Monday, Aug. 29, 1938

"Skin of Fascism!"

Into his occasional proclamations from Switzerland, France's handsome, six-foot, 24-year-old Bonapartist Pretender, His Imperial Highness Prince Louis Napoleon/- commonly flings some such ringing piece of Corsican bravado as "My name is the most glorious guarantee France has ever had of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity!" Because the original, short, squat Napoleon smashed the First Republic of France, and the second Bonaparte overthrew the Second Republic, the Third Republic has always up to now refused to do homage to L'Empereur. Last week the Bonapartist cause was finally considered so dead, the Pretender so harmless, that at Ajaccio in Corsica, the birthplace of Napoleon, an oration in honor of the first Bonaparte was pronounced by Navy Minister Cesar Campinchi, who then unveiled a monument to L'Empereur.

Passionate Corsican Campinchi feels just like every other Corsican about the little island's immortal son. Orator Campinchi declared last week that L'Empereur once said "In time, the sword will always be beaten." Taking this as his Napoleonic, yet democratic text, the navy minister cried: "These words are worthy to be recalled at a time when certain men profess disdain for liberty and a desire to outlaw traditional values which have always assured the nobility of man in our western civilization! Certainly a democratic regime may have weaknesses, but what are they compared with the dangers of uncontrolled power?"

French Corsica lies only a few miles from Italian Sardinia. Sardinian islanders always hear the gist of the speeches Corsican Campinchi makes on his native soil, and in Rome for some time he has been rated a menace by No. 1 Fascist Editor Virginio Gayda who last week could only construe the navy minister's remarks as an attack on the "uncontrolled power" of Benito Mussolini. Editor Gayda recently called M. Campinchia "renegade , Corsican" whose speeches are "the nefarious ravings of a sectarian madman with criminal leanings" and who writes "filthy prose, worthy only of a meeting of drunkards." This tirade was provoked by a Campinchi speech last year to sailors on the French steamer General Bonaparte. According to Fascist Gayda, Radical Socialist Campinchi roared: "From Corsica an offensive will be launched that will bring Fascism to its knees! What I can tell you is that we will have the skin of Fascism!"

Taxed with having said this, Corsican Campinchi guffawed: "Only an insane person would have made such remarks as were attributed to me."

/- Greatgrandnephew of Napoleon I.

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