Fascist and Anti-Fascist Propaganda in America: The Dispatches o ...

In the meantime, labor forces—organized as the General Confederation of Workers (2,150,000 members), the Italian Syndicalist Union (300,000 members), the Italian Confederation of Labor (1,823,491 members), the Italian Union of Labor (200,000 members), the Syndicate of Railroad Workers (200,000 members), and numerous small organizations—represented a continuous threat. By the end of 1921, of any European country Italy suffered the most serious consequences from strikes, resulting in the loss of over 16,398,227 working days that year.

In addition, the cooperatives, which had been of great help to the low-income classes and had indirectly contributed to the regulation of prices in the domestic market, had almost disappeared—destroyed or paralyzed by Fascist terrorism. “The practical solution,” Paratore insisted, “of the unemployment problem, in the present situation, has to be found in emigration.” Emigration symbolized the necessary key to a better economic and political future for Italy. Emigration had saved southern Italy to a great extent before the war, and now emigration was urgently needed to cope with the disastrous phenomenon of unemployment. Germany and Austria had already eliminated all foreign workers from their labor markets, and other European countries, such as Switzerland, refused to accept any more foreign laborers due to their own situations. The Johnson Bill indeed created enormous difficulties and once enacted, made the unemployment problem in Europe in general, and in Italy in particular, not only serious, but catastrophic.