"Decrowd Your City!"

How you going to keep 'em

Down on the farm After they've seen Milan?

To answer the above question Prime Minister Benito Mussolini moved last week with cold and drastic vigor. In a circular letter received by each Italian podesta (mayor) the Dictator commanded: "Decrowd your city."

Decrowding should be accomplished, continued Signor Mussolini, by deporting back to the countryside peasant families and individuals who have recently moved cityward. The results to be expected from "a vigorous enforcement of decrowding" are, according to Il Duce: 1) Rural begetting by deported fathers of more babes than they would beget in cities; 2) Relief of urban unemployment, since those deported will leave behind them many an open job; 3) Creation of a large pool of deported peasant laborers who will toil to achieve Signor Mussolini's famed program of "internal land reclamation" upon which the State purposes to spend $375,000,000 during the next 14 years.

First to quick step after receiving the circular letter was the Podesta of Bergamo. Under his auspices met, next day, a joint conclave of the local Employers' Association and the Workingmen's Syndicates--both arch-Fascist organizations. Within 30 minutes they had adopted a resolution in part as follows:

". . . In considering applications for employment in our factories or for membership in our syndicates we shall exclude, without pity or false humanitarianism, all applicants who belong to peasant families. . . ."

Second to quick step was the Podesta of Rovigno, small but flourishing Venetian city. His bid for the Dictator's favor was to install a visa system. Hereafter peasants who may wish to move in from the country to Rovigno must apply for a permit 15 days in advance and have it visaed by the Chief of Police. Implacable, the Podesta announced that such visas "will only be granted in case the residence of the applicant in Rovigno is considered necessary or extremely desirable."

Throughout the week nearly all Italian podestas ordered their police to prepare lists and descriptions of all residents who have moved in from the country within the past five years. Classification and statistification of these lists is expected to reveal precisely what sorts of peasants and how many should be deported.

Decrowding by deportation will not begin, announced Il Duce magnanimously, until the expiration of a three months' period of grace.