To the Faithful Countryfolk
By Benito Mussolini
This greeting goes out to all the rural Italians, to all the farmers of Italy, to all those who till the soil and who, for this reason, are particularly dear to me. Race and soil are inseparable; through the soil the history of the race is made, and the race dominates and develops and fertilizes the soil. You rural people must consider yourselves fortunate to receive your prize on this day, which is auspicious in the history of the Nation, because it sees crowned the efforts of the Italian people, to whom goes the glory, because they deserve a full and complete victory after all their sacrifices and blood.
Of those half a million soldiers that we have in the center of Africa, at least 400,000 are rural people who, while marching and fighting, never fail to observe the soil and to make comparisons between the soil of Italy and that of Abyssinia, with the thought that perhaps we could send our magnificent and fruitful rural Italian families to settle in those depopulated lands.
