This, we must not flatter ourselves that we have done, we must do it. For the present our errors are many
and inevitable. We must therefore unite and agree to use our strength for the solution of the problem. Woe
to us should we drop into the usual recriminations, and should we not know how to forgive the inevitable
errors, for which we are all to blame, since we have not known how to provide in good time. What
spectacle should we offer other nations that so generously came to our aid? Unfortunately, beside the most
generous impulse of national charity, we shall see set loose the low passions of human selfishness seeking to
turn everything to its own advantage. Even this danger must be faced with calm and energy. We must not
as usual pass from the impulse of brotherhood to the exagerated reaction of indignation and resentment. In
the immensity of our misfortune we must find the strength to resist, to provide. We must not think that en-
thusiam alone suffices. We need reflection, organization, harmony, constancy. The other proposition that requires
serious consideration is the reconstruction of houses, of public and private edifices. The problem has been
studied several times, and the directions to be followed were in part found and sanctioned by the vast
experiences of Japan. Why should we always neglect them, always reconstruct on the ruins, mending the old
houses to have them suffer the same damage? A government commission should make its directions known
to all, and strive in every way to have them generally accepted. And should we not also take advantage
of our great and sorrowful present experience, to study what forms of construction have suffered most and
what have resisted best? And what results have the cement houses constructed in' Calabria after the earthquake
of 1905 shown? Would it not be useful to let the country know all this? The laws and forces of
nature we cannot change, but we can study them in order to defend ourselves. This study is necessary. It
is not merely a question of the present, we must provide even for the future.
Amongst all the talk 1 have heard in this hour of anguish and desolation, sometimes even of mental disorder,
there is a statement which, I feel, I must strongly oppose. Before the prodigious charity shown us
from abroad, some have said the world is large, there are other countries richer than we are. If foreigners
collect larger sums than we do, we shall have to build our cities-again with foreign money? I have heard
recalled the example given by the United States, who when San Francisco was destroyed, said: We are
sufficient unts ourselves, we do not accept foreign help. It would, I think, be a grave error to listen,
even for a moment, to such talk. First of all we have not got the millions that America has. This fact it
would be useless to discuss. The disaster that has struck us is so much greater than all other similar ones
that any comparison is impossible. We have besides (we can say it without pride) a past which other nations
cannot boast. We have rendered great services to the civilization of the world. Civilized people feel that
the destruction of a part of Italy would be like the destruction of one part of the civilization which they
now enjoy, like the destruction of one part of their spirit. This may be one of the reasons which call forth
for us so much and such generous sympathy. Should we feel humilated. Certainly, the services we have
rendered humanity do not give us the right to ask anything of others, for these services are amply repaid
by the very fact that we have been able to render them. But why go astray, why lose ourselves in these
childish discussions? The people that but yesterday mutually armed for war, before such a tragic disaster,
before the omnipotence of the forces of nature, which make us feel the meanness of our existence, the vanity
of our life, with a sublime impulse of brotherly love almost throw themselves into eachother s arms, as
though to satisfy the eternal aspiration of man towards a better world. Should we protest? The human
sentiment is not inferior, but superior to the national sentiment.
We should at this moment seriously consider the way of laying out the money collected by public and
private charity inside Italy and beyond. It is a hard problem to decide what the government and the country
just now owe the stricken regions, to what special use the money collected for the sufferers should be put
and what those people owe themselves. And in studying this question, I think we may, indeed we must,
consider that part of this money comes from abroad. Some English papers delicately observed: «Messina
may be said to be an international city in which many ancient business houses are English, German, French,