this "Superman" anyway?
The author discerns three "purposes".
"Hyphenism"? "Italian-American" would be a prime example, it seems.
"Alienism"? A word of his own devising— from "alien" meaning "foreign" —signalling less than total commitment to the American Way of Life.
"Weeds" and "hothouses"? The metaphors come thick and fast.
Bond exposes a dire conspiracy at home and abroad, masterminded by the Duce himself.
Subverting the "Italian Vote" —otherwise "Italian-American" —is a chief goal.
In the economic sphere, Mussolini commands the resources of his Corporate State, channeling them wherever he pleases.
Thus he manipulates American public opinion —in pursuit of his global ambitions.
What is Dictator Mussolini's endgame— according to John Bond?
Nothing less than a Clerical-Fascist Empire jointly ruled by the Duce and the Pope.
(3) FREEMASONS, KLANSMEN AND OTHERS
Heady stuff! But who was John Bond writing for?
Based in Rome, he operated as the "European Correspondent of The Fellowship Forum".
This was "A National Weekly Devoted to the Fraternal Interpretation of the World's Current Events".
The Fellowship Forum was printed by The Independent Publishing Company, both headquartered in Washington DC.
The Independent also issued several of Bond's books, including Mussolini: The Wild Man of Europe.
The journal, the publisher and the author all shared a "Fraternal" point of view— meaning what exactly?
The New York Times went straight to the point in the summer of 1927, while assessing The Forum's request for a radio broadcasting licence .
The Times set the stage in their very first sentence, "The Fellowship Forum, alleged Ku Klux Klan publication, devoted in large part to attacks on the Roman Catholic Church..."
James S. Vance, the paper's general manager, fired back when the Forum's plan for a "Patriotic Protestant America" broadcasting station stalled out.
"Stories" were circulating about the Forum.... Were they "untruthful" like Vance claimed?
Whatever Vance and his crew were saying and doing, they had moved beyond simple words into the murky realm of coded messaging.
In "100% American" circles (to use a favorite catchphrase of the time), "Protestant" meant "Non-Catholic" and usually "Anti-Catholic" as well.
"Fraternal" was another favored term of art, evoking friends and neighbors in thousands of predominantly White Protestant lodges across America (Odd Fellows, Elks, Moose, Knights of Pythias and whatever else).
The Forum reported on a wide swathe of these organizations while privileging Freemasonry and the Klan.
In practice, there was a recurring overlap between those two —and when you hear "Militant Freemasonry", "Ku Klux Klan" is strongly implied.
(For the complex and often fraught relationship of Freemasonry, Militant Freemasonry and the Klan in those years, see Adam Kendall's impressive and well-sourced survey, "The Ku Klux Klan, Freemasonry and the American Fraternal Press", Ars Quatuor Coronatorum, vol. 134, 2021).
The Fellowship Forum was founded in 1921— conspicuously based in Washington DC.
By 1927, this "National Voice for Protestant Fraternal America" had attained a circulation of over a million.
Freemasonry has a long history in the Washington area with many powerful adherents, going back to George Washington himself.
This Fraternal Order developed a network of influential connections across Protestant America (with some Jewish involvement as well).
The Masons did not need to exclude Catholics, since the Church got there first. As a secret society, Freemasonry was deemed incompatible with the Roman faith and membership triggered instant excommunication.
In 1915, the Ku Klux Klan was refounded —after its suppression in 1870, following a horrifying run of lynchings and other violence.
In the course of the 1920s, the organization was restyled, with an eye to broad public acceptibility. By mid-decade, the Klan attracted some 2.5 to 4 million members and played a leading role in political, social and business life.
The culmination came on August 8, 1925 and September 13, 1926, when tens of thousands of robed and hooded knights paraded through the Nation's capital, claiming their place in the American mainstream.
James S. Vance, the Forum's General Manager, combined America First boosterism with cash pay-outs to subscription agents.
"There is always work for loyal Americans to do because America’s enemies are at work every minute of the day. We must arouse the sleeping Protestants throughout the country and get them properly informed. Interview every Protestant in your territory and solicit his subscription. They will learn the truth by reading The Fellowship Forum ....How about the BONUS?—do you want it? If so show some speed!"
When it came to relentless huckstering, Vance wasn't doing this alone.
The Fellowship Forum's bold expansion was managed by The Southern Publicity Association, the Atlanta-based advertising and fundraising agency that also programmed the rise of the Second Ku Klux Klan.
On November 25 , 1915, William Joseph Simmons (a Protestant preacher) led 16 stalwart "Knights" to the summit of nearby Stone Mountain.
Robed, hooded and masked, they reconsecrated the Ku Klux Klan, amidst neo-chivalric antics not seen for decades.
We don't know for a fact that Edward Young Clarke was on top of Stone Mountain with Simmons on that fateful night —but if not, he wasn't far off.
From 1915 to 1922, Clarke served at Imperial Wizard Simmons' side, as Imperial Wizard Pro Tempore (Chief Deputy) and Imperial Kleagle (Head of Recruiting).
"We were here yesterday, We are here today, We will be here forever."
At the outset, Simmons doubled-down on his Invisible Empire's connection with the past, flourishing every symbol and motto he could find.
America, however, was looking ahead —in the full flush of White Protestant Fraternalism and entering the age of modern advertising.
"An Urgent Call to Real Men"? That was cutting out half the population... The WKKK (Women of the Ku Klu Klan) would be founded in 1923.
By 1920, Clarke and Tyler founded The Southern Publicity Association.
In June of that year, they stipulated a contract with Grand Wizard Simmons (whose previous recruitment efforts had been scattershot at best).
Clarke was already their inside man as Imperial Kleagle —the Klan's chief strategist and enrollment officer.
Their task was to restructure the KKK as a centralized membership organization. In return, Clarke and Tyler would pocket a share of the fees.
In June of 1921, the Fellowship Forum began publication— helping normalize Klannish activity in a wide sector of American Society.
(Eventually, the Association's accounts would include the Anti-Saloon League, the Armenian Relief Fund and the American Red Cross, as well as the Klan and the Fellowship Forum.)
This intriguing image was staged in Washington DC, in sight of the Capitol, on November 1, 1921. We see two conspicuously liberated women (by the standards of their day) with their plus-fours, their bicycles and their dog.
Why are we featuring this here? The photo records one of The Fellowship Forum's earliest publicity campaigns —only four months after the appearance of their first issue on June 24, 1921.
This was the softest possible approach to Protestant Fraternalism (and now Sorority), much favored in these years— sending Florence Deering and Evelyn Morey, two youngish Christian ladies, on a cross-country bicycle trip from Washington DC to San Francisco.
They were "accompanied by 'Buddie', a German police dog, given them when they were doing YWCA work overseas."
"The young ladies represent the Fellowship Forum, a national publication in the interest of Masonry, and were accorded every welcome and courtesy by Asheville Masons. They reported a good volume of business for their publication."
Florence and Evelyn were routed through the heart of Klan Country in the South, but in this article we hear only of "Masonry" and not even the "Militant" kind. Now —a hundred years later—we can merely wonder about their conversations on the ground
What was in this for Edward Young Clarke and Mary Elizabeth Tyler (apart from maybe saving White Protestant America)?
Power, influence and a vast amount of money.
According to their 1920 agreement with Simmons, they claimed $8 from every $10 initiation fee (with the other $2 going to Simmons).
Meanwhile, it was up to Clarke and Tyler to finance the membership drive, with hefty finders' fees going to hundreds of Kleagles (recruiters, not Imperial) across the country. (In fact, we are looking at a classic pyramid scheme.)
By the end of 1921, the KKK had already attracted more than 700,000 members (as estimated, since it was a secret society with its records closely held).
Clarke and Tyler should have netted some $1,750,000 from initiation fees alone in 1921 (worth some $32,000,000 today).
Meanwhile, the two Southern Publicity Association partners added another layer of profit to their business plan, manufacturing and selling robes, hoods and other Klan regalia —setting themselves up as sole authorized suppliers.
Then the crash came...
Clarke and Tyler were an irregular couple with a lively public history of sexual transgession, including an arrest on morality charges —now showcased in their lavish new home.
Then their financial machinations emerged— arousing anger and presumably envy within the organization.
In 1922, the Klan fired Louis D. Wade as Kligrapp (branch secretary) and filed an injunction to stop him defaming Clarke and Tyler. That left Wade no choice but to break open the full story.
We can hardly improve on Wade's own sworn deposition (above): Clarke (Imperial Wizard Pro Tempore, Imperial Kleagle and Imperial Klaliff, all at once) preyed on the drunken condition of Simmons (Imperial Wizard), allowing Clarke and Tyler to "suddenly become enormously wealthy from ill-gotten gains collected from the ranks of Ku Klux men."
Simmons, Clarke and Tyler were all eventually sidelined within the organization, but the Klan forged ahead —building on their innovations for a few more years at least.
According to a National Bureau of Economic Research working paper, new Klan members were expected to spend $23.30— right up front— including the $10 initiation fee, a $6.50 robe, a $5 membership fee and a so-called "imperial tax" of $1.80. That represented approximately $430 in 2026 money.
Then came recurring annual charges... Klansmen tended to be better educated and more financially stable than average Americans, generally able to meet such expenses.
Still, $23.30 was serious cash for a respectable lower middle-class guy like railway clerk C.D. Myton. He might have earned $37 a week while living in a modest but comfortable 3 bedroom, 1 bath house on a hill in Altoona, PA.
Myton began the membership process in 1923 but evidently stopped short of joining.
Altoona was a small but thriving city in those years, with 60,331 inhabitants according to the 1920 census, rising to 82,054 in 1930.
A major railway center, in Altoona the Pennsylvania Railroad Company employed some 15,000— including C.D. Myton— mostly in its vast workshop complex.
Altoona boasted the largest Klan organization in the area, with some 2,800 members. Meanwhile, approximately 200 other Klan groups were dispersed throughout Western Pennsylvania, mustering at least 140,000.
In that part of the world, the Klan fixated on the Catholic menace. Altoona had an estimated 40 to 50 Protestant churches in those years, embracing a dozen or so denominations.
It also had its own Roman bishop, 7 Catholic parishes and 42 parochial schools with over 11,000 students.
"Your friends say you are 100% American and invited you to present this card"—which is the ticket of admission to a "patriotic lecture" at the Jaffa Temple (a Masonic Shrine). The "friend" in question was evidently the cryptic "89" (who might have had a finder's fee in play).
Myton evidently attended on February 2, 1923 and presented the application —which he presumably aced, since it wasn't mined with trick questions.
Were your parents born in the United States of America? (Yes)
Are you a gentile or jew? (Gentile)
Are you of the white race or of a colored race? (White Race)
Of what church are you a member? (Lutheran)
Do you believe in White Supremacy? (Yes)
Do you believe in the principles of a PURE Americanism? (Yes)
Do you honestly believe in the practice of REAL fraternity? (Yes)
We also learn that Myton is 32 years-old, married, high-school educated, a clerk for the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, a Republican and a Knight of Pythias.
And No, he does not "owe ANY KIND of allegiance to any foreign nation, government, sect, institution, people, ruler or person".
in Altoona PA in 1923, the "Catholic Church" and the "Pope of Rome" were surely at the top of the list —but "sect" and "people" left plenty of space for Jews too.
(4) ANTI-CATHOLICS AND ANTI-ITALIANS
"Saint Patrick's Day in America—1926"
With its dense imagery and fuzzy cross-hatching, it is hard to believe that this cartoon is only a hundred years old.
The anti-Irish vehemence seems quaintly old-fashioned too— but the authors were on the far edge of Protestant evangelicalism, in a cosmic time-warp of their own.
In fact, the print reverses an image from 70 years earlier.
There we see Irish Catholics and Irish Catholicism landing on American shores— with nary a hint of the devastating Potato Famine (1845-52) that propelled them.
Saint Patrick drove the snakes from Ireland in the Fifth Century. Then in America in the Twentieth Century, the refounded Ku Klux Klan somehow reversed the process.
Paddy's "snakes" deserve a closer look:
* Control of Schools * Control of Press * Temporal Power * Superstition * K(nights) of C(olumbus) * Anti Prohibition * Rome in Politics * Intolerance * Union of Church & State *
These were clearly 1926 issues. Back in 1855, Institutional Catholicism was only an abstract menace in America, not a real-life presence.
Brother Jonathan and Young America could scarcely envision a large and entrenched Catholic population, a massive Catholic school system, an extensive Catholic press and countless Catholics entering local and even national politics.
As for the Knights of Columbus ("K of C"), they were not founded until 1882.
Then there was the bigger picture: Toward the turn of the century, surges of Catholic immigration from other places (especially Italy and Poland) began diluting the old Hibernian majority.
The Irish, however, often dominated the Church hierarchy and shaped the public face of American Catholicism.
Anti-Italianism was rife but— curiously enough— not explicitly anti-Catholic, although the Popes were all Italian and the Church spread its tentacles from Rome.
In fact, the deadliest eruption of anti-Italian feeling occurred in New Orleans in 1891, where over half the population was Catholic.
Politically subversive rats infested with mafia criminality, violent anarchism and presumably other diseases?
Anti-Italianism in those years was blatantly racist, with a heavy dose of political and cultural anxiety tossed in.
857,046 immigrants arrived in the United States in 1903, including some 285,000 Southern Italians (the largest single group).
In terms of threat, however, the half-million or so non-Italians barely figure in this issue of Judge, a popular satirical magazine.
Meanwhile, the ghost of President William McKinley— assassinated in in 1901 by a Detroit-born anarchist of Polish (not Italian) extraction— reacts to the perils of immigrant dumping with a distinctly Italian gesture.
Fare le Corna...
Configuring the horns of the Devil to ward off the Evil Eye— utterly all'italiana.
(5) JOHN BOND IN ROME
When we open John Bond’s, In The Pillory: The Tale of the Borgia Pope, it looks and feels like a quirky “period piece”.
But bigotry often has a timeless quality and this is another case in point. We already focused on the "Saint Patrick's Day in America—1926" print from that same moment.
In The Pillory was published in 1927 (by way of The Fellowship Forum and The Independent Publishing Company, both of Washington DC).
Still, it breathes the centuries-old air of anti-Catholic fact and fantasy, especially the rock-ribbed British Protestant kind. Guy Fawke's Night bonfires, "No Popery" and all that...
Embedded in Rome, in the very lair of the Papal Beast, Bond signed off on his preface in December 1926 (Year IV of the Fascist Era). He is putting the Catholic Church In The Pillory, he explains, in the person of that stellar reprobate Pope Alexander VI Borgia (reigned 1492-1503):
"There is more than one Chamber of Horrors in the Museum of History, but none like that of the Borgia. The central figure is that of Roderigo Borgia, who as Alexander VI sat on the papal throne for upward of eleven years; around him are grouped his mistresses; a brood of bastard children; a retinue of henchmen and an endless procession of victims. It was the darkest period in the life of Christianity, just before the dawn of the Reformation. Rome had become a sink of unspeakable corruption where, in the words of Dante, 'Christ was sold every day.'"
In Pillory, Bond seeks to distance himself...at least somewhat... from anti-Catholicism of the more vulgar sort. His alleged argument is not with that faith ...as a faith... but its authoritarian abuses—especially in the political sphere.
"They... recognize the distinction between Catholicism as a religious creed and Popery as a fraudulent and un-Christian institution. Our warfare is directed not against Catholics, whether they are of the Roman or the Greek or any other persuasion —it is directed solely and wholly against the Neo-Caesarism of the popes. Our quarrel is not with the profession of any religious faith but with a political system invented and kept alive to enslave the minds of mankind and to destroy the freedom of conscience."
We may or may not take Bond’s protestations of quasi-tolerance at face value, as he thrashes his way through a time-worn tale of poisoned chalices, mutilated corpses, papal mistresses and orgies on the very altar.
In any case, he ends his preface with a rousing call-to-arms:
"The Borgias are dead and gone but they are still brewing poison in the Vatican."
What can that possibly mean? After four centuries, Zombie Borgias prowl the Papal Palace... crafting the same old toxin... and thus BENITO MUSSOLINI?
I have read through Wild Man several times (a journey I would not recommend to most)—and the screed becomes more puzzling rather than less.
Rome as the Eternal Capital of Catholic Evil? Not a new concept.
Bond’s animus, however, was “directed solely and wholly against the Neo-Caesarism of the popes”—their political and territorial imperialism, that is to say.
Something is missing here... A lot of Italian history, in fact... The Risorgimento, just to begin.
In 1870, the rapidly emerging Kingdom of Italy annexed the City of Rome and expunged the last remnant of the State of the Church from the world map.
A half century later, Bond was sounding the old alarm —long after most observers had consigned Papal Caesarism to the dustbin of history.
Writing in 1927 (Pillory) and 1929 (Wild Man), this Borgia-obsessed anti-Catholic polemicist had a very specific development in mind —the looming Patti Lateranensi (Lateran Accords) between the Papacy of Pius XI and the newly-fascist Kingdom of Italy.
Fascism and the Vatican... The double threat of Duce and Pope... There was only one sticking point: the Duce himself.
Benito Mussolini may have been many things but even a mildly observant Catholic was never one of them.
The eventual Duce's radical blacksmith father named him after Benito Juarez, the Mexican revolutionary and anti-cleric. Then in the course of his tumultuous career, he bounced from the Left (Socialism) to the Extreme Left (Anarchism) to a newly-invented Right (variously National Socialism, Corporate Statism and/or Fascism).
Mussolini remained (more or less) an atheist until the very end, thereby proving Bond's main point: Cynical Opportunism was the true Roman Way— time-honored and Borgia-approved —whether garbed in a cassock and triple tiara or a black shirt and tasseled fez.
Bond attests with some pride, "This book has been written from a good post of observation under the very eyes of the fascisti government but not under its guidance or by its dictation.” (Wild Man, Preface, p.10)
That was no small claim, since the Mussolini regime kept journalists on a very short leash— even foreign eccentrics like Bond. Still, there was much to observe in those days, weeks and months.
The author of Wild Man signed off on his preface in 1928, but the title page reads 1929 —just in time for a stop-press update (see below) regarding the 11 February 1929 Concordat.
On paper at least, the Patti Lateranensi (Lateran Accords) ended the long stand-off between the Church and the avowedly secular Kingdom of Italy— as it emerged from the Risorgimento, until it was subsumed into Mussolini's Fascist State.
Going into the negotiations, there were complex issues of protocol and more. The Church did not yet recognize the Italian government, so the Pope could not deal directly with Mussolini, King Vittorio Emanuele III or their representatives.
What was the current legal and diplomatic status of the Church? After 1870, was it still a geopolitical entity or not? Was Pius XI merely a religious leader or also a head of state?
And who spoke for Italy? In theory, it was a constitutional monarchy ruled by King Vittorio Emanuele III, whom Mussolini served as Prime Minister. In real terms, however, the Duce was the Duce (Leader or Commander) and called most of the shots.
Bond observes,“In their ideal fascisti state they furnish the political hierarchy which co-operates in its own fashion and upon its own terms with the hierarchy of the church.” (Wild Man, pp.102-3)
Since expediency is all that counts— on both sides— "faith" and "belief" are left out of the equation.
How about Bond's "World-Alliance Between Clericalism and Fascism", with its ancient roots?
Did it actually exist or were the Lateran Accords a strictly Italian affair— firmly lodged in the present day?
On one side stood the political representatives of the Italian State, on the other the overwhelmingly Italian agents of the Universal Church.
They were all fighting for space in both the Eternal City and the new Italy— and by 1929, they were ready to make a deal.
Bond sketched in the terms of the Accords, which were negotiated "in deepest secrecy".
First there were issues regarding the Papacy and its political relationship with the rest of the world. Italy recognized it as a sovereign entity with its own (minuscule) territory, its own laws and its own diplomatic relations with other states. The Kingdom of Italy would retain most Church properties seized during the Risorgimento but agreed to pay compensation.
In the eyes of many, these were relatively minor concessions compared with the rest. The Italian State— quite stunningly —granted the Catholic Church massive influence in the daily lives of any and all Italians, some of whom were not even nominally Catholic.
In the Lateran Accords, Catholicism was privileged as Italy’s official religion. Catholic religious instruction was introduced in Italian public schools. The Church was given an essential role in defining the norms of marriage. And God only knew where this was going to end…
Two constituencies were particularly alarmed by the Lateran Accords, Italian Jews and Italian Freemasons.
From the very beginning, Jewish equality was bred into the DNA of the liberal Kingdom of Italy as it emerged from the Risorgimento.
Many Italian Jews still viewed the Catholic Church as their natural enemy, especially those who had been liberated from Ghettos only with the fall of the Papal regime sixty years before.
As for the rise of Mussolini, some Jews might pretend—for a while, at least—that the Fascist State was not a threat, merely the natural heir to the empowered Italy of the Risorgimento.
Until they were proven tragically wrong...
(6) MUSSOLINI AND ITALIAN FREEMASONRY
John Bond was the European Correspondent of The Fellowship Forum, “Freemasonry’s Representative at the Nation’s Capital” in Washington DC.
He had not a word to say about Italian Jews, which included a conspicuous number of prominent Masons. Still, he devoted 27 impassioned pages with 9 illustrations to the plight of Italian Masons more generally.
Freemasonry is an international movement that came out of the European Enlightenment, uniting liberals, free-thinkers and especially opponents of "Catholic Superstition".
Its enlightened humanism could take curious twists and turns, however—as we saw in early 20th-century America with the rise of “Militant Freemasonry” locked in step with the Ku Klux Klan.
In Italy, Masonry had its militant aspect as well— linked to the Risorgimento struggle for national unification.
Giuseppe Garibaldi, “Hero of the Two Worlds”, was initiated in Montevideo (Uruguay) in 1844, then received the High Degrees of the Scottish Rite in Turin in 1862. Wherever he went, he forged connections with fellow masons— often nationalist patriots essential to his endeavors.
In the spring of 1864, representatives of Italy’s 72 lodges met in Florence and on 21 May, they proclaimed the formation of the Grande Oriente d’Italia—a central coordinating lodge for the emerging nation— with Garibaldi himself as Grand Master.
ROME OR DEATH! Garibaldi’s stirring pledge to unite Italy and retake its natural Capital.
In 1907, Italy’s Freemasons added a bronze laurel wreath with their Compass and Square to the base of the National Garibaldi Monument at the crest of the Janiculum Hill.
This fraternal tribute didn’t remain there long. After the Lateran Treaty of 1929, Mussolini reoriented the equestrian statue —with Garibaldi looking out over the great expanse of Rome, not peering down on the newly relinquished Vatican City.
The Duce then removed the Masonic emblems, replacing them with orthodox Fascist symbols (the Compass and Square were reinstated in 1943).
What did Benito Mussolini think of Giuseppe Garibaldi?
On one hand, Garibaldi was a prodigious military and patriotic phenomenon. Without his Risorgimento, there would be no modern Italian state —the Duce’s included.
On the other hand, Garibaldi was a free-wheeling liberal and an old-fashioned democratic individualist —totally out of step with the Duce’s boldly totalitarian program.
Also, leaving ideology aside, the Duce could not bear to be upstaged.
Even in death, Garibaldi was too charismatic for the Duce’s liking and Garibaldismo too deeply engrained in the Italy’s patriotic soul.
And then there was the Masonic thing…
Mussolini was relentlessly on point in his messaging, so Freemasonry was an intolerable distraction at very least.
In 1925, Giovanni Gentile— Benito Mussolini’s much-lauded “Philosopher of Fascism” —famously proclaimed the essential truth of the emerging "Corporate State" (Stato Corporativo).
TUTTO NELLO STATO, NIENTE AL DI FUORI DELLO STATO, NIENTE CONTRO LO STATO.
(EVERYTHING IS IN THE STATE, NOTHING IS OUTSIDE THE STATE, NOTHING IS OPPOSED TO THE STATE.)
Who else but the Duce could enunciate the Doctrine of Fascism for the ages by way of the Italian Encyclopedia?
Who else but Giovanni Gentile could put the perfect words in the Duce’s mouth —and not for the first time?
"If we accept that the Nineteenth Century was the century of Socialism, Liberalism and Democracy, it need not mean that the Twentieth Century is also a Century of Socialism, Liberalism and Democracy. Political doctrines come and go, but the people remain. Therefore, we can think of this as a Century of Authority, a Century of the Political Right and a Fascist Century. If the Nineteenth Century was the Century of the Individual (since Liberalism means Individualism), we can think of ours as a Century of Collectivism and by extension a Century of the State."
Freemasonry was obviously “Outside the State”—the Fascist one, at least—and easy prey for the Duce’s henchmen.
As early as 1912, L’Idea Nazionale (The Concept of Nation)—a proto-fascist journal—began an intense campaign of anti-Masonic defamation.
Then in November of 1921, at the first Congress of the National Fascist Party, Freemasonry was ruled—by acclamation—as incompatible with Fascism.
This ban was then codified by the Fascist authorities and given quasi-legal force
“FATTI E NON PAROLE” (DEEDS NOT WORDS) was a favorite slogan of the Mussolini Regime and Masonic Lodges proved irresistibly soft targets for blackshirted “squadre” (marauding "teams" of Fascist thugs).
In the first years after the March on Rome (1922), came coordinated raids on fraternal headquarters—including Rome, Milan and Palermo (October 11, 1924) and Florence (October3-4, 1925).
There was nothing subtle or restrained about Benito Mussolini’s management of the “Masonic Problem” —and we can say much the same for John Bond’s coverage on the other side.
In chronicling the persecution of his fellow Masons, he goes Full-Borgia— bombarding us with his most garish, sensational and fact-starved prose.
In Florence, Masonic blood flowed for three days and three nights, with three hundred victims and counting???
Those events, in fact, are reasonably well-documented and genuinely horrible— if only 1% as bad as Bond claims (in statistical terms at least).
Three eminent local Masons were killed in the course of an overnight rampage (October 3/4, 1925) and we know their names: Giovanni Becciolini (a young Republican and Socialist), Gustavo Console (a lawyer and Socialist) and Gaetano Pilati (a wounded veteran of the Great War and a Socialist Deputy in the Chamber in Rome).
Bond was reporting in the age of photography, so when he "shows us the picture” we might hope for more than a watercolor after the fact— disconnected from any eye-witness account.
Verona, in fact, was notorious for its brutal squadrismo, so it is no stretch to imagine local Masons harassed by Fascists and probably worse. Still, I am yet to find evidence of the Masonic massacre that Bond presents in vivid detail.
Such events —even less dramatic ones too— simply don't get lost in Italian towns and cities. Wherever you turn, local historians are combing libraries, archives and newspaper files while interviewing the children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren of witnesses to history. And these days, we have the persistent testimony of the internet also.
As for Bond’s sourcing… According to him, the chilling tale of twenty-odd Masons thrown from the heights of the Fascist headquarters in Verona—with nary a day, month or year attached— “traveled from mouth to mouth and is still related in the city”.
Utter hearsay... in other words... but no less compelling for all that? “Amid the Silence of a Shackled Press Lodges are Destroyed and Masons Tortured and Killed”.
Bond and his friends grabbed any information that came their way —in the depths of the Fascist news black-out —and made of it what they could.
Maybe three dead Masons in Florence, then thirty, then three hundred? Like the old game of “Telephone” or “Whisper! Whisper!” —with decimal places spinning off along the way?
When all is said and done…???
“All what?” we might ask.
For John Bond, every question had three possible answers: “Free Masonry”, “Benito Mussolini” and “The Catholic Church”.
But why choose one if you can jump in and claim all three?
Thus a "joint war on Free Masonry” waged by “both these men in black”: Mussolini and the Pope.
(7) THE MUSSOLINI MOMENT IN AMERICA
John Bond was not just a reductive thinker, he was a conspiracy theorist too. Time and again, this wreaked havoc with his facts.
Case in point: the Knights of Columbus was a Catholic fraternal organization founded in New Haven, Connecticut in 1882 but with a growing presence in other countries.
Right there on the Knights' own crest— observed by Bond in their offices in Rome —was the chief Fascist symbol with the dire conspiracy it implied.
“The close association in this country between Fascism and Romanism…”
“Romanism” was Bond’s favorite catch-all for the entrenched wickedness of the Eternal City —more or less co-extensive with “Catholicism” or at least "Catholic Culture", it would seem.
“This country” refers to present-day Italy, not the homeland(s) of his mostly Protestant English-language readers.
Whatever news Bond was picking up in Rome, he could be oddly clueless regarding essential facts on the American side.
To wit: the Knights of Columbus incorporated the fasces into their escutcheon in 1883.
On the historical timeline, that was the year of Mussolini’s birth, thirty-five years before his foundation of the initial Fascist Party and forty-six years before the Lateran Accords.
As for the fasces itself, it had been a prime emblem of national destiny from the very conception of the United States, with its implied motto, “Epluribus Unum / Out of Many, One”.
Returning to "weeds" and "hothouses", John Bond might have been obsessed but he wasn't wrong when it came to Mussolini 's calculated manipulation of the Italian community in America.
Where is Bond coming from?
Where is Bond not coming from?
Bond was more right than wrong when it came tio Mussollni's workings in America
Francesco di Legge, Among historians at least, Mussolini’s well-organized and highly effective propaganda initiatives among Italian Americans is now awell-documented story…
(8) MUSSOLINI, VALENTINO AND "THE STAR SYSTEM"
World,” Liberty Magazine, January 16, 1926.
This could only have come out of America…
Both stars in the age of cinema—which was also the age of modern publicity and advertising—suddenly just as crucial in the world of modern statecraft, modern entertainment and modernanything else..
Theirstrange relationship (for lack a better word) exemplifies the complexities of what was both “The Benito Mussolini Moment” and “The Rudolph Valentino Moment”.
Learned it in Italy from Mussolini
Archivio Storico Capitolino, Rome)
Unfortunately,we don’t have a photo of “America’s Sweetheart” and “The King of Hollywood” tête-à-tête with “The Founder of Fascism”—but at least, we have this little gem of international press-agentry.,
The rise of Mussolini coincided with advent of the Star System in Hollywood (not to mention Cinecittà in Rome).
The Mussolini regime was brilliant when it came to harnessing star power...in fact, it began with the ultra charismatic Duce himself
Marconi
Balbo--the most compelling of the Duce's surrogates (so compelling that there wasn't room for both of them on the same stage in the same regime)
Not just top-notch celebrities but also everyday Italian Americans
Ray Tucker, Washington Correspondent for the New York Telegram, published three-part article that appeared in more than 50 papers in July 1927 including an italian translation in Il Nuovo Mondo (July 29, 30 and 31 1927)
Which is why the external captioning of the Engliosh-language cartoon is in Italian.
Il Nuovo Mondo was an Italian language anti-Fascist daily newspaper which was published in New York City and then, in Chicago between 1926 and 1931. The paper was the first anti-Fascist daily published abroad by the Italians.[1]
childlike figure delivering laundry
"This isn't our style"
"Il fascismo non è merce da esportazione" Mussolini
Liberal columnist & an Italian-American Socialist newspaper
Questa citazione si riferisce a una celebre riflessione del sacerdote e statista siciliano Luigi Sturzo. Fu scritta nel settembre del 1945 e pubblicata sulla rivista Nazioni Unite, poi confluita nella sua raccolta La mia battaglia da New York.
In 1927, the Klan reference was far from idle.
'The Black and White Brotherhood' — American cartoon published in the New York Call (11 November 1922) showing an Italian Fascist gazing across the ocean to his 'brother' in the KKK. Artist: Ryan Walker.
Socialist paper Walker was intensely involved with racial issues--especially lynching and the KKK
Were the Fascists and the Klan on the same side?! Working on the assumption that all his enemies are necessarily friends
Playing up the Italian connection
Bringing it back to Washington
Alfred E Smith is the big story
1936--After the disolution of the Fascist League of North America (FLNA) in 1929
Italians celebrate Mussolini's victory in Addis Ababa. New York's "Little Italy" went wild with joy over entry of Il Duce's troops into Addis Ababa. This group in front of 115 Mott Street drinks toast to Mussolini and to victory.
(9) WHO WAS JOHN BOND???
Related posts
No items found.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Suspendisse varius enim in eros elementum tristique. Duis cursus, mi quis viverra ornare, eros dolor interdum nulla, ut commodo diam libero vitae erat. Aenean faucibus nibh et justo cursus id rutrum lorem imperdiet. Nunc ut sem vitae risus tristique posuere.