Seeing the Future
It is astonishing to read how accurately Tocqueville captured the American character and made so many accurate predictions about the future. Such an eye and such judgment are rare.
Then there's Richard Washburn Child.
While surfing ebay recently I saw for auction My Autobiography by Benito Mussolini, published in 1928. I thought it would be a hoot so I bought it (I was the only bidder).
Richard Washburn Child had been U.S. ambassador to Italy before 1928. He knew Mussolini well. "You know Italy, you understand Fascism, you see me as clearly as anyone," Child quotes Mussolini as saying. Child was the one who suggested an autobiography to Mussolini. In fact Mussolini dictated the book to Child after Child had offered. Child also wrote the Foreword to the book.
The following is from Child's foreword. As Dave Barry would say, I am not making this up. This is from the American ambassador to a major nation, a top level diplomat, a job that demands judgment and foresight:
"The only true measure of a man's greatness from a wholly unpartisan viewpoint may be found in the answer to this question:
'How deep and lasting has been the effect of a man upon the largest number of human beings--their hearts, their thoughts, their material welfare, their relation to the universe.'
In our time it may be shrewdly forecast that no man will exhibit dimensions of permanent greatness equal to those of Mussolini."
......
"It is one thing to administer a state. The one who does this well is called statesman. It is quite another thing to make a state. Mussolini has made a state. That is superstatesmanship (sic)."
.......
"It is quite possible for those who oppose [fascism] to say that the reality of the new spirit of Italy and the extent of its full acceptance by the people may exist in the mind of Mussolini, but does not spring out of the people themselves but it is quite untrue as all who know really know."
.......
"It is absurd to say that Italy groans under the discipline. Italy chortles with it! It is victory!"
.......
"I remembered Lord Curzon's impatience with him long ago, when Mussolini had first come into power, and Curzon used to refer to him as 'that absurd man.'
Time has shown that he was neither violent nor absurd. Time has shown that he is both wise and humane."
.........
"...the Duce is now the greatest figure of this sphere and time."
I am Benjamin Harris.
It is astonishing to read how accurately Tocqueville captured the American character and made so many accurate predictions about the future. Such an eye and such judgment are rare.
Then there's Richard Washburn Child.
While surfing ebay recently I saw for auction My Autobiography by Benito Mussolini, published in 1928. I thought it would be a hoot so I bought it (I was the only bidder).
Richard Washburn Child had been U.S. ambassador to Italy before 1928. He knew Mussolini well. "You know Italy, you understand Fascism, you see me as clearly as anyone," Child quotes Mussolini as saying. Child was the one who suggested an autobiography to Mussolini. In fact Mussolini dictated the book to Child after Child had offered. Child also wrote the Foreword to the book.
The following is from Child's foreword. As Dave Barry would say, I am not making this up. This is from the American ambassador to a major nation, a top level diplomat, a job that demands judgment and foresight:
"The only true measure of a man's greatness from a wholly unpartisan viewpoint may be found in the answer to this question:
'How deep and lasting has been the effect of a man upon the largest number of human beings--their hearts, their thoughts, their material welfare, their relation to the universe.'
In our time it may be shrewdly forecast that no man will exhibit dimensions of permanent greatness equal to those of Mussolini."
......
"It is one thing to administer a state. The one who does this well is called statesman. It is quite another thing to make a state. Mussolini has made a state. That is superstatesmanship (sic)."
.......
"It is quite possible for those who oppose [fascism] to say that the reality of the new spirit of Italy and the extent of its full acceptance by the people may exist in the mind of Mussolini, but does not spring out of the people themselves but it is quite untrue as all who know really know."
.......
"It is absurd to say that Italy groans under the discipline. Italy chortles with it! It is victory!"
.......
"I remembered Lord Curzon's impatience with him long ago, when Mussolini had first come into power, and Curzon used to refer to him as 'that absurd man.'
Time has shown that he was neither violent nor absurd. Time has shown that he is both wise and humane."
.........
"...the Duce is now the greatest figure of this sphere and time."
I am Benjamin Harris.
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