MUSSOLINI: THE WILD MAN OF EUROPE
CONTENTS:
(1) ODE TO THE LITTLE LIBRARY
(2) THE WILD MAN OF EUROPE
(3) FREEMASONS, KLANSMEN AND OTHERS
(4) JOHN BOND IN ROME
(5) THE MUSSOLINI MOMENT IN AMERICA
(6) WHO WAS JOHN BOND?
(1) ODE TO THE "LITTLE LIBRARY"
After decades abroad, one of the great joys of life back in the United States is the proliferation of Little Libraries —chockful of fun things to read, all for free and in English too!
I love having the fates guide my reading, tossing me into literary byways I barely knew existed.
Still, I live only a few blocks from Politics and Prose, in the raised-consciousness bubble of Ward 3 (Upper Northwest Washington DC).
So, my discoveries —while endlessly intriguing— often run through predictable local channels.
This is Washington after all, a strangely unquantifiable place.
It is perpetually at the center of the world's attention, superpower capital and all that.
Meanwhile, it remains an oddly shapeless town, craving a unique sense of place that might or might not exist.
God knows, they try!
I could easily fill my living room— floor-to ceiling— with eager Washingtoniana from Little Libraries within a one-mile radius of my home.
There are serious historical studies, for sure, and shrewdly observed novels —but far fewer of the latter than you might expect.
But above all, Little Libraries overflow with bright-eyed feel-think from the talking heads of yesteryear (often concocted on their way out the door).
Also "inside glimpse" picture books from every presidential administration, now looking more or less alike.
Then— perhaps most intriguing —we have a steady stream of "collectibles" with the shelf life of unrefrigerated crème fraîche.
You can't imagine how much DC whimsy I scoop out of Little Libraries and then —coming to my senses —offload in others before returning home.
At times, however, I wish that I had held on to the Bill 'n Hillary Bobbleheads, the Road to the White House Board Game and and a few of those recurrring sets of DC Politicards.
Washington's Little Libraries can be endearingly silly.
But sometimes—in their randomness —they crack open the past and make us rethink what we know.
Like it or not, this qualifies as Washingtoniana too.
The Fellowship Forum and the Independent Publishing Company were joined at the hip in the Nation's Capital and exerted massive influence in their day.
But first, let's take a look at Wild Man.
Bond was not a born wordsmith, piling up shapeless paragraphs where single sentences would do.
Meanwhile, he compensated— almost obsessively —with vehement headings from hither and yon.
Vanity and violence... Unpleasant Traits... The Old Ego Remains...
Bond— it seems —had "Marvelous Mussolini" stuck in his craw, right out of the gate.
The Duce's media assault on American values is clearly working.
But what motivates this "Superman" anyway?
The author discerns three "purposes".
"Hyphenism"? "Italian-American" would be a prime example, it seems.
"Alienism"? A word of his own devising— from "alien" meaning "foreign" —signalling less than total commitment to the American Way of Life.
"Weeds" and "hothouses"? The metaphors come thick and fast.
Bond exposes a dire conspiracy at home and abroad, masterminded by the Duce himself.
Subverting the "Italian Vote" —otherwise "Italian-American" —is a chief goal.
In the economic sphere, Mussolini commands the resources of his Corporate State, channeling them wherever he pleases.
Thus he manipulates American public opinion —in pursuit of his global ambitions.
What is Dictator Mussolini's endgame— according to John Bond?
Nothing less than a Clerical-Fascist Empire jointly ruled by the Duce and the Pope.
(3) FREEMASONS, KLANSMEN AND OTHERS
Heady stuff! But who was John Bond writing for?
Based in Rome, he operated as the "European Correspondent of The Fellowship Forum".
This was "A National Weekly Devoted to the Fraternal Interpretation of the World's Current Events".
The Fellowship Forum was printed by The Independent Publishing Company, both headquartered in Washington DC.
The Independent also issued several of Bond's books, including Mussolini: The Wild Man of Europe.
The journal, the publisher and the author all shared a "Fraternal" point of view— meaning what exactly?
The New York Times went straight to the point in the summer of 1927, while assessing The Forum's request for a radio broadcasting licence .
The Times set the stage in their very first sentence, "The Fellowship Forum, alleged Ku Klux Klan publication, devoted in large part to attacks on the Roman Catholic Church..."
James S. Vance, the paper's general manager, fired back when the Forum's plan for a "Patriotic Protestant America" broadcasting station stalled out.
"Stories" were circulating about the Forum.... Were they "untruthful" like Vance claimed?
Whatever Vance and his crew were saying and doing, they had moved beyond simple words into the murky realm of coded messaging.
In "100% American" circles (to use a favorite catchphrase of the time), "Protestant" meant "Non-Catholic" and usually "Anti-Catholic" as well.
"Fraternal" was another favored term of art, evoking friends and neighbors in thousands of predominantly White Protestant lodges across America (Odd Fellows, Elks, Moose, Knights of Pythias and whatever else).
The Forum reported on a wide swathe of these organizations while privileging Freemasonry and the Klan.
In practice, there was a recurring overlap between those two —and when you hear "Militant Freemasonry", "Ku Klux Klan" is strongly implied.
(For the complex and often fraught relationship of Freemasonry, Militant Freemasonry and the Klan in those years, see Adam Kendall's impressive and well-sourced survey, "The Ku Klux Klan, Freemasonry and the American Fraternal Press", Ars Quatuor Coronatorum, vol. 134, 2021).
The Fellowship Forum was founded in 1921— conspicuously based in Washington DC.
By 1927, this "National Voice for Protestant Fraternal America" had attained a circulation of over a million.
Freemasonry has a long history in the Washington area with many powerful adherents, going back to George Washington himself.
This Fraternal Order developed a network of influential connections across Protestant America (with some Jewish involvement as well).
The Masons did not need to exclude Catholics, since the Church got there first. As a secret society, Freemasonry was deemed incompatible with the Roman faith and membership triggered instant excommunication.
In 1915, the Ku Klux Klan was refounded —after its suppression in 1870, following a horrifying run of lynchings and other violence.
In the course of the 1920s, the organization was restyled, with an eye to broad public acceptibility. By mid-decade, the Klan attracted some 2.5 to 4 million members and played a leading role in political, social and business life.
The culmination came on August 8, 1925 and September 13, 1926, when tens of thousands of robed and hooded knights paraded through the Nation's capital, claiming their place in the American mainstream.
James S. Vance, the Forum's General Manager, combined America First boosterism with cash pay-outs to subscription agents.
"There is always work for loyal Americans to do because America’s enemies are at work every minute of the day. We must arouse the sleeping Protestants throughout the country and get them properly informed. Interview every Protestant in your territory and solicit his subscription. They will learn the truth by reading The Fellowship Forum....How about the BONUS?—do you want it? If so show some speed!"
When it came to relentless huckstering, Vance wasn't doing this alone.
The Fellowship Forum's bold expansion was managed by The Southern Publicity Association, the Atlanta-based advertising and fundraising agency that also programmed the rise of the Second Ku Klux Klan.
On November 25 , 1915, William Joseph Simmons (a Protestant preacher) led 16 stalwart "Knights" to the summit of nearby Stone Mountain.
Robed, hooded and masked, they reconsecrated the Ku Klux Klan, amidst neo-chivalric antics not seen for decades.
We don't know for a fact that Edward Young Clarke was on top of Stone Mountain with Simmons on that fateful night —but if not, he wasn't far off.
From 1915 to 1922, Clarke served at Imperial Wizard Simmons' side, as Imperial Wizard Pro Tempore (Chief Deputy) and Imperial Kleagle (Head of Recruiting).
"We were here yesterday, We are here today, We will be here forever."
At the outset, Simmons doubled-down on his Invisible Empire's connection with the past, flourishing every symbol and motto he could find.
America, however, was looking ahead —in the full flush of White Protestant Fraternalism and entering the age of modern advertising.
"An Urgent Call to Real Men"? That was cutting out half the population... The WKKK (Women of the Ku Klu Klan) would be founded in 1923.
By 1920, Clarke and Tyler founded The Southern Publicity Association.
In June of that year, they stipulated a contract with Grand Wizard Simmons (whose previous recruitment efforts had been scattershot at best).
Clarke was already their inside man as Imperial Kleagle —the Klan's chief strategist and enrollment officer.
Their task was to restructure the KKK as a centralized membership organization. In return, Clarke and Tyler would pocket a share of the fees.
In June of 1921, the Fellowship Forum began publication— helping normalize "Klannish" activity in a wide sector of American Society.
(Eventually, the Association's accounts would include the Anti-Saloon League, the Armenian Relief Fund and the American Red Cross, as well as the Klan and the Fellowship Forum.)
This intriguing image was staged in Washington DC, in sight of the Capitol, on November 1, 1921. We see two conspicuously liberated women (by the standards of their day) with their plus-fours, their bicycles and their dog.
Why are we featuring this here? The photo records one of The Fellowship Forum's earliest publicity campaigns —only four months after the appearance of their first issue on June 24, 1921.
This was the softest possible approach to Protestant Fraternalism (and now Sorority), much favored in these years— sending Florence Deering and Evelyn Morey, two youngish Christian ladies, on a cross-country bicycle trip from Washington DC to San Francisco.
They were "accompanied by 'Buddie', a German police dog, given them when they were doing YWCA work overseas."
"The young ladies represent the Fellowship Forum, a national publication in the interest of Masonry, and were accorded every welcome and courtesy by Asheville Masons. They reported a good volume of business for their publication."
Florence and Evelyn were routed through the heart of Klan Country in the South, but in this article we hear only of "Masonry" and not even the "Militant" kind. Now —a hundred years later—we can merely wonder about their conversations on the ground
What was in this for Edward Young Clarke and Mary Elizabeth Tyler (apart from maybe saving White Protestant America)?
Power, influence and a vast amount of money.
According to their 1920 agreement with Simmons, they claimed $8 from every $10 initiation fee (with the other $2 going to Simmons).
It was up to Clarke and Tyler to finance the membership drive, with hefty finder’s fees going to hundreds of Kleagles (recruiters, not Imperial) across the country. (In fact, we are looking at a classic pyramid scheme.)
By the end of 1921, the KKK had already attracted more than 700,000 members (as estimated, since it was a secret society with its records closely held).
Clarke and Tyler should have netted some $1,750,000 from initiation fees alone in 1921 (worth some $32,000,000 today).
Meanwhile, the two Southern Publicity Association partners added another layer of profit to their business plan, manufacturing and selling robes, hoods and other Klan regalia —setting themselves up as sole authorized suppliers.
Then the crash came...
Clarke and Tyler were an irregular couple with a lively public history of sexual transgession, including an arrest on morality charges —now showcased in their lavish new home.
Then their financial machinations emerged— arousing anger and presumably envy within the organization.
In 1922, the Klan fired Louis D. Wade as Kligrapp (branch secretary) and filed an injunction to stop him defaming Clarke and Tyler. That left Wade no choice but to break open the full story.
We can hardly improve on Wade's own sworn deposition (above): Clarke (Imperial Wizard Pro Tempore, Imperial Kleagle and Imperial Klaliff, all at once) preyed on the drunken condition of Simmons (Imperial Wizard), allowing Clarke and Tyler to "suddenly become enormously wealthy from ill-gotten gains collected from the Ranks of Ku Klux men."
Simmons, Clarke and Tyler were all eventually sidelined within the organization, but the Klan forged ahead —building on their innovations —for a few more years at least.
According to a National Bureau of Economic Research working paper, new Klan members were expected to spend $23.30— right up front— including the $10 initiation fee, a $6.50 robe, a $5 membership fee and a so-called "imperial tax" of $1.80. That represented approximately $430 in 2026 money.
Then came recurring annual charges... Klansmen tended to be better educated and more financially stable than average Americans, thus able to meet such expenses.
Still, $23.30 was serious cash for a respectable lower middle-class guy like railway clerk C.D. Myton. He might have earned $37 a week while living in a modest but comfortable 3 bedroom, 1 bath house on a hill in Altoona, PA.
Myton began the membership process in 1923 but evidently stopped short of joining.
Altoona was a small but thriving city in those years, with 60,331 inhabitants according to the 1920 census, rising to 82,054 in 1930.
A major railway center, the Pennsylvania Railroad Company employed some 15,000— including C.D. Myton— mostly in its vast workshop complex.
Altoona boasted the largest Klan organization in the area, with some 2,800 members. Meanwhile, approximately 200 other Klan groups were dispersed throughout Western Pennsylvania, mustering at least 140,000.
In that part of the world, the Klan fixated on the Catholic menace. Altoona had an estimated 40 to 50 Protestant churches in those years, embracing a dozen or so denominations.
It also had its own Roman bishop, 7 Catholic parishes and 42 parochial schools with over 11,000 students.
"Your friends say you are 100% American and invited you to present this card"—which is the ticket of admission to a "patriotic lecture" at the Jaffa Temple (a Masonic Shrine). The "friend" in question was evidently the cryptic "89" (who might have had a finder's fee in play).
Myton evidently attended on February 2, 1923 and presented the application —which he presumably aced, since it wasn't mined with trick questions.
Were your parents born in the United States of America? (Yes)
Are you a gentile or jew? (Gentile)
Are you of the white race or of a colored race? (White Race)
Of what church are you a member? (Lutheran)
Do you believe in White Supremacy? (Yes)
Do you believe in the principles of a PURE Americanism? (Yes)
Do you honestly believe in the practice of REAL fraternity? (Yes)
We also learn that Myton is 32 years-old, married, high-school educated, a clerk for the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, a Republican and a Knight of Pythias.
And No, he does not "owe ANY KIND of allegiance to any foreign nation, government, sect, institution, people, ruler or person".
in Altoona PA in 1923, the "Catholic Church" and the "Pope of Rome" were surely at the top of the list —but "sect" and "people" left plenty of space for Jews too.
(4) JOHN BOND IN ROME
"Saint Patrick's Day in America—1926"
With its dense imagery and fuzzy cross-hatching, it is hard to believe that this cartoon is just a hundred years old.
The anti-Irish vehemence seems quaintly old-fashioned too— but the authors were on the far edge of Protestant evangelicalism, in a cosmic time-warp of their own.
In fact, the print reverses an image from 70 years earlier.
There we see Irish Catholics and Irish Catholicism landing on American shores— with nary a hint of the devastating Potato Famine (1845-52) that propelled them.
Saint Patrick drove the snakes from Ireland in the Fifth Century. Then in early twentieth -century America, the refounded Ku Klux Klan somehow reversed the process.
Paddy's "snakes" deserve a closer look:
* Control of Schools * Control of Press * Temporal Power * Superstition * K(nights) of C(olumbus) * Anti Prohibition * Rome in Politics * Intolerance * Union of Church & State *
These were clearly 1926 issues. Back in 1855, Institutional Catholicism was only an abstract menace, not a concrete fact.
Brother Jonathan and Young America could scarcely envision a large and entrenched Catholic population, a massive Catholic school system, an extensive Catholic press and countless Catholics entering local and even national politics. As for the Knights of Columbus, they were not founded until 1882.
Then there was the bigger picture: Toward the turn of the century, surges of Catholic immigration from other places (especially Italy and Poland) began diluting the old Hibernian majority.
The Irish, however, still dominated the Church hierarchy and shaped the public face of American Catholicism.
Anti-Italianism was rife but— curiously enough— not explicitly anti-Catholic, although the Popes were all Italian and the Church spread its tentacles from Rome.
In fact, the deadliest eruption of anti-Italian feeling occurred in New Orleans in 1891, where over half the population was Catholic.
Politically subversive rats infested with mafia criminality, violent anarchism and presumably other diseases?
Anti-Italianism in those years was blatantly racist, with a heavy dose of political and cultural anxiety tossed in.
857,046 immigrants arrived in the United States in 1903, including some 285,000 Southern Italians (the largest single group).
The half-million or so non-Italians, however, barely figure in Judge, a popular satirical magazine.
Meanwhile, the ghost of President William McKinley— assassinated in in 1901 by a Detroit-born anarchist of Polish (not Italian) extraction— reacts to the perils of immigrant dumping with a distinctly Italian gesture.
Fare le Corna...
Configuring the horns of the Devil to ward off the Evil Eye.
An American Protestant response to Italy and Italian Catholicism from that very time...preface dated 1926
Although Simmons, Clarke and Tyler lacked the Mediteranean flare of the Borgias, their corruption would seem baroque enough for any taste.
A Tale of the Borgia Pope sounds like a novel...in fact, it is narrative popular history witha distinct and largely polemical point of view
It is an Old World book and also an old-fashioned one----anti-Catholic in a mostly Eurocentric way. In style and manner, it seems closest thesort of work that caem out Britain a geneation or two earlier.
What about the title? Heis putting the Catholic Chruch in the Pillory in the person of its most representative reprobate--Alexander VI Borgia
a macabre tale of poisoned chalices, mutilated corpses, papal mistresses and orgies on the very altar
Refs to Americainthe preface, also K of C in last chapter heading
Bond signed off on his preface in December 1926:
There is more than one Chamber of Horrors in the Museum of History, but none like that of the Borgia. The central figure is that of Roderigo Borgia, who as Alexander VI sat on the papal throne for upward of eleven years; around him are grouped his mistresses; a brood of bastard children; a retinue of henchman and an endless procession of victims. It was the darkest period in the life of Christianity, just before the dawn of the Reformation. Rome had become a sink of unspeakable corruption where, in the words of Dante, "Christ was sold every day."
However alarming his language, Bond seeks to distance himself from anti-Catholicism of the more vulgar sort. His argument is not with that faith but its authoritarian abuses—especially in the political sphere.
They... recognize the distinction between Catholicism as a religious creed and Popery as a fraudulent and un-Christian institution. Our warfare is directed not against Catholics, whether they are of the Roman or the Greek or any other persuasion-it is directed solely and wholly against the Neo-Caesarism of the popes. Our quarrel is not with the profession of any religious faith but with a political system invented and kept alive to enslave the minds of mankind and to destroy the freedom of conscience.
Bond ends his preface on a rousing note:
The Borgias are dead and gone but they are still brewing poison in the Vatican.
In Mussolini: the Wild Man of Europe Bond, tells us exactly who and what he has in mind.
Not easy to get from the Borgias to the more than sporadically anti-clerical Benito Mussolini
The Catholic mind-set that has fueld Latin authoritariansim over the centuries
You have to put your markers pretty far out if you want to frame Benito Mussoilni as a Catholic conspirator.
And when it came to scandal, the Borgias had nothing on the Klan side of Fraternal American
Bond did not know what to make of Mussolini (who seemed to be coming from all directions at once) except that he was a product of "all that" and thus a threat to the American Protestant Way.
Signed off his introduction in1928 and dated 1929 on thetitlepage--before the Conciliazione of date 1929 consolidated a strategic relationship
Like many others, probably had a shrewd guessof where things were headed
Patti Lateranensi dell'11 febbraio 1929, che risolsero la "Questione Romana" nata nel 1870.
First of Bond's priorities
Bond wasn't entirely wrong about the regime's
Heading Chapter 9
ROMANISM OF TODAY NOT ASHAMED OF ITS CRIMINAL POPE. LEO XIII RESTORES BORGIA APARTMENTS, THE PLAGUE OF ROME AND THE VATICAN—BURIED BENEATH ST. PETER'S AMONG CANONIZED POPES—QUESTIONS WHICH SHOULD BE ANSWERED BY THE "KNIGHTS OF COLUMBUS."
Returning to "weeds" and "hothouses", John Bond might have been obsessed but he wasn't wrong when it came to the Mussolini 's calculated manipulation of the Italian community in America.
(3) THE MUSSOLINI MOMENT IN AMERICA
Where is Bond coming from?
Where is Bond not coming from?
In the old days, anti-Catholicism was directly overwhelmingly at the Irish--and Anti-IItalianism largely left Catholicism out of the argument
The bloodiest AntiItalianism came out of New Orleans -- with a dominantly Catholic history and culture.
Bond was more right than wrong when it came tio Mussollni's workings in America
The rise of Mussolini coincided with advent of the Star System in Hollywood (not to mention Cinecittà in Rome).
The Mussolini regime was brilliant when it came to harnessing star power...in fact, it began with the ultra charismatic Duce himself
Marconi
Balbo--the most compelling of the Duce's surrogates (so compelling that there wasn't room for both of them on the same stage in the same regime)
Not just top-notch celebrities but also everyday Italian Americans
Ray Tucker, Washington Correspondent for the New York Telegram, published three-part article that appeared in more than 50 papers in July 1927 including an italian translation in Il Nuovo Mondo (July 29, 30 and 31 1927)
Which is why the external captioning of the Engliosh-language cartoon is in Italian.
Il Nuovo Mondo was an Italian language anti-Fascist daily newspaper which was published in New York City and then, in Chicago between 1926 and 1931. The paper was the first anti-Fascist daily published abroad by the Italians.[1]
childlike figure delivering laundry
"This isn't our style"
"Il fascismo non è merce da esportazione" Mussolini
Liberal columnist & an Italian-American Socialist newspaper
In 1927, the Klan reference was far from idle.
'The Black and White Brotherhood' — American cartoon published in the New York Call (11 November 1922) showing an Italian Fascist gazing across the ocean to his 'brother' in the KKK. Artist: Ryan Walker.
Socialist paper Walker was intensely involved with racial issues--especially lynching and the KKK
Were the Fascists and the Klan on the same side?! Working on the assumption that all his enemies are necessarily friends
Playing up the Italian connection
Bringing it back to Washington
Alfred E Smith iss the big story
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