lp4guld

cal system he attacked. And the moderate gestures toward democracywhich he made for public consumption were beyond doubtlip service to a force he believed to be stronger than it was. Butcorruption and traffic with evil polity had weakened the structureof the old republican spirit. In the past it had been possible forMinisters to attain a degree of power which could be more or lessloosely called dictatorship. We know that within the framework ofdemocratic controls an enormous amassing of power can be created.Americans who have seen men like Croker, Murphy, Quay, and Penrose,and, at a later period, Huey Long and a number of otherautocrats at work know how it is possible through the manipulationof patronage, appropriations, the courts, the police, and the electionmachinery for one man to gather into his hands powers only inferiorin degree to those of a dictator. This had happened in Italy. Thuswe find the Italian publicist Romondo, before the Great War, referringto Giolitti's regime, writing:Under the shadow of a democratic flag we have insensibly arrived at adictatorial regime. . . . Giolitti has nominated nearly all senators, nearly allthe councilors of state, all the prefects, and all the other high officials whichexist in the administrative, judicial, and military hierarchy of the country.. . . With this formidable power he has carried out a grouping together ofparties by means of reforms and a working agreement of individuals bymeans of personal attentions. . . . Now when the parties forget their programs. . . when arriving at the threshold of the Camera they leave at thedoor the rags of their political convictions ... it is necessary for themajority to support itself by other means ... as all personal powers supportthemselves, with tricks and corruption. . . . Thus in practice onearrives at the annulment of parliamentary institutions and the annihilationof political parties.I quote Romondo's lament because it was uttered by one whoperceived these phenomena at the time. We have in these pages alreadyseen how power had been leaking out of every community andout of parliament into the hands of the Premier. Prefects had beenplanted in the provinces who had reduced the mayors and localofficers to subjection. Decisions on local matters Were thus transferredto Rome. Business, labor, farmers, communes—every class and60