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the undertaking has been duly carried out. That the revolutionary parties should express contempt for these measures is not surprising, but that those who profess respect for properly constituted order should adopt a similar attitude is a deplorable form of political degeneracy, because the oath is a bond of honour binding all loyal citizens to the preservation of the State, and it is the self-same oath sworn with sacred solemnity by the soldier, the official or the magistrate.
The party trustees (fiduciari) created in an early phase of the Fascist movement in the provinces, were soon done away with, and the prefects re-integrated in their functions and responsabilitis once more.
The few political officials who were entrusted with administrative functions, for which there had been numerous precedents in the past, were subsequently almost entirely eliminated.
The increasing rowdiness was gradually repressed, and individual enterprises not only discouraged but legally proceded against in the criminal courts. If, in spite of all this, regrettable episodes still occurred, the
