Word: duce
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Thus spoke Premier Mussolini six weeks ago when the anarchist Gino Lucetti flung a bomb at him in Rome and missed him (TIME, Sept. 20). Last week II Duce visited Bologna. Amid a teeming throng he opened the new athletic Stadium Littoriale. As he rode away a youth darted from the crowd and fired point blank at Signor Mussolini. The bullet ripped away a piece of cloth from the Premier's coat, pierced the sash of the Grand Cordon of the Order of St. Maurice and St. Lazarus which he wore, grazed the sleeve of the Mayor of Bologna...
Those near him declared that the expression of the Duce's face did not change. He sat quite still while the mob closed in upon his would-be assassin. Strong hands strangled the youth. Fourteen knives plunged into his flesh. Stripped, beaten to a pulp, dead, his body, unrecognizable, was eventually recovered by the police...
Benito Mussolini waited quietly until the mob thinned sufficiently for his car to proceed. As he drove away the cheering rose to a roar: "Long live the Duce! .... Death to his enemies! .... Woe to him who touches the Savior of Italy...
Last week at Perugia the inference to be drawn from this ancient History was stark and plain. What was a Roman lake may become an Italian mill pond. While II Duce spoke, many a Perugian tingled with imperial dreams, forgot that the immediate occasion for ecstasy was the dedication by Premier Mussolini of a new college intended for foreign students at the ancient University of Perugia...
...Grandeur!" As usual the thick and resonant vocal chords of II Duce vibrated to a stinging peroration...