For Keeps?

Romans who knew enough English to pun called him "The Little Flour." UNRRA Director Fiorello LaGuardia snapped right back with a warning that, although he knew food supplies were low, the Italians could not expect more help from abroad.

Wolf at the Door. In spite of his bitter news, Italy's Constituent Assembly cheered him when he addressed it in Italian, sprinkled with Broadwayese. When he reminded the Italians that UNRRA had poured into the country $450.000,000 of supplies ("quello non e paglia--that ain't hay"), the city of Rome gave him a silver replica of the she-wolf nursing Romulus and Remus. To an aide, La Guardia whispered: "Is this for keeps?" When the aide nodded yes, LaGuardia smiled, patted the she-wolf on the rump and said: "This beats anything we ever gave away at City Hall."

In Italy the connection between UNRRA aid and the kind of politics that is played for keeps was clearer than in most other countries. When LaGuardia told Premier Alcide de.Gasperi that world food prospects did not justify a recent increase in the bread ration. De Gasperi and his Christian Democratic colleagues made speeches emphasizing the relation between living standards and the Communist campaign to discredit democracy.

Since 1938 prices had been multiplied by 34 while wages had risen only 10-to 15-fold. A civil servant with a wife and three children, and earning an average 9,000 lire a month, now has to pay 3,000 lire for two pairs of flimsy shoes, or one gallon of olive oil, or 30 Ibs. of flour. In answer to LaGuardia, De Gasperi said that strikes and riots had forced him to give the people more bread.

Mob In the Street. De Gasperi did not exaggerate the danger. A factory strike in Turin duplicated the general sitdown of 1922 which ushered in Mussolini. In Milan a jobless mob beat up municipal and police officials, and in Florence rowdies cut off the telephone central. Communist-dominated strikers at Mantua set up Soviet-like cells, prevented citizens from moving about unless they had passes signed by strike leaders.

As in France, the Communists were demanding steep wage increases as the price of their cooperation in a regime pledged to curb inflation. Said Christian-Democrat Assembly Leader Gronchi: "They get all the advantages of being in the Government (four Cabinet posts) while their colleagues on the outside get all the advantages of waging a campaign of opposition."

De Gasperi spoke more bluntly. Citing the Mantua strike, he said, "One wonders what the next step might be--perhaps Fascist action squads."

He recalled LaGuardia's warning on food: "We cannot promise what we cannot give," and turned toward the Communist benches: "You are pledged against inflation. Should it come, you will have to accept . . . more than a share of the responsibility."

Question for the Future. Italians were trying to help themselves. The nation's heavy industry was at a near 80% of capacity; rail transport was approaching normal; repaired harbors were handling a swelling flow of exports--$70,000,000 since Jan. 1; electric kilowatt-hours in the first four months this year were one million over the same period last year; the wheat crop, six million tons, was four-fifths of the prewar average. The 1946 raw silk estimate was the highest in history. Even inventors were busy: in Milan last week an auto-plane rolled at 40 m.p.h. on a highway, then flew at 110.

But what would happen when UNRRA, which now supplies 50% of Italy's food, goes out of business at the end of this year? De Gasperi asked LaGuardia to help him get a half billion dollar U.S. loan. The Little Flower's answer was typical: "I haven't got the money."

The disappointed Premier complained that Italy's moderates had looked to Western democracy as a godmother--but the West had turned out to be a stepmother.

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