Scary. Any examples of this? Online New York Times archives or whatever?
Here's something fairly typical.
NY Times, July 22, 1923 "The Swashbuckling Mussolini" by Anne O'Hare McCormick
(clip)
The miracle is a miracle of conversion. Here at last is a Government that has transformed a people. If that sunds too strong, I can only say that it is the only term that does justice to the first impiression made on one who left Italy two years ago and comes back today. Then it was a land visibly running down, wiht a kind of hand-to-mouth administration, so that one never knew today where tomorrow's government was coming from. There was no assurance that anything was going to work--railroads, telegraphs, trains, posts, power plants, bakeries, any kind of public or private service. One tried a water faucet skeptically; one bet on the chances of getting a train. Life was a daily gamble; sporting enought for the traveler but pretty desperate for the native. The people were either idle and rebellious or idle and dispirited. The war had elft them bitter and poor; subsequent events had made them lose pride in their country and respect for their Government. Everywhere was slackness, despondency, recklessness.
One left confusion and fear, and under confusion and fear, apathy and discouragement. One returned to a country cheerful, industrious, interested and orderly. All the railroads were running and running on time. There was not even the threat or shadow of a strike. There has not been a single strike in any part of Italy since the Fascistii came into power. The streets were clean, the roads were being mended, the enlivening sounds of construction were heard everywhere. Workers were singing at their work. It was like a land recovered from a blight.
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