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EZRA POUND 193
ever been arrested in the United States. So much for members of
Communist fronts. At any rate, Williams did not get the job.
Because Pound continued to live in Italy during the Fascist
regime, the legend was spread by his detractors that he was a key
figure in the Mussolini government, a sort of Rudolf Hess in
Rome, apparently confusing him with Gabriele d'Annunzio.
Pound had only one interview with Mussolini, although he
never gave up hope of converting Il Duce to his monetary theories.
Due to his absence from his native land, Pound was not aware of
the actual similarities between the Fascist system in Italy and the
principles of the corporate state adopted by the New Deal. Westbrook
Pegler has been the only American commentator to point
out these similarities, with pungent remarks on the paradox that
the loudest "anti-Fascists" in Washington were those who had secured
the enactment of Fascist laws during the early years of the
Roosevelt state. Rexford Guy Tugwell's work, The Industrial Discipline,
and the Governmental Arts (New York, Columbia University
Press, 1933) which was the handbook of that regime,
urged the passage of many "fascist" laws, or principles of the
"corporate state".
Pound was aware of certain coincidences between the state,
which he was fond of terming Italia irredenta, and the early
years of the American Republic. He had embodied these similarities
in a book, which he wrote in 1933, Jefferson and/or Mussolini,
L'Idea Statale Fascismo as I have seen it (London, Stanley Nott,
Ltd., 1935; New York, Liveright Publishing Corporation, 1935).
It was subtitled Volitionist Economics. The work was submitted to
some forty publishers during the next two years. He comments that
never before has he had such difficulty in finding a publisher. The
book was ignored in Italy, nor was it circulated or subsidized by
the Italian government. Despite the fact that Ezra had pointed
out that he was not advocating a fascist system for the United
States, the book has been criticized on that ground ever since,
usually by people who have not read it.
Pound's only connection with the Fascist government, excepting
his activity in getting Bottai to microfilm the Vivaldi manuscripts,
was his friendship with a cousin of Ford Madox Ford, Signora
Olivia Rossetti Agresti, a great-niece of Dante Gabriel Rossetti.