Strange Fascination

Sacred are the relations of host and guest. Recently a trinity of hosts--the City of New York, its Mayor and President Coolidge--entertained Prince Ludovico Spada Varalli Potenziani, the tall, cadaverous Governor of Rome. Last week Guest Potenziani returned to Italy and on landing at Naples spoke as follows of his hosts:

"President Coolidge showed me and my staff a cordiality which astonished even the White House servants . . . who are best acquainted with his [usual] reserve and scantiness of words and gestures.

"Like everybody else in the U. S. the President wanted to hear more of Mussolini. . . .

"Mayor Walker of New York is a real old friend. . . .

"The Italian quarter of New York gives a clear-cut sensation of a transplanted fragment of the mother country. . . . You know the dream of all Italians in America is to return to Italy. . . .

"Mussolini's character and personality carry a strange fascination to Americans . . . especially among the higher classes. . . . It is my opinion that whatever Italy might ask today of American financiers would be conceded without questioning, for Americans like strong peoples. . . ."

Observers praised Guest Potenziani for his good taste and restraint in not having asked the fascinated U. S. higher classes to cancel Italy's War debt to the U. S., which Congress has already scaled down.