IL DUCE IN 1934: A NEGRO IN THE WHITE HOUSE IN 100 YEARS

By Juan Montoya
No one will credit Benito Mussolini with the gift of prophecy.
After all, his quest for a Great Italy based on his "great battles," was a failure. He foresaw that Italy would become a great European power if it won the Battle for Land, the Battle of the Lira and the Battle for Grain.
Not only did he lose his battles, but he also lost his life when he and his lover were hanged upside down by Italians who saw their country suffer the ravages of war that impoverished them and placed them under the control of the Allies after World War II.
Still, he even made a believer of poet Ezra Pound who recited some of his "Cantos" for the dictator.

And if we put aside our dislike of the dictator who joined Germany's Adolph Hitler to form the Axis that fought the Allies in World War II, he did have make at least one true prediction: there would be a black president in the United States before 100 years were over.

In fact, in March of 1934, Mussolini was the premier of Italy, having had his fascist party virtually hijack the Italian government and murdered or driven his his opponents to exile. He also was the editor of the Fascist party political propaganda organ Il Popolo D'Italia.

Now, thanks to the research by Texas Southmost College trustee Rene Torres, there has been unearthed an article published at the time indicates that "Il Duce" was a student of history and in fact predicted that – based on his study of birth rates in the U.S. – there would be a black man as president within 100 years.

In fact, Mussolini was prescient since the fact occurred a full 26 years before  the century was past in 2008.

Now, before some of our three readers take issue with the term "Negro," please understand that in the 1930s there was no such things as political correctness, therefore the term.

Rene will probably spend the rest of his twilight years looking for a narrative of the baseball game played between the soldiers stationed at Ft. Brown under the coaching of Abner Doubleday and a pickup team from Matamoros. Frankly, we have our doubts he'll find it, but then again, over the course of his teaching and public service career he has never taken "no" for an answer.