Today’s Columbus Day in the US, a federal holiday since 1937, largely thanks to the efforts of Italian-born newspaper publisher Generoso Pope, the most important single advocate for Mussolini in the US in the 1920s and 1930s
The Times obit from 1950 says Pope was “accused” of fascist sympathies, which he “resented bitterly.” Pretty funny! Pope was a member of the Fascist League of North America, organized a Madison Square Garden tribute to Il Duce, won awards from Italy for supporting fascism, etc
Pope was also a New Deal Democrat and a close ally of Roosevelt, which is how, when other fascists were being arrested after Pearl Harbor, Pope was appointed by FDR to New York’s draft appeals board.
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