To the Reclaimers
By Benito Mussolini
Rural comrades!
Before distributing the prizes which you have earned by your continuous and intelligent toil, I wish to say a few things to you and I wish them to remain engraved upon your memories.
Last year our Comrade Luigi Razza took part in this ceremony. A valiant soldier in the Great War, an incorruptible man of the Revolution, his death remains shrouded in the deepest mystery. But for us Fascists to die is not to die, when we die for Italy.
Now I intend to send a greeting to our peasant comrades who are fighting on African soil. An enormous majority of these soldiers come from the countryside: both volunteers and regulars. For the deep truth is this: never before as today has the whole Italian people realized the justice of this cause of ours.
You feel, dear peasant comrades, that I am near to you in spirit.
Now I wish to tell you something. This evening, when you return to your homes, you will repeat it to your wives, to your children, then to your relatives, then to your friends so that they may know it; you must know that certain individuals who are always rummaging among old papers thought they would give me great pleasure if they could discover that among my far-off grandfathers, great-grandfathers and great-great-grandfathers, there were some of noble birth.
And then I said: Stop! All my grandfathers, great-grandfathers and great-great-grandfathers were tillers of the soil! And to remove all doubts about it, I placed a stone tablet on the wall of the old farmhouse which says that generations of the Mussolini family before me have always tilled the soil with their own hands.
And this is why I know you very well. And I am happy when I can come down among you, and discuss your affairs, the crops, your work, the progress of the seasons, when I have the opportunity of measuring your strength, your good sense, your patience and your patriotism. Because it is you who represent the race in its most profound and immutable sense. You do not make mixed marriages: your love does not go beyond the circle of your village, or, at most, your province. And therefore, when the great crises occur among the peoples, you have no family problems to solve. It is for this reason, too, and not only for this reason, that I designate you as worthy of the deepest gratitude of the whole Nation.
Now I will distribute the prizes. These awards are modest. However, given the times, these are nothing to sneeze at. But above and beyond the sum of 500 or 1000 lire, what is contained in these envelopes, which will be revealed shortly, must be seen as a demonstration of the deep sympathy that the Regime—born of the Blackshirt Revolution—nourishes for all the rural people of Italy, for the 24 million peasants who, when the moment arrives, provide millions of soldiers to defend the legitimate interests of the Nation.
Let's move on now to the distribution.
