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For pipe smokers there is a new ashtray with a large cork button in the cen

ter to prevent injury to either pipe or tray in knocking out ashes.

For the pipe smoker who always burns his tongue on a new pipe at least one manufacturer is breaking pipes in artificially. They are smoked by machinery until the bowls have sufficient cake to be mellow.

Nothing will make a room look more untidy than to have the pictures hanging askew upon the walls. Some ingenious soul, driven to distraction by the endless task of straightening pictures, invented the Staput, a double

pointed pin, and there is no longer an excuse for crooked pictures. You fix one point of the pin into the back of the frame at the bottom, push it into the wall, and there you are.

A recent development of the vacuumcleaner is the vacuum-brush, which will do nearly everything that a large cleaner will do, and many things that it won't. Some of these brushes are simply small vacuum-cleaners; others have a rotary brush like that in a carpet-sweeper, which loosens the dust. They are made to be held in one hand, but have also a long handle, so that they can be used on floors.

hind the Bible to cover up their multitude of sins.

Today, since the South is getting on her feet and keeping her cotton and other resources and manufacturing them herself, old New England is going backward, and has to resort to anything she can to make a living, and thank God for that. New Englanders complain that the South shouldered them out of the textile industry, and the West shouldered them out of the boot and shoe industry. I suppose those brainless New Englanders think the South and West were born to serve them. The pendulum swings as far one way as it does the other, and nothing lasts, not even in politics, and some day old New England is going to get what is coming to her, and I hope to live to see that day come. When it does, I shall rejoice and say, "At last New England is get

70 Fifth Avenue, New York

Recomienda teachers to colleges, public and private schools. EXPERT SERVICE

SCHOOLS AND COLLEGES

is."

You must be a very ignorant person, or you would know how New England got her wealth, and how she

Nation." James Truslow Adams, in his "New England in the Republic," says that if New England had had her way the United States would be a little strip of territory along the Atlantic Ocean dominated by herself. Thark God she didn't have her way! And the time will come when she won't have her way in writing and telling history to suit herself.

However justified my correspondent's excitement about New England may be, I do not think he needed to have become so excited about me. I have never sold rum to benighted Africans or slaves to innocent Southerners. I am not even a graduate of Yale or Harvard, nor was I

born in the sink of iniquity described by my correspondent. The vices of Brook lyn, New York, are all I have to answer for. But I will stand by my assertion which had nothing to do with Yanke vice or virtue, that New England has furnished more brains to the Nation in proportion to its population than any other section of its size in the United States.

In substantiation of my statement, venture to refer to a statistical work compiled and published, not in un scrupulous Boston, but in his own virtuous city of Chicago. I allude to "Who's Who in America." According to the figures in the latest edition of tha carefully edited and useful compendium its editor has selected the names a 24,112 native Americans who have som claim to distinguished achievement. 0 these persons 4,042, or about 17 pe cent, were born in New England. Bu New England has only about 7 per cen of the population of the continental Na tion. Thus something has given 7 pe cent of the population 17 per cent of th leadership, and this calculation takes n account of men and women of New Eng land ancestry born outside of New Eng land territory.

Here is a phenomenon that deserve attention. In the article to which m correspondent takes exception I mod estly asked the question, "What is that has given New England such a influence on the rest of the country He thinks it was vice; I think it was vi tue the virtue of well-cultivated an well-used brains. A careful perusal my correspondent's letter leads me infer that he was not born in New En land.

The Outlook, November 9, 19

THE OUTLOOK, November 16, 1927. Volume 147, Number 11. Published weekly by The Outlook Company at 120 East 16th Street, New York, N. Y. Subscription price $5.00 a year. Single copies 15 cents each. Foreign subscription to countries in the postal Union, $6.56. Entered as second-class matter, July 21, 1893, at the Post Office at New York, N. Y., and December 1, 1926, at the Post Office at Dunellen, N. J., under the Act of March 3, 1879. Copyright, 1927, by The Outlook Company.

From Publisher To You

WOM

OMEN will be interested to know that the Mussolini who says, in the interview printed in this issue, that he is crushing birth control in his country so that Italy may have more man-power, is the same Mussolini who has never, as a husband, taken his wife to the city of Rome since his accession to power.

WHEN you read the interview you

will notice that Mr. Collins asked no questions about Mrs. Mussolini or the Mussolini children, of whom there are now four, a new one having just arrived. Perhaps this was because when Mr. Collins first projected his trip to Italy we expressed a hypocritical fear that the dictator might have him cast into prison if he did.

ALL

LL of which brings up the interesting speculation: Where do our women suffragists stand on this question -once Theodore Roosevelt's favoriteand what has become of suffrage, anyhow? We remember dimly some talk of women reforming the world with the vote. And then some more talk. And then the vote. And then silence.

WHERE are the new suffrage lead

ers of today? Are there any in the rising generation? Do women believe their old leaders really knew what they wanted when they fought for suffrage? What are women interested in today? What do they want now?

Volume 147

Number II

November 16, 1927

A

S I entered the great room which is the center of Fascist power in the Chigi Palace, Rome, it seemed to me like a commodious business office rather than a seat of political authority.

Il Duce "the Chief”—Signor Benito Mussolini, rose from his seat behind a large desk burdened with many papers and books. He did not wait for me to approach, but with quick, vigorous steps he strode around the desk and met me midway with a cordial hand-shake. Then he indicated a chair before the desk, while he quickly returned to his own seat, to plunge instantly into the center of his subject in response to the question:

"Your Excellency, what are the outstanding problems confronting Italy today?"

"Economical!

Entirely economical.

We must develop our industries, our agriculture, and our-what is the word? -our marine."

Just for a moment did he hesitate on that word "marine," as he turned to my volunteer interpreter-an interpreter-an AmericanRoman for prompting. How has this busy man acquired English? No biography indicates that he has ever been in England, certainly not in America. Yet he spoke with hardly any trace of foreign accent. He talked "American" rather than "insular" English. Recall that young Benito Mussolini, the son of a Milan blacksmith, became a tramp in Switzerland, seeking employment and finding a prison. But recall, too, that he holds now an honestly achieved degree from a college-that he has been an editor and an essayist, writing a

notable essay in English on Milton's "Paradise Lost." He was a poet, a connoisseur of art, and a linguist before he became the political dictator and national leader of 44,000,000 Italianssuccessor to the Cæsars.

"The problems are economical!"

He was again out of his seat, stirred by enthusiasm, leaning both hands on his desk and peering into my face. "Economic? In developing Italy's agriculture, do you believe the increased yields will keep pace with her augmenting population?"

"Yes; we have already doubled the production of food since Fascism came into control, and we can go on increasing production and keep up with our yearly increase of half a million population."

"Then, since the United States limits immigration and allows Italy a quota of less than 4,000 a year, where Italy formerly sent more than 100,000 emigrants to America annually, there is yet no fear of over-population?"

"No; we are sending many emigrants, to Buenos Aires who would have gone to the United States. But we do not send them without knowing in advance that they will prosper. They must have assured employment before we grant visas."

Italy counts upon an average income of about $2,000 from every emigrant she sends out. This is from the revenue of passage in Government-owned vessels (and they must voyage only in such vessels), from subsequent visits to relatives in Italy, and from remittances while abroad.

"You will keep pace with your in

crease of population in food production? Or, in view of the closing of America's doors to unlimited immigration and the lack of Italian colonial possessions, do you advocate birth control?"

"Certainly not birth control," answered the Chief, emphatically.

"Fascism's conception of moral and religious problems is rooted in a profound sense of spirituality. My Government desires to prevent the diffusion of those deplorable tendencies toward limitation of offspring which are having such grave consequences in other nations. The traditional fecundity of the Italians must not be checked by such insidious propaganda, disguised under a pseudoscientific cloak, as has made progress in North America, England, and Holland.”

He omitted mention of France with her falling birth rate. Then came to mind the stand of our late President Roosevelt on birth control; the parallel of the two great leaders was striking in more than one respect.

"The danger of voluntary birth control," continued Mussolini, "is not grave in Italy. Nevertheless, the Government, considering it wisest to attack before being attacked by such a peril, has arranged for means of crushing the first serious traces of any such propaganda.

"The great wealth of the nation is the vigorous florescence of the Italian family, which recognizes that in the multiplication of its sons lies the strongest instrument for Italy's uncheckable world expansion."

I asked, "Can Italians afford large families?"

"It is significant," he answered, "that the provinces in which birth control has

(C) Burton Holmes, Ewing Galloway

made any marked progress at all are those from which temporary emigration to foreign nations is most intense, hence those which are most exposed to foreign customs. The Government's campaign against birth control has received the enthusiastic approval of the Holy See, and this illustrates the moral and religious coincidence of Fascism and Catholicism.

"I have cited in an official National Order of the Day all Italian families having more than ten children. There are 18,350 such families a glorious testimony to Italian fecundity. Out of every 10,000 families, 21.36 are of this type. And the provinces richest in children are the Venetian, which are the wealthiest in Italy.

"A people may die of exhaustion, but not through richness of men; through sterility, not fecundity. The most formidable of all raw materials is manpower. It alone can assure to a nation the road to power and to the conquest of the future."

(What significance has that phrase, "conquest of the future"?)

"Your confidence in Italy's ability to feed the increasing population through better farming coincides with what the agricultural scientists of the International Institute of Agriculture told me yesterday," I remarked.

Yet in the face of this double affirmation of optimism appear official Italian

statistics showing an increase of importations of grain in the last five years, while, by decree, no pure wheat may be used in baking without admixture with some other grains home-grown in Italy. The Fascist nation is eating war bread today--"by decree"-but perhaps the explanation of the increase of importa

tions coincident with the boasted doubling of home production is that with full employment of the entire population none go hungry.

"How do you purpose, your Excellency, to develop agriculture? By means of large holdings, so that it will be possible to use large improved farm machinery? Or by small units for individ ual farmers?"

"By small farms," he answered, "ten or twenty hectares. But we shall use modern machines-tractors and gangplows." (A hectare is about two acres.)

"How is that possible? We have not been able in America to do so. on small farms. How can your small farmers buy tractors and other implements?"

"Oh, the landowner will supply all machinery and give the use of the land and tools. He gets half the crop."

"Then it is on farms rented on shares that Italy's agriculture will be developed?"

"Yes. You know, we let all farm machinery and benzine [gasoline] come into Italy free of duty. We want the best."

Farm renting is not counted usually as most conducive to strong and permanent development of farm life. Among American farmers the dread of farm renting and farm landlords appears to be the "black beast" of agriculture. They talk with foreboding of our making "peasantry" out of our farmers, but