Fascist Propaganda Among Italian Americans

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2004
La Guerra Che Preferiamo: Fascist Propaganda
Among Italian Americans
Tullio Pagano
Dickinson College
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Recommended Citation
Pagano, Tullio. "La Guerra Che Preferiamo: Fascist Propaganda Among Italian Americans." In Italian Cultural Studies, 2001: Selected
Essays, edited by Anthony Julian Tamburri, Myriam Swennen Ruthenberg, Graziella Parati, and Ben Lawton, 108-28. New York:
Bordighera Press, 2004.
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LA GUERRA CHE PREFERIAMO:
FASCIST PROPAGANDA AMONG ITALIAN AMERICANS
Tullio Pagano
DICKINSON COLLEGE
T
he idea for this essay originated from a book of fascist
propaganda that was given to me by a colleague, Paul Angiolillo, who taught for many years at my institution. As a young
man, Paul lived with his family in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, and
still recalls the day when his father, an importer of Italian products, arrived at home with a beautifully illustrated, bilingual volume titled La Nuova Italia. La guerra che preferiamo, published
in New York in 1939. The front page of the volume, now included in the special collection of the Dickinson College library,
reads: "Ornaggio della Ditta di Antonio Piccini, Importer and
Wholesale Grocer, Wallabout Market, Brooklyn, N.Y, followed
by a dedication: "Al Caro Amico Angiolillo, signed Antonio
Piccini," dated March 19, 1940. The book, however, was not a
real "omaggio." According to Paul Angiolillo, his father purchased a copy of the book that the association of Italian food
merchants had sponsored, by making a "suggested" donation. In
those years the business was weak, and Angiolillo bought the
volume for the sake of his keeping some status in the association,
which was decidedly pro-fascist. In the late thirties, according to
Angiolillo's son, expressing openly anti-fascist sentiments in the
Italian American community could have jeopardized the business and perhaps even exposed it to attacks.1
1
This is how Paul describes, in a letter, the meeting of a pro-fascist cell he attended in
the mid 1930s: "A friend of mine invited me to attend one of the meetings of a pro-fascist
cell of Halo-Americans in N.Y.C. I decided to see what it was all about and accepted the
invitation. I was horrified and almost hysterical with fright. They were rabid followers of
]I Duce; they "worshiped" him; they tried to outdo each other in trying to illustrate his
genius; and in his style they screamed and boasted, in his same blustery way, how they
would aid Italy to become a major power in the old Roman tradition ... you know the
theme. The anti-American spirit was shocking. I returned home and told my father what
had transpired. He shook his head and seemed quietly but inwardly distressed."
"Fascist Propaganda among Italian Americans" • Pagano
One may be surprised to hear that fascism was so widespread and powerful in the Italian American communities in
those years. Indeed, the development of Fascism in the United
States during the 1930s remains for the most part to be studied.
There are only a few book-length studies on Fascism in America.
The most outstanding contribution still is Paul Diggins's Mussolini and Fascism: The View from America, published in 1972.
This study opened the discussion on Italian Americans and Fascism and showed the incredible support that fascism received in
the United States, from the very beginning, and not only from
Italian migrants, but also from the business community, the political establishment, and the Catholic Church. In my essay,
however, I will not focus on the impact that fascism had on the
American public in general, but will limit myself instead to the
Italian American community. In the first part of the paper, I will
examine the important role that fascist ideology played in the
formation of an Italian American identity. I will then analyze the
volume La guerra che preferiamo and situate it within the context of Italian American fascism in the 1930s.
Most Italians left their country of origin with little or no
sense of national identity. As Philip Cannistaro writes in Blackshirts in Little Italy. Italian Americans and Fascism, 1921-1929,
"Italian travelers in the United States at the turn of the century
invariably noted the lack of "national" sentiment within the Little Italies" (4). In fact, many intellectuals were drawn to the Nationalist movement, founded by Enrico Corradini in 1910, after
observing the condition of Italian immigrants. The transformation of Italian migrants who had no sense whatsoever of their
"italianita" into individuals strongly attached to a nation that
many of them hardly remembered, but only heard about it from
their parents, is to be attributed, among other factors, to the way
in which Fascism responded to the discrimination that Italian
migrants experienced in the United States. Mussolini's agents
inculcated into Italian Americans a sense of pride for their country of origin and, more specifically, for the government that had
brought about the social economic changes that were transforming Italy from a mainly rural, backward country into a modern
industrialized nation. As Cannistaro writes, the formation of an
Italian identity became a sort of "defense mechanism" (6) for
109
"Fascist Propaganda among Italian Americans" •Pagano
Americans. In her book Italy's Many Diasporas, Donna
Gabaccia remarks that Mussolini understood right away "the
rewards of creating a fascist diaspora" (141). In 1925 he organized the first international conference on emigration and immigration, and in 1927 he suspended the General Commission of
Emigration, considered too autonomous, and replaced it a few
years later with another agency directly under the control of the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs, to guarantee that 'migration served
the broader purposes of Italian imperialism" ( 142). In Italy as
well as abroad, Mussolini was concerned with the elimination of
regionalism. The Order of the Sons of Italy in America (OSIA),
which pledged allegiance to Mussolini as early as 1922, organized annual journeys to Italy for its members. One of the goals
of these "pilgrimages," as they were called, was to make Italian
Americans identify with the Italian nation instead of their native
village or region (Luconi b 83-94). The foreign country in which
the fascist regime was most successful in getting its nationalist
message across was the United States. To quote Gabaccia, "If
fascism drew support anywhere among Italian migrants and their
children, it did so in the United States" (145). The first American
fascist cell, indeed, was founded by Agostino De Blasi in New
York in 1921, a year before the March of Rome (Cannistaro 9).
Mussolini, however, encountered many problems while trying to
reach out to Italian Americans. The resistance came not only
from anti-fascist immigrants, but also from American politicians,
who repeatedly investigated fascist activities in the US, and even
forced Mussolini to close some of his fascist agencies, which
were nevertheless reconstituted under a different name. The way
in which Mussolini manipulated Italian American organizations
for its own political purposes has been thoroughly studied by
Stefano Luconi. Contrary to what one may expect, fascist diplomats encouraged Italian immigrants to become American citizens, so they could lobby their representatives to pass laws that
would be beneficial to Mussolini (Luconi a 9-18).
In Gaetano Salvemini' s assessment, an Italian antifascist
emigre who lived for many years in the U.S., whose research on
this subject was collected in the volume Italian Fascist Activities
in the United States, published in 1977, twenty years after his
death, fascist militants, although fewer than their antifascist
Italian
I JO
"Fascist Propaganda among Italian Americans" <Pagano
counterpart, roughly 5% of the entire Italian American people,
enjoyed the support of about one third of the population, "a halo
of people", in his own words, "with a mentality which has not
Yet clearly become fascist and antidemocratic but which might
crystallize at the first emergency" (245). The majority of Italian
Americans, according to Salvemini, was mostly concerned with
bettering their own social status and did not care much about political ideologies. However, Italian Americans, as they advanced
in the new society, became more closely associated with Fascism. The majority of the so-called "prominenti" were overwhelmingly pro-fascist. As Cannistaro and others have argued,
many Italian American businessmen, politicians, lawyers, journalists, clergymen, physicians, and educators gave public lip
service to Mussolini and lent their prestige to fascism in America
(Cannistaro 45-58). Ironically, being a fascist and a good American citizen could be easily achieved in the 1930s. Several historians have argued, in fact, that the "fascistization" of Italian
Americans in the interwar years is to be linked to their successful
assimilation in the new society. In Gabaccia's view, "A patriotic
love of the homeland and an ethnic but firmly American identity
proved mutually reinforcing" (147). I would argue that the kind
of fascism professed by the "prominenti" was a mix of opportunism, derived from the benefits - both symbolic and economic
- that these individuals would derive from supporting the fascist
cause, and a sincere sense of nationalist pride that Mussolini was
able to communicate to Italians living abroad. As Luconi observes, "Ethnic leaders could exploit their connections with
Mussolini to strengthen their own standing and power within the
Little Italies" (90). The terrain, however, was extremely fertile
for fascist propaganda because fascist economic and political
accomplishments, especially in international politics, made Italian immigrants and Americans of Italian descent feel proud, for
the first time, about their own country. Even their perception of
the government changed: "They also overcame their mental images of a hostile entity that confined itself to collecting taxes and
drafting youngsters into the army" (Luconi b 84).
Fascist ideology, in order to be effectively propagated onto
the American soil needed what Gaetano Salvemini, in his book
Italian Fascist Activities in the United States, calls "transmission
111
"Fascist Propaganda among Italian Americans"> Pagano
belts." The most important of these transmissions belts was, in
Gabaccia's opinion, the Catholic Church. As Italian missionaries
gradually replaced Irish priests in the Italian communities, parish
schools all over the country became an important instrument of
fascist propaganda. To illustrate this point, I would like to quote
a passage from a book used in the "scuole italiane all' estero" for
fourth grade students - another present of my friend Paul printed by Mondadori in 1937. In the chapter entitled "Gli Italiani all'estero" we read:
Eppure vi furono tempi in cui molti operai italiani, abbandonati a se
stessi, diventavano vittirne di speculatori senza scrupoli, e talora non
erano stirnati come meritavano, nei paesi stranieri. Ora non piu, perche ii Governo Fascista ha provveduto ad assicurare la dignita e ii
rispetto di tutti gli ltaliani all'estero. In ogni localita, dove vivono
comunita italiane, vi sono Autorita consolari e Fasci all'estero, che le
tutelano e le assistono, che mantengono vivo ii sentimento di nazionalita, soprattutto mediante le Scuole, i corsi di cultura, ii Dopolavoro
e le Organizzazioni Giovanili Italiane all'Estero. Le O.G.l.E. ( ... )
ogni anno inviano in Italia migliaia di giovinetti e di giovinette nei
campeggi e nelle colonie alpine e marine, perche conoscano le
bellezze della patria e le grandi opere compiute dal fascisrno. (213-
15)
The textbooks used in parochial schools were devised to inculcate Italian American pupils with fascist ideology. The fascist
government used to send selected students to Italy, where they
had an opportunity to meet Mussolini: this strategy was very effective, because the young generations turned out to be more
pro-fascist than their parents. Salvemini tells the story of a boy
who came to America with his family when he was two, and attended a New York parochial school. When he was in high
school, he was encouraged to write an essay on fascist Italy, and,
as a prize, he was among the ones selected to go to Italy, where
Mussolini received him and pinned a medal on his chest. Today,
Salvemini observes, if Mussolini needs people to support his
cause, "that boy will not hesitate one moment in answering the
call." (235).2
2 On this point see also Luconi, pp. 93 ff.
112
"Fascist Propaganda among Italian Americans" • Pagano
I would like to turn now to the volume in question, La
guerra che preferiamo, to show that the way in which it is
structured confirms many of the observations that I have been
making in the first part of the essay, while posing some interesting questions on the interaction between Italian Americans and
fascism in the 1930s. The text was written in Italian, but it includes an English translation at the bottom of each page, thus
making it accessible to a wider audience. The author, Scilla de
Glauco, writes in an elegant prose, reminiscent of D'Annunzio's
style, with several references to Dante and other important figures in Italian literature. I was not able to find much information
on the author, who was born in Florence, and arrived in America
in 1932, and authored a number of volumes, including poems,
essays, histories and biographies. In The Italian-American Who's
Who. A Biographical Dictionary of Italian-American Leaders,
we read that she "devoted her life to the diffusion of Italian culture in America, regardless of cost or sacrifices" (121 ). Unfortunately, I could locate only a few works by de Glauco, all of them
published in the U.S. The most interesting, for our purposes, is
the one entitled Un Atto di fede: parva favilla gran fiamma seconda,3 published in 1937, at the time of the Halo-Ethiopian War.
As the title suggests, the book is a celebration of Mussolini's
colonial enterprise in Africa, a war that Italian Americans
strongly supported," as one can see from the great number of
signed tributes by eminent Italian American citizens contained in
the volume. The English translation of La guerra che preferiamo
was provided by A vvocato Rosario Ingargiola, a "prominente"
who also contributed to Un atto difede. Ingargiola had been the
supreme venerable of the Independent Order of the Sons of Italy
in New York, one of the many organizations that served, in those
years, as "transmission belts" for fascist ideology (Salvemini
84).
The written text, however, is meant to play only a secondary
role in La guerra che preferiamo. The main message should be
conveyed through images of the "new Italy." As de Glauco
3
4
"Parva favilla gran fiarnrna seconda" is a quotation
.
See Fiorello Ventrescos
sis."
informative
from Dante's Paradiso, Canto I 34
essay, "Italian-Americans
113
'
.
and the Ethiopian Cri-
"Fascist Propaganda among Italian Americans">
Pagano
writes in the preface, "II volume si propone di far conoscere
l'Italia Nuova. Faria conoscere attraverso la realta viva e vitale
della fotografia, senza alcun commento. II commento lo fara da
se il lettore e se questo lettore sara un italiano oltre ii cornmento
sentira nel profondo dell'animo l'orgoglio della sua Patria Imperiale."> The emphasis in on a new, modern Italy, "la Nuova
Italia," a country that is no longer a "Terra dei Morti" whose
people were absorbed by the "contemplazione
dei ricordi marmorei della passata grandezza." The buildings we see in the volume, instead, are almost exclusively
the modern ones erected
during Mussolini's regime, and when we are shown images of
historic Italian neighborhood, is only to juxtapose them with the
modernist buildings that replaced them (see, for instance, the
images depicting the modernization
of Brescia's historic center Fig. 1). Another stereotype the author wants to challenge is the
superficial, picturesque
vision of Italy, which is dominant
in
America: "non piu la mandolinata
per uccidere il tempo e la
noia, per ammirare ii cielo azzurro; non piu ii folklorismo
di
colore locale che faceva esclamare lo straniero, ma un popolo
dalla piena gioiosa sensazione di vita, che se ne va cantando nei
cantieri sonanti, negli opifici fumanti, nei verdi campi." These
passages, which recall the declarations of the Futurist movement,
show that de Glauco
embraced
the cause of nationalist
modernism proclaimed by Mussolini." Regional Italy is being
rapidly replaced by a modern, industrial, homogeneous
nation:
this is the image that the volume wants to convey. Indeed, it
would be hard to distinguish
one region from the other when
looking at the illustrations in the book: from Puglia to Trentino,
from Sicily to Piedmont, Mussolini has been building hospitals,
schools, factories, sport and popular housing complexes in a
uniform, modernist style, thus creating a radically
different
architectural
landscape. Even a contemporary
reader would be
5 Pages are not numbered in the original text. See also the opening paragraph of de
Glauco's preface: "ii Ii bro ( ... ) parla un linguaggio pi(t eloquente e piu possente della
parola scritta."
6 See Emilio Gentile's essay "The Conquest of Modernity: From Modernist Nationalism
to Fascism."
114
"Fascist Propaganda among Italian Americans" • Pagano
amazed by the scope of Mussolini's accomplishments displayed
in the volume
In the "Presentazione" Scilla de Glauco declares that in her
work she intends to give a "sintesi delle opere de! regime fascista, la chiara e luminosa dimostrazione de] volto nuovo della
nostra Patria." Indeed, La guerra che preferiamo constitutes a
rare, perhaps unique, attempt to synthesize the essential features
of Fascism in a single volume.7 The book originated during a trip
de Glauco took through the United States. Everywhere, people
were asking her questions that did not reflect, in her opinion, the
reality of modern Italy: "E' vero che in Italia muoion di fame?
( ... ) che hanno chiuso le scuole per mancanza di insegnanti e ...
di soldi? ( ... )Che le donne sono trattate da schiave e da bestie?"
Thus, she felt the urgent desire to show Italian immigrants, many
of whom still thought with nostalgia about their distant country,
that Italy is not as foreign media depict it: "I notiziarii propinanti
il velenoso tossico della invidia contro ii rifiorire della Italia."
The best way to juxtapose the false image that American people
have about Italy, would be to create a work "senza fronzoli o
tediosi discorsi, ma piena di documenti dell 'Italia nuova
... nessuna polemica, nessun articolo, nessuna conferenza val
meglio della illustrazione fotografica de] vero." Indeed, except
for the introduction and the first chapter, which offers a summary of Mussolini's ascent to power, the commentary is limited.
De Glauco prefers to use, whenever possible, slogans and excerpts from Mussolini's speeches to reinforce the message contained in the images. Nevertheless, the comments are cast in a
style that leaves no doubts about the propagandistic intent of the
author, and her desire to conform to the theories preached by
Mussolini, even when they seem to contradict her position as
intellectual. In the section devoted to Women's Activities, for
instance, we read: "La donna <lei tempi nuovi dev'essere colei
che segue I' ordine delle leggi naturali che impongono all 'uomo
ii campo, alla sposa il focolare: a Jui la spada ed a lei l'ago:
all'uno la testa, all'altro ii cuore."
7
The volume is a wonderful teaching tool for a course on modern Italy. In fact, it would
be worth doing a facsimile edition of la guerra che preferiamo,thus making it more
available to students of Italian culture.
115
"Fascist Propaganda among Italian Americans" • Pagano
It would be impossible
to give in this essay a full account
of
La guerra che preferiamo. The volume is extremely rich, and
constitutes, because of the way in which images and words are
"mounted" together, a fertile terrain for cultural criticism. J. Hillis Miller, in his recent study Illustration, writes that "Adeptness
in reading pictures as well as words is a skill most cultural critics
need. Or rather, what is needed, is the ability to read not just
words and pictures separately, but the meanings and forces generated by their adjacency, for example in pictures with captions,
or in illustrated books, newspapers and magazines." (9). In the
following pages, I will illustrate some of the major themes of the
book, by showing how images and text combine to construct the
message for the reader.
"La guerra che preferiamo" was a slogan coined (or at least
appropriated) by Mussolini himself. It appears, followed by his
signature, in the opening pages of the volume on top of a fullpage picture representing four huge smoking chimneys, from
either a factory or a power plant (Fig. 2). At the bottom of the
image we also see a series of electric poles. The picture is very
carefully constructed, and may be, indeed, a montage. The
imposing chimneys evoke the association with cannons (besides
being an obvious phallic symbol), and consequently with the
aggressive foreign politics implemented by Mussolini. The
message delivered by Mussolini's slogan and the accompanying
image is clear: fascism believes in peaceful industrial
development, although it would not hesitate to channel its
technological resources into means of destruction. In other
words, Mussolini's new Italy "prefers" a pacific war directed
against the forces of nature, but is not afraid to engage into a real
one, if challenged.
One of the first, and longest, chapters in the book is devoted
to land reclamation, "la grande bonifica," which constitutes, as
we all know, one of the main accomplishments of Mussolini's
regime (Fig. 3). The Italian term "bonifica" is semantically
richer than "land reclamation," because it evokes a cleansing or
purification of Italian society from its "internal enemies,"
namely socialists and other antifascists, who were incarcerated
or forced into exile by Mussolini's repressive measures. A nation
will become productive and fertile only after the internal
116
"Fascist Propaganda among Italian Americans"- Pagano
oppositions are eliminated. The chapter on the fertility of the
Italian soil is followed by one devoted to motherhood and
childhood, therefore, to the fertility of Italian women, whose
mission, as we have already seen, was providing the nation with
an abundance of healthy children. The State, however, had to do
its part, and offer the care and protection necessary to help
families in their important mission. That is why Mussolini
created the National Department for the Protection of
Motherhood and Childhood. The chapter illustrates the many
achievements of fascism in this area, with images of summer
camps, nurses and doctors taking care of children, and images of
the modern facilities built in the recent years by Mussolini (Fig.
4). Thus, the volume wants to create the impression of a nurturing state, devoted to the welfare and the protection of its citizens,
as the two following chapters, dealing respectively with youth
(giovinezza) and after-work activities clearly show.
The display of the imposing military power of the fascist
state follows, thus implying that the military apparatus is not the
primary focus of the regime. As a prominent quotation from
Tommaso Cartosio reminds us, "The rumbling motor of the airplane is of little use if the man flying it does not possess the heart
and the soul of a poet." This section starts with a chapter on
aviation, because Mussolini understood that "aviation is the
weapon of tomorrow." The chapter devoted to war ships contains
beautiful images, often framed by slogans by Mussolini and
other famous figures associated with fascism. Once again, the
intention of the author is to give the readers a sense of the high
technological level reached by the Italian military. The pictures
of the aviation and navy forces are extremely eloquent, and slogans are more effective than long speeches. They give the reader
a more vivid idea of the importance that Mussolini attributed to
aviation: "Vivere pericolosamente!," "Ali di giovinezza fascista:
ali di vittoria!," "Le nostre trincee in cielo" (Fig. 5)
Public works, such as new roads, bridges, railways, aqueducts, low-cost housing for the working class, figure prominently
in the book, followed by an illustrated summary of the major
projects realized by fascism in each Italian region. The section
on the Italian regions begins with Rome, the mythical center of
the fascist empire, and more specifically with "La Via
117
"Fascist Propaganda among Italian Americans" •Pagano
dell 'Impero," the highly controversial
imperal highway that was
meant to highlight the glorious past of Rome. De Glauco inserts
a quotation from Mussolini that summarizes the goal of the
whole project: "Bisagna liberare dalle deturpazioni mediocri
tutta la Roma antica, ma accanto alla antica e alla medievale,
bisogna creare la monumentale Roma de! XX secolo." Thus,
Mussolini's empire finds its counterpart in the majestic glorious
ruins of imperial Rome, which are now highlighted and framed
by the modern fascist constructions, which constitute, in the
author's intention, its ideal completion. Imperial Rome, de
Glauco writes, "si armonizzera sempre piu intimamente, in attivita di pensiero e di gloria, con la Roma mussoliniana."
The section immediately
following, devoted to the empire,
needs to be mentioned in this context because, in Mussolini's
view, the new African colonies would offer a new outlet for
those Italian workers who were previously forced to migrate to
other countries. "L'impero risparmiera agli italiani d'ora innanzi
le sofferenze e le delusioni dell'espatriazione."
This sentence is
printed in large characters and covers an entire page, thus underlining the immediate implications
of the fascist empire for the
Italian living abroad.f Furthermore, we must not forget that Mussolini's speech, reproduced by de Glauco, delivered on October
2, 1935, which marked the beginning of the Halo-Ethiopian
War,
was addressed not only to the "Uomini e donne di tutta Italia,"
but also to the "Italiani nel mondo, oltre i monti, oltre gli oceani," showing that fascism was counting on the support of the
millions of immigrants
scattered around the world, and especially in America. The response from Italian Americans, as we
know, was impressive, and Stefano Luconi points out us that
Americans of Italian descent put great pressure on their representatives to force the U.S. government to recognize Mussolini's
conquest of Ethiopia (Luconi b 88).
I would like, in conclusion, to illustrate the last part of La
guerra che preferiamo, This appendix is entitled "Una breve
rassegna delle Industrie Italiane in America che affermano la
8 This was a recurrent argument, in the first half of the century, developed also by Giovanni Pascoli, in his famous speech "La grande proletaria si e mossa" delivered in 1911
in Genoa at the time of the war with Lybia.
118
"Fascist Propaganda among Italian Americans"> Pagano
Superiorita dei nostri prodotti," and occupies roughly one sixth
of the volume. In her introductory note, Scilla de Glauco comments:
Ai miei fratelli d'esilio volontario, io dico: indegni d'essere italiani
sono coloro che avendo la fortuna d'essere nati in Italia o da genitori
italiani perdurano nel malvezzo di preferire ai prodotti della nostra
industria quelli di origine straniera. I nostri prodotti sono superiori
come qualita, costeranno un pochino di piu per via dei trasporti e
delle dogane, ma rendono ii doppio, cosa che compensa, anzi porta
una econornia nelle famiglie. Oltre a questo, bisogna pensare che la
patria non si ama con le chiacchiere - ma con i fatti - compiendo
prima di tutto ii nostro dovere. E ii dovere di ogni italiano - che non
vuole tradire la patria - quello di aiutare le nostre industrie, i nostri
importatori, le nostre istituzioni all'estero: per ii nostro prestigio e per
la nostra solidarieta di razza e pensando principalmente che ogni piecola spesa che noi facciamo si tramuta in oro per la patria che potra
cosi marciare impavida e sempre piu forte verso ii piu fulgido avvenire.
e
This section includes many ads of Italian and Italian American
companies: from Banco di Napoli to Old Dutch Industrial Company, from Caffe Medaglia d'Oro to Bertolli Olive Oil. We are
left to wonder, as we look at the advertisements, to what extent
the pro-fascist sentiments displayed by the Italian American
"prominenti" who sponsored the volume were motivated by deep
ideological reasons. In La guerra che preferiamo we see an interesting interplay between fascist ideology and strong economic
interests: Mussolini desperately needed the political support of
Italian Americans, and the Italian industrialists and importers of
Italian products wanted the economic support of their loyal Italian American customers. Scilla de Glauco represents, using a
term from Gramsci, the organic intellectual who reinforces the
relationship between Italian businessmen, both at home and
abroad, and the fascist political establishment. The victims of the
propaganda effort are, of course, Italian immigrants and Americans of Italian descent, whose affection for their native culture is
cynically manipulated for economic and political purposes. The
volume is expressly addressed to them, as we can see from this
passage from the introduction: "In alto si levino le destre a salutarti, o emigrato Italiano! E tu, fiero della tua Patria( ... ) adoprati
119
"Fascist Propaganda among Italian Americans" • Pagano
a far conoscere I'Italia per farla apprezzare, stimare, onorare e
temere."
Even those immigrants
who, like Paul Angiolillo's father,
understood very clearly that Mussolini's politics was far from
leading Italy to a "fulgido splendore," were forced to be silent,
because they did not want to put the welfare of their families at
risk. On the other hand, keeping one's mouth shut, as many Italians and Italian Americans during that period chose to do, had its
rewards: my friend Paul was able to attend Columbia University
thanks to a scholarship awarded to him by Generoso Pope, the
pro-fascist entrepreneur and owner of the Italian American newspaper II progresso italo-americano. As always, it is not easy to
distinguish between the true fascists and those who showed their
support hoping to obtain some benefits from the fascist regime.
Until Pearl Harbor it was still possible to be fascist while
remaining a good American citizen. Indeed, in the 1930s, Mussolini's diplomats condemned the extremism of the "squadristi,"
who were jeopardizing with their violent behavior the relations
with the American government. The cause of fascism in America
in the 1930s, as Philip Cannistaro argues, was increasingly entrusted to the most "respectable" Italian American citizens, like
the business leaders who appear in the appendix of de Glauco's
work. La guerra che preferiamo shows a change of direction in
Mussolini's politics in the U.S.: from the violent fascist demonstrations in the streets of Little Italy which characterized the
1920s, the propaganda effort moved into the living rooms of
Italian Americans, who were becoming increasingly middle
class. There, fascist ideology could be absorbed in a more subtle
and civilized way, over a cup of imported Italian coffee, while
browsing through a beautifully illustrated coffee table book
(Figs. 6 and 7).
120
"Fascist Propaganda among Italian Americans"
•Pagano
Illustrations
Brescia
•B!SOG!ff,M' CHE IL MONPO.fACCIA CO!IOSCEMZA 01 QUESTA !IUOVA !TALIA fASCISTA;
!TALIA DURA; !TALL\ VOL!TIVA. ITALU
GUEJ\Rlfl\A".
Fig. 1 - Brescia, old and new
121
-Muu-Gibtf
"Fascist Propaganda among Italian Americans" •Pagano
"La
Guerra
che
noi
preferiamo"
Fig. 2 - "The war that we prefer"
122
"Fascist Propaganda among Italian Americans"> Pagano
• di un Uomo
.
E·la terra, per volonta 1 ·
fu fecondata!
-t'ee Iii p~!n:a ~>AW df.p1~ t.m~i ~"ii. ii
d>ll'11.111tt'4 ):.11 ll-11\'ft•) h
;o;
~!JH, {!
to<>fo ~~
~"f!!\>T~·
Ta.mJ:-:11:'
' l':ii J ~l1'(J r.! (. Mdd:.tt<>,~ ,·rn ii ~•'l~'l'f' k!!a p•,iM•·
~··•rJ fJt~lW.
!l1!
!m1.1!l·?'l1<>,:.';J\>t1.<> ,.,,~k hi
in.t9t.(lH u ~,itlm:l<'ii.>t:
t\•rr<lt ,;l
""'
IT~~·;" JI
n
fon:1 _.. r:~!i:<1
'"'''\&
F<'<.!'i;.••·I"'~·~'<';.,'.nF':.ei. 1"'
,J<:J.l'i""r.'~'.''
,fliii l':(l;f~-.. -tlv-:w ,u
rii :,;,,,.h·1<>!~t'I
m.~. )rnj:'.Uf!:UIdcl.ln
lit>rr.1J.l(l1+islidfotn!itrt.•lf2~f1t>{kib•·""''
.~ X/I
Hlf; L\.M>. H\
~I\1\'i-l
.,...;.,,.,.~,.
,:•··_,,¥~,; •
....•
v
Fig. 3 - "La grande bonifica"
123
vumr
nf
0·q
Witt. nL(IO.\fl-:Of-Of,"TH:
"Fascist Propaganda among Italian Americans">
Pagano
"Agire! Coatruire!
Non Cr-iticare"
Fig. 4- Images of new roads and bridges
124
"Fascist Propaganda among Italian Americans"> Pagano
i
LE NOSTRE TRINCEE fN' C!ELO!
l
I
Fig. 5 - Italian Aviation
125
-=
"Fascist Propaganda among Italian Americans" • Pagano
Fig. 6 - Caffe Medaglia d'Oro
126
"Fascist Propaganda among Italian Americans"-
Pagano
Italian Tobacco Regie
N£1" JOl!K
l;; !'OURt'.I! AVENUE
Fig. 7 - Macedonia Cigarettes
127
"Fascist Propaganda among Italian Americans" • Pagano
WORKS CITED
Cannistaro, Philip. Blackshirts in Little Italy. Italian Americans and
Fascism 1921-1929. West Lafayette, IN: Bordighera Press, 1999.
De Glauco, Scilla. La Nuova Italia. La guerra che preferiamo. New
York: Nikolas Press, 1939.
Diggings, John. Mussolini and Fascism. The View from America.
Princeton, NJ: Princenton University Press, 1972.
Gabaccia, Donna. Italy's Many Diasporas. Seattle: University of
Washington Press, 2000.
Gentile, Emilio. "The Conquest of Modernity: From Modernist Nationalism to Fascism." Modernism/Modernity 1.3 (September 1994):
55-88.
Luconi, Stefano a. La diplomazia parallela. Jl regime fascista e La mobilitazione politica degli italo-americani. Milano: Franco Angeli,
2000.
__ . b. From Paesani to White Ethnics. The Italian Experience in
Philadelphia. New York: State University of New York Press,
2001.
Miller, J. Hillis. Illustration. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1992.
Salvemini, Gaetano. Italian Fascist Activities in the United States. New
York: Center for Migration Studies, 1977.
Schiavo, Giovanni. Italian American Who's Who. A Biographical Dictionary of Italian-American Leaders. Vol. XVIII. New York: Vigo
Press, 1960-1961.
Scuole Italiane all'Estero. Storia e Geografia per la JV Classe Elementare. Milan: Mondadori Press, 1937.
Ventresco, Fiorello. "Italian-Americans and the Ethiopian Crisis."
Italian Americana 6.1 (Fall-Winter 1980): 3-27.
128