Any who have studied the history of the last century understand how very similar the economic policies of Mussolini and of Franklin Roosevelt were.
Economic policies?
....it goes well beyond economic policies. In many ways, elites desired this nation to mirror Fascist Italy....
The authoritarian designs of Italian government structures were also attractive to Roosevelt, as a way of symbolizing the strength of all-powerful state authority.
"The architecture of the three regimes in terms of ‘monumentality,’ the need of people to create symbols that reveal their inner life, their actions, and their social conceptions. The similarity of the architecture of National Socialism, of Fascism, and of that of the New Deal is a reminder of the fact that during the Great Depression, capitalism’s period of crisis, all three philosophies rejected modernism and turned, instead, to monumentality, a backward-looking, neoclassical architecture."
Wolfgang Schivelbusch, “Three New Deals”
1. "...structures that bear actual fascist symbols—those of the United States government, no less. Bizarre as it seems, many federal buildings in Washington were designed prominently with fasces, the emblem of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini’s twentieth-century regime. Even more surprisingly, these structures were erected in the 1920s and 1930s—just as Mussolini was ornamenting Italy’s government buildings with the same symbol.
2. The bas-reliefs on the flagpoles at the Supreme Court, done by the architect Charles Gilbert in 1935, also feature fasces as one of seven symbols of justice’s manifold attributes.
3. The federal fasces have oddly escaped the notice of modern observers, but their story sheds light on the often curious histories of cultural symbols. How did the fasces get there? Stranger still, how did they escape effacement during our mid-century war with the Italian fascist regime?
And how should we think about them today?
4. When he came to power in Italy in 1922, Mussolini resurrected the symbol and employed it to represent the strength and unity of the Italian state. Political fascism made physical power and the ability to impose order central to its ideology, and so the term “fascism” quickly became synonymous with authoritarian regimes.
Mussolini made the fasces symbol almost as common in Italy as the Nazi swastika became in Hitler’s Germany.
5. American architects knew of Mussolini’s grandiose building projects, and some publicly lauded them. Charles Gilbert, who designed the Supreme Court building, met Mussolini on a 1927 visit to Italy to procure marble for the project. No doubt Gilbert saw the countless fasces in Italian architecture. He was also favorably impressed by Il Duce himself.
6. But given the prominence of the fasces in Mussolini’s propaganda, [the architect] must have been aware that he wasn’t simply using ancient iconography. The architects working on the federal buildings of the 1930s were also extremely conscious of the political symbolism they employed.
They often looked to the socialist realism of Europe for inspiration.
The Federal Trade Commission building, for instance, completed in 1938, is adorned with socialist-realist reliefs of brawny workers engaged in various industries.
7. Today, it might seem improbable that American government projects would decorate themselves with symbols of European fascism, whatever the enthusiasms of architects. But at the time, Mussolini was widely admired by Americans for getting Italy back on its feet.
“I’m pretty high on that bird,” humorist Will Rogers said of Il Duce after visiting Italy and interviewing Mussolini. “Dictator form of government is the greatest form of government—that is, if you have the right dictator.”
The rise of fascism appeared to pose no direct threat to U.S. interests, and many saw it as a counterweight to scarier European movements. It was Bolshevism without the collectivization; Nazism without the racism."
When Fasces Aren't Fascist by Eugene Kontorovich, City Journal Spring 2014
" Political fascism made physical power and the ability to impose order central to its ideology, and so the term “fascism” quickly became synonymous with authoritarian regimes."
The more things change....the more they remain the same.
Economic policies?
....it goes well beyond economic policies. In many ways, elites desired this nation to mirror Fascist Italy....
The authoritarian designs of Italian government structures were also attractive to Roosevelt, as a way of symbolizing the strength of all-powerful state authority.
"The architecture of the three regimes in terms of ‘monumentality,’ the need of people to create symbols that reveal their inner life, their actions, and their social conceptions. The similarity of the architecture of National Socialism, of Fascism, and of that of the New Deal is a reminder of the fact that during the Great Depression, capitalism’s period of crisis, all three philosophies rejected modernism and turned, instead, to monumentality, a backward-looking, neoclassical architecture."
Wolfgang Schivelbusch, “Three New Deals”
1. "...structures that bear actual fascist symbols—those of the United States government, no less. Bizarre as it seems, many federal buildings in Washington were designed prominently with fasces, the emblem of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini’s twentieth-century regime. Even more surprisingly, these structures were erected in the 1920s and 1930s—just as Mussolini was ornamenting Italy’s government buildings with the same symbol.
2. The bas-reliefs on the flagpoles at the Supreme Court, done by the architect Charles Gilbert in 1935, also feature fasces as one of seven symbols of justice’s manifold attributes.
3. The federal fasces have oddly escaped the notice of modern observers, but their story sheds light on the often curious histories of cultural symbols. How did the fasces get there? Stranger still, how did they escape effacement during our mid-century war with the Italian fascist regime?
And how should we think about them today?
4. When he came to power in Italy in 1922, Mussolini resurrected the symbol and employed it to represent the strength and unity of the Italian state. Political fascism made physical power and the ability to impose order central to its ideology, and so the term “fascism” quickly became synonymous with authoritarian regimes.
Mussolini made the fasces symbol almost as common in Italy as the Nazi swastika became in Hitler’s Germany.
5. American architects knew of Mussolini’s grandiose building projects, and some publicly lauded them. Charles Gilbert, who designed the Supreme Court building, met Mussolini on a 1927 visit to Italy to procure marble for the project. No doubt Gilbert saw the countless fasces in Italian architecture. He was also favorably impressed by Il Duce himself.
6. But given the prominence of the fasces in Mussolini’s propaganda, [the architect] must have been aware that he wasn’t simply using ancient iconography. The architects working on the federal buildings of the 1930s were also extremely conscious of the political symbolism they employed.
They often looked to the socialist realism of Europe for inspiration.
The Federal Trade Commission building, for instance, completed in 1938, is adorned with socialist-realist reliefs of brawny workers engaged in various industries.
7. Today, it might seem improbable that American government projects would decorate themselves with symbols of European fascism, whatever the enthusiasms of architects. But at the time, Mussolini was widely admired by Americans for getting Italy back on its feet.
“I’m pretty high on that bird,” humorist Will Rogers said of Il Duce after visiting Italy and interviewing Mussolini. “Dictator form of government is the greatest form of government—that is, if you have the right dictator.”
The rise of fascism appeared to pose no direct threat to U.S. interests, and many saw it as a counterweight to scarier European movements. It was Bolshevism without the collectivization; Nazism without the racism."
When Fasces Aren't Fascist by Eugene Kontorovich, City Journal Spring 2014
" Political fascism made physical power and the ability to impose order central to its ideology, and so the term “fascism” quickly became synonymous with authoritarian regimes."
The more things change....the more they remain the same.
Hear now this, O foolish people, and without understanding; which have eyes, and see not; which have ears, and hear not.
) who brought U.S. out better on this side by bringing that war to an end.
