L'Unione Sarda, 24 March 1929: 'Il voto di oggi, è atto di fede' (plebiscite day front page)

L'Unione Sarda, 24 March 1929: 'Il voto di oggi, è atto di fede' (plebiscite day front page)

Front page of a Sardinian daily on the day of the 1929 plebiscite, carrying only an unsigned text: the vote is 'an act of faith' and 'of gratitude to a Man', Italians 'vote today for Fascism, which is Italy itself', and Sardinia offers the King and the Duce its 'strong legions'. The tell: the party, the nation, the leader and the monarchy are given as one object of the vote, and the abstract terms (faith, dignity, destiny) are never tied to a stated question.

Date
March 24, 1929
Period
Interwar
Made by
L'Unione Sarda, daily newspaper of Cagliari (Sardinia), under the press controls of Fascist Italy; editorial unsigned
Issuer type
Media
Source
Identified Openly sourced: the speaker is who they say they are
Rights
Public domain (US): newspaper published in Italy 24 Mar 1929, before 1 Jan 1931; Commons PD-old
L'Unione Sarda, 24 March 1929 (author unknown); via Wikimedia Commons.

Text on the object

Original (Italian) · read from the image, not independently checked

[masthead:] L'UNIONE SARDA
POLITICO QUOTIDIANO
[small print left and right of the masthead: illegible]
DOMENICA, 24 Marzo 1929 - Anno VII

Il voto di oggi, è atto di fede, è atto di riconoscenza; di fede in una Idea, di riconoscenza ad un Uomo.

Gli Italiani votano oggi per il Fascismo che è l'Italia stessa; per Mussolini, che dell'Italia nuova è il creatore, il Duce, la più alta speranza.

Nessun voto elettorale ha mai avuto la dignità e la solennità di questo, che, nei segni del Littorio, corona e ripaga il sacrificio dei morti, illumina ed allieta la fatica dei vivi, congiunti in spirito dalla incoercibile volontà di dare alla Patria nuova potenza e più splendente volto.

Il Plebiscito fascista per tutti gli Italiani, ma per noi Sardi in particolar modo, risponde alla necessaria continuità storica dello spirito che volle la guerra la combatté e la vinse; che della Vittoria mai consentì umiliazioni e la difese; che alle importate forze dissolvitrici del dopoguerra oppose, per resistere e vincere, la sua inimitabile essenza romana.

L'Isola nostra, fedele perchè credente, taciturna perchè operante, non abbisogna di invocazioni ad esprimere totalitariamente la sua salda unità, spirituale e politica.

Cuore saldo di Roma sul mare nostro, scolta vigile, baluardo insuperabile a difesa della Patria, oggi la Sardegna, riaffermando da un capo all'altro, la sua fede nel Regime, intende offrire alla Maestà Augusta del Re Vittorioso ed al Duce invincibile le sue forti legioni, in Dio credenti e nella Patria. Perchè in pace, come in guerra, si compiano i grandi fati d'Italia.

[marginal caption:] Plebiscito del Regime, 1929 - VII

English translation (machine translation by Claude, not verified by a fluent reader)

[masthead:] L'UNIONE SARDA
POLITICAL DAILY
[small print beside the masthead: illegible]
SUNDAY, 24 March 1929 - Year VII

Today's vote is an act of faith, an act of gratitude; of faith in an Idea, of gratitude to a Man.

Italians vote today for Fascism, which is Italy itself; for Mussolini, who is the creator of the new Italy, the Duce, its highest hope.

No electoral vote has ever had the dignity and solemnity of this one, which, under the signs of the Lictor, crowns and repays the sacrifice of the dead, lights up and gladdens the toil of the living, joined in spirit by the unyielding will to give the Fatherland new power and a more splendid face.

The Fascist Plebiscite for all Italians, but for us Sardinians in particular, answers the necessary historical continuity of the spirit that wanted the war, fought it and won it; that never allowed humiliations of the Victory and defended it; that opposed to the dissolving forces of the post-war period, in order to resist and win, its inimitable Roman essence.

Our Island, faithful because believing, silent because working, has no need of invocations to express totally its firm unity, spiritual and political.

Steady heart of Rome on our sea, watchful sentinel, insuperable bulwark in defence of the Fatherland, today Sardinia, reaffirming from one end to the other its faith in the Regime, intends to offer to the August Majesty of the Victorious King and to the invincible Duce its strong legions, believing in God and in the Fatherland. So that in peace, as in war, the great destinies of Italy may be fulfilled.

[marginal caption:] Plebiscite of the Regime, 1929 - VII

Some lines are struck through or smudged by scan artefacts (the fourth paragraph, 'dello spirito che volle la guerra la combatté e la vinse', and 'importate' for the likely printed 'imponenti' is rendered as read); the masthead date is small. Translation is a machine translation by Claude, not verified by a fluent reader.