Word: scelba
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Early Life: Born in Caltagirone, Sicily, Sept. 5, 1901, christened Mario Scelba (pronounced Shell-ba). His poor family sharecropped land owned by Don Luigi Sturzo, Italy's great political priest who founded what is now the Christian Democratic Party. Don Luigi was the boy's godfather, paid for his law studies in Rome, employed him as his private secretary, thus launched him in politics...
Political Career: When Don Luigi's party was suppressed by the Fascists in 1926, Scelba dropped out of politics, lived as a none-too-successful criminal lawyer. In wartime, when the movement revived underground, he was arrested by the Nazis for publishing a clandestine newspaper. After the war, he was appointed a member of the Allied-controlled temporary Parliament. He became De Gasperi's Minister of Interior...
...speech at Novara, Mario Scelba, the tough and capable Interior Minister in the De Gasperi Cabinet, had castigated the Pella government for not being tougher with the Communists. "We must have no more of this resignation," Scelba cried. "The government's duty is to lead the struggle...
...Honest Men Know." For dauntless Alcide de Gasperi, the only choice is to fight it out on both fronts. To a huge crowd at Rome's Basilica of Massenzio last week, De Gasperi's strong-willed Interior Minister, Mario Scelba, fired the opening barrage. "If you want Communist dictatorship," said he, "vote Communist or [Nenni] Socialist. If you want adventurers to run the government and repeat all the errors of the past, then vote for the Monarchists and MSI [Neo-Fascists]. But honest men know that democracy, with all its deficiencies, is always better than totalitarianism of either...
...Scelba law passed, the temporary alliance of Demo-Christian and Communist ended too. Last week, following a roaring attack by Red Boss Palmiro Togliatti on visiting NATO Chief Matthew Ridgway, De Gasperi jumped to his feet, turned toward the Reds and said: "Remember this! As long as I remain in this place, I shall not recognize that you have a right to prepare a revolution in Italy. If present laws are not sufficient to curb you, we shall make new ones." In other words, one down, one more...