Word: duce
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...Rest assured it is not because I dislike being a year older!" flashed II Duce as he engaged the gears. "No?my reason is that nothing must interrupt the ordered rhythm of Fascist work. There are enough holidays on our Italian calendar already ?in fact too many!" and letting in his clutch the Dictator vanished, inconsistently, for a birthday holiday. Speeding to the seacoast he boarded a waiting seaplane, was soon soaring around the toe and heel of Italy, headed at last up the Adriatic in a flight of over 1200 miles...
Waiting at sheltered Riccione on the Adriatic seaside were Donna Rachele Mussolini and 22-month-old Babe Romano, indisputably Il Duce's favorite son, often called by him "the first child of my second series." Waiting also was a spandy new speedboat. So far as observers could see, the birthday celebration proper was in two parts: 1) Donna Rachele sat placidly on the beach; 2) Dictator Benito and Babe Romano went out morning and afternoon in the speedboat, dashed thrillingly through spume-flecked waves...
Toward evening Babe, Donna & Duce motored inland to spend the birthday night at their rustic farm, the Villa Carpena. Lights were doused early. Next day the dutiful Duce bade his spouse a crisp farewell, sped back to his chosen busy bachelorhood in Rome. There, after buying a red carnation?just now his favorite boutonniére?the Dictator settled down to work, found an appalling piece of work...
...Duce turned next to the serious matter of beauty contests. Acting in his capacity as Minister of the Interior (one of his 8-out-of-13 Cabinet positions) he notified all prefects of Italian provinces that "beauty contests, with their consequent naming of 'queens' and 'princesses,' lower the moral standard of communities, and tend to dangerous exaltation of feminine vanity as well as constituting a parody on very serious matters." Therefore, let there be no more beauty contests. The "parody on serious matters" phrase was merely fresh evidence of how jealously Fascist Italy guards the dignity...
Watchful observers noted that the new deputies, all hand-picked by Il Duce, are nearly all men of elder-middle age. The one exception is 25-year-old Deputy Marcelo Diaz, son of the late Marshal Diaz, "Foch of Italy...