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The world-wide interest in Italy today is undoubtedly due to the careerand the achievements of her great Premier, Benito Mussolini, who, crashingout of obscurity three years ago, has remained the most powerful personalityin Europe ever since. 10Mr. Churchill was not the only one to see another Cromwell inMussolini. Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler said "that it was safe to predictthat just as Cromwell made modern England, so Mussolini couldmake modern Italy." He boasted of his friendship for Mussolini, whocovered him with decorations, and he described "fascism as a formof government of the very first order of excellence," and insistedthat "we should look to Italy to show us what its experience andinsight have to teach in the crisis confronting the twentieth century."Dr. Gaetano Salvemini, who preserves these choice examples ofapplause for the Duce in his recent book What to·I>owith Italy, alsofavors us with one from the late Mr. Otto Kahn, who spoke beforethe faculty of `Wesleyan University, November 15, 1923:The credit for having brought about this great change in Italy and withoutbloodshed belongs to a great man, beloved and revered in his owncountry, a self-made man, setting out with nothing but the genius of hisbrain. To him not only his own country but the world at large owes a debtof gratitude.Mussolini was far from fomenting class hatred or using class animositiesor divergencies for political purposes.He is neither a demagogue nor a reactionary. He is neither a chauvinistnor a bull in the china shop of Europe. He is no enemy of liberty. He is nodictator in the generally understood sense of the word.Mussolini is far too wise and right-minded a man to lead his people intohazardous foreign adventures.His government is following the policy of taking the state out of businessas much as possible and of avoiding bureaucratic or political interferencewith the delicate machinery of trade, commerce, and finance.Mussolini is particularly desirous for close and active co-operation withthe United States. I feel certain that American capital invested in Italy willfind safety, encouragement, opportunity, and reward.^Congressional Record, January 14, 1926, 69th Cong., 1st Session.7*