The D'Annunzio Touch

The Liberator of Fiume is Finding his Imitators in America

STEPHEN LEACOCK

THE achievement of the Italian poet, Gabriele D'Annunzio, in liberating the city of Fiume and declaring it to be an independent republic is one that has sent a thrill through the civilized world. And quite rightly. Think of it! Here you have a man, a poet, a dreamer, an idealist, and yet he accomplishes a task that seemed impossible to the cabinets of Europe. He throws himself into Fiume and refuses to come out. From the topmost height of the Campanile he scatters leaflets with the printed words "Italia " Libertate " and "Risorgimentificazione", and the people simply go wild. The police sent against him throw their hats in the air shouting Eviva D'Annunzio! Then they catch their hats again on their heads and join the insurrection.

It must have been a wonderful moment. The greatest of our Harvard authorities on Italian politics has said of it, very fittingly, "the coup de main of Gabriele D'Annunzio is a triumph of intransigent irredentism over the immobility of the Quirinal."

I think that, too.

It was only natural, of course, that other Italian poets should have attempted to follow the example of D'Annunzio. After D'Annunzio had thrown himself into Fiume, the world was not surprised when the news came over the wires that Piccolo Pochito had thrown himself into Spoleto and that Ugo della Spiggiola del Campo, eager to win a name (he needed it), had hurled himself into the Campagna and shut it after him.

No one, I think, could properly question the right of these gentlemen to act as they did.

The Case of Mr. Morley

BUT it now transpires that this alarming habit is spreading to North America. As yet the matter has been more or less hushed up by the government. But what is happening is, in reality, known in every newspaper office in New York.

Only a very kindly conspiracy on the part of the press prevents an open disclosure. But the matter has now attained so wide a notoriety that the time has come when secrecy can no longer be maintained.

Take the case of Mr. Christopher Morley, the New York poet.

All that has been officially permitted to appear as td Mr. Morley's movements during the summer just past is contained in the following brief notice that was published, no doubt with the connivance of the Secretary of State, in the society columns of the daily press:

"Mr. Christopher Morley spent the summer in a visit to his old home in the mountains of Virginia."

Now this is grossly untrue. Morley is, as every newspaperman knows, at Mauchunk, in Pennsylvania. He arrived there early in July, closed the gates of the town (they are railway gates and work on a swivel), and called upon the inhabitants to defy the constitution. They at once did so. Morley then went up to the top of the post office and read, from the balcony, a translation of D'Annunzio's poem 0/ fin amor in qual si fa! The wildest excitement followed. An immense crowd swore to follow Morley to the death; and, if need be, to kill him themselves.

Morley is in Mauchunk still. He says—and I think with reason—that he is just as romantic a poet as D'Annunzio. If D'Annunzio will come down from the Campanile in Fiume, Morley will come down from the post office in Mauchunk. If not, not. The thing is fair enough.

Meantime, Morley's example has been followed in New England and elsewhere. Miss Amy Lowell has thrown herself into the woods of Brookline and won't come out. Mr. Edgar Lee Masters has declared for the Independence of Indiana, and drawn up a declaration (in free verse) which is said by all who have read it to be much better than Thomas Jefferson's and to have more pep in it.

The Coup d'Etat in Kentucky

MOST amazing of all is the news of what has been happening down in Kentucky. Here the whole thing is already public property. The United States has been defied and everybody knows it. Since further concealment is without purpose, there can be no harm in quoting verbatim from a local paper of last week the published account of the recent revolution in Chehookee, Kentucky.

"On Thursday afternoon last a wild-looking man whose name is now given as Irving D'Annunzio Cobb appeared upon the Main Street of the village of Chehookee. In a voice that could be heard from the post office to the livery stable he called upon the populace to assemble in the great square or place d'armes (opposite to the five and ten cent store). Cobb then dedared himself in favour of self-determination for the inhabitants of Chehookee, and invited them to make an oath, which they all did with great readiness.

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"In accordance with the latest European method, D'Annunzio Cobb has announced that Chehookee is henceforth to be a self-delimiting area with a neutral zone (mostly pasture) separating it from the United States, and with a corridor leading through it.

"According to the latest reports, the Cobbistas, or followers of Cobb, are in undisputed control. After a brief disturbance, business is going on as usual. The five and ten cent store, which had been looted at the height of the revolution, re-opened yesterday, and the mule cars are both running.

"The man Cobb is said by those who have seen him, to resemble, both in stature and physique, the beau ideal of the liberator. There is much in the poise of his body which recalls the mediaeval knight: in fact, there's a lot of it. Deep dreamy eyes smoulder under a brow of ivory, while the delicate tracery of the face recalls the features of St. Francis d'Assisi as seen in some half-lighted gallery, or even in the dark.

"In short, it is very generally said that Gabriele D'Annunzio has nothing on Irving Cobb."

By a striking coincidence, at the very moment when Mr. Cobb is proclaiming the freedom of the hinterland of Kentucky, a similar movement has been inaugurated for the establishment of a poet's republic in California. The two brothers Irwin—Guglielmo and Walluccio—have issued a proclamation to the moving picture people to join the movement, and to the motor car tourists to break their chains.

Meantime, in the spacious and hospitable province of Quebec, where I live, I am planning a poets' republic of my own. The provincial government has very kindly given me 50,000 square miles and a beer and wine license. I am negotiating for a first-class poet, but, even if I fail to get him, I don't think that D'Annunzio's republic will have much on mine.