They may have said what they liked to you about me, I do not mind. I am an individualist, who does not seek companions on his journey. I find them, but I do not seek them. While this despicable speculation of the jackals rages, you, obscure workers of Dalmine, have cleared the way. It is labour which speaks in you, and not an idiotic dogma or an intolerant creed. It is that labour which in the trenches established its right to be no longer considered as labour, necessarily accompanied by poverty and despair, because it must bring joy, pride in creation, and the conquest of free men in the great and free country of Italy within and without her boundaries. (Enthusiastic applause.) SACRIFICE, WORK, AND PRODUCTION Speech delivered at Milan, 5th February 1920, before the Fascio Milanese Combattimento. If it were possible, before voting on the orders of the day, to put into practice the system of democracy, we ought to have summoned the Assembly. But when events follow one another with lightning speed, it is not possible to carry out this system of absolute Democracy. We have, therefore, voted the orders of the day, and wait for you to ratify them. We have brought forward three, and done so from a point of view essentially Fascista. I dare to say that one is born a Fascista, and that it is difficult to become one. All the other parties and associations argue on a basis of dogmas and from the standpoint of definite preconceptions and infallible ideals. We, being an anti-party, have no preconceptions. We are not like the Socialists, who always think that the working masses are in the right, and we are not like the Conservatives, who think that they are always in the wrong. We have got above all this and have the privilege of moving on the ground of pure objectivity. Voting these “orders of the day,” after a serious and elaborate discussion, we have kept before us three classes of facts or elements. First, we have kept in mind the general interests of the nation, particularly as regards the recent strikes. Secondly, we have considered the subject of production, because if we kill production, if to-day we render sterile the fount of economic activity, to-morrow there will be universal poverty. Thirdly, we have been guided, in voting these orders of the day, by our disinterested love for the working classes.