Benito

BENITO MUSSOLINI has called the people who work 'the salt of the Fatherland, ' the strength and substance of the nation. He was born in one of the most proletarian provinces of Italy, where the whole life of the people is made up of hard, tenacious, and productive work. In Romagna, all wealth comes from the land and the sea.'My forebears, ' writes Mussolini, 'were peasants who worked the land, and my father was a blacksmith who beat the red-hot iron on the anvil. Sometimes a youngster I helped my father in his humble labor: I have now the far more arduous task of molding souls.'In the broad plain of the Po valley between the Alps, the Apennines, and the Adriatic, the very fertile southern area is characterized by the frank nature of the inhabitants and their dialect: the Romagna is a country where the people live in harmony with the seasons, amid sowing and reaping, faithful to the land which they seldom leave to seek their fortunes elsewhere. The centuries pass without changing the rural character of the Romagnoli, nor the rustic aspect of a country that is both rough and gentle.