ccompanied them could hardly be considered pro-Teutonic. Only
the comic press--and this in spite of its augmenting circulation which
should have indicated to observers the sentiment that was elsewhere
suppressed--gave full vent to popular emotion.

The moment war was declared there was a complete change. To be sure
the "Green Book" was published in numerous 20-cent editions and sold
by the hundreds of thousands and the closing speeches of Italian and
Austrian diplomats were given in full with comments, yet little time
was wasted with explanations of the failure of the Italo-Austrian
negotiations and the meaning of the Seventh Article of the Triple
Alliance. The daily press, the weekly periodicals, and the monthly
reviews suddenly changed their objective expositions of Germany's
conduct in regard to others and began to expound, explain, and
elucidate, in an intimate subjective manner, how that conduct affected
Italy.

Austria was almost ignored. The anti-German riots at Milan and other
cities, where thousands of dollars worth of property was
systematically destroyed before the authorities could interfere,
showed the volcano that had been lying dormant beneath the surface.
Articles which must have been prepared months before suddenly appeared
in the press and reviews showing how Germany had come to control the
banks and steamship lines of the Peninsula and how German capital,
under the guise of promoting Italian enterprises, had laid hold of
vast industries whose profits went to fill the pockets of the Germans;
and, worst of all, how the savings of Italian immigrants in America
had gone, through the German-conducted banks, to enrich the same
persons without any contingent benefit to Italians.

Indeed, it almost seemed as though the press and reviews alike had
been organized as completely as had the army and navy for the
prosecution of the war with the sole object in view of preventing
Germany ever again from using the Peninsula as a territory for
exploitation. The propaganda for _Italia Irredenta_ suddenly sank into
insignificance beside the determination to throw off, once and for
all, the German commercial, industrial, and financial yoke, revealing
the abiding faith of the Italian people that their army would attend
to the former as completely as desirable and without the advice and
criticism of civilians. Faith in their King and their army and in
their ultimate success is not a matter for argument among Italians.