To the People of Bari
By Benito Mussolini
Blackshirts of Bari!
At the end of this ardent and sunny day—therefore a Fascist day—you certainly do not want to hear a political speech in the traditional sense of the word.
I came to visit you in order to keep my promise (prolonged applause) and I am truly happy for this day, which has put me in touch with the generous people of Puglia (very loud applause), a people of strong farmers and enterprising sailors—two types of Italians which are particularly dear to my heart. (Very loud cheers).
The Fiera del Levante is a superb achievement of Fascist Bari, it is a magnificent example of a tenacious will and a spirit of organization. (Prolonged applause).
Some thought that such traits did not exist in the Italian people. That was a mistaken claim made by those who do not know us very well. (Very loud applause).
In its three-thousand-year history, the Italian people have given formidable examples of legal, political and social organization. (Very loud cheers).
The Mediterranean is certainly a southern sea. It was on the shores of the Mediterranean that the great philosophies, the great religions, the great poets and an empire that left indelible traces in the history of all civilized peoples, were born. (Very loud applause).
Thirty centuries of history allow us to look with supreme pity upon certain doctrines beyond the Alps, supported by the progeny of people who could not write, and therefore could not document their own existence, at a time when Rome already had Caesar, Virgil and Augustus. (Very loud cheers).
[...]
I say to everyone and especially to the peoples of the East, who are so close to us and with whom we have had contact for many centuries, I say: believe in the collaborative will of Fascist Italy, work with us, let us exchange goods and ideas, let us see—with the joint effort of all, near and far—if it is possible to climb out of this depression that grips the spirits and mortifies life.
What was Puglia before the Revolution? A region in which a glorious past had left monuments of incomparable beauty. That is the past. But we Fascists are striving for the future, which we feel as a creation of our will, fixed on the goal of victory. (Applause).
[...]
Puglia today, with Bari at its head, is a deeply Fascist land, which has given magnificent action squads, which has given Martyrs, whose memory lives perennially in our hearts. Today you feel like an intimate part of the body of the Italian people. (The crowd unanimously responds: "Yes! Yes!").
I would like to point out this fact: it is not without significance that a caravan came to Bari from Turin. With this Turin has once again demonstrated that patriotic and national sensibility which, in the times of the Risorgimento, made it the bulwark of the Fatherland. (Applause). It will also be worth mentioning that one of Camillo Cavour's closest friends and collaborators was from Bari: Giuseppe Massari (applause), who left a diary in which, day by day, he shows how Cavour lived and fought for the independence and future of the Fatherland.
Blackshirts!
The Fascist Revolution has gone very far in the political sector. But there is still more work to do. It is not for nothing that we have introduced into your spirits the concept of the Revolution as a perennial mode of conquest. (Cheers). In the economic sector we have laid the foundations since 1926: the premises are there. Now we will march.
Some may ask me: what is the goal? I respond: the goal of our march in the economic field is the realization of a higher social justice for the Italian people. (Very intense and insistent applause).
Blackshirts of Bari!
Under the sign of the Fasces, we have won. Under the sign of the same Fasces, we will win tomorrow.
Are you convinced? (The crowd breaks out in a very loud cry: "Yes! Yes!").
