Word: italian
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...harshness of absolute regimes," said an Italian lawyer last week, "was mitigated in two ways. One was regicide. The other was amnesty-the sovereign's gift of grace. We still have amnesty-so, for the next six months, don't leave your car unattended, and keep your hand on your wallet." Under the fourth general amnesty since 1945, signed into law by President Giovanni Gronchi last week, some 15,000 convicted criminals-and perhaps as many as 100,000 offenders still unsentenced-will walk scot-free out of Italy's jails. Unlike a pardon, which wipes...
...ancient times amnesty has been used ceremonially ("Whom will ye that I release unto you? Barabbas or Jesus?") by authoritarian governments to placate their people. But modern Italy's need of amnesty springs from the basic injustices of its present laws and the overcrowding of its jails. The Italian constitution of 1948 provides for a form of habeas corpus and declares the citizen innocent until proved guilty, but under Italy's outmoded legal procedures and the operation of Italy's judges-most of whom, while not Fascists, got their legal training under Fascism-suspects often languish years...
...Manhattan radio station, Eleanor Roosevelt made a rare public utterance in Italian, a tongue that she first picked up long ago as a schoolgirl in England. Target of her somewhat critical shafts: Fellow Democrat Carmine Gerard De Sapio, leader of Manhattan's Tammany Hall, who might have followed Mrs. Roosevelt's remarks but scarcely replied in kind, because he speaks little Italian...
...Shipwreck. Until Joe Levine came along, Hercules was just another Italian film that several U.S. distributors had seen and sneered at. And Steve Reeves was just another refugee from California's Muscle Beach set who had tried Broadway and TV and even studied a little chiropractic before an Italian producer picked him up for Hercules. On a tip, Levine flew to Rome and looked at the picture. Says he: "It had action and sex, a near shipwreck, gorgeous women on an island and a guy tearing a goddam building apart. And where did you ever see a guy with...
...valuable leverage in competing on world markets with the U.S. Compared with U.S. steel wage costs (including fringe benefits) of $3.22 an hour in 1957 (the latest year for which foreign comparisons are available), the Japanese steelworker cost his employer 46? an hour, the French worker 96?, the Italian worker 81?, the British worker 90?, the West German worker $1.01. Once, the U.S. could have made up the difference through its technical superiority, but that advantage is being rapidly whittled away by technical advances abroad...