in the hope of evoking something from the former Premier. The two poles
of the following "demonstrations" were the Salandra and the Giolitti
residences with occasional futile dashes into the Corso....

For the better part of a week these street excitements kept up, not
merely in Rome, but all over Italy: for that one week, while the King
sent for various public men and offered them the task of forming a
new ministry, which in every case was respectfully declined--as was
expected.

* * * * *

Why did the King not send for Giovanni Giolitti, the one statesman
who under ordinary circumstances might have expected a summons?
Neither Giolitti nor any of his intimates was invited to form a cabinet
and reestablish constitutional government. Nothing would appear to be
more natural than that the leader of the Opposition, controlling a
majority of the Deputies, who avowedly represented a policy opposed
to that of the ministers who had resigned, should be asked himself to
take charge. But Giolitti was never asked, and daily the shouting in
the streets grew louder, more menacing, and the mood of the public more
tense. Nothing was plainer than that if Giolitti had a majority of the
Deputies, the people were not for him and his policies. The House of
Savoy, as the King so well put it, rules by expressing the will of the
people. Each day it was more evident what that will was. Giolitti, the
master politician, was being outplayed by mere honest men. They had used
him--as Germany had used him--to try out the temper of the nation. With
him they drew the _neutralista_ and pro-German fire beforehand, prudently,
not to be defeated by hostile party criticism in the Chamber. And when
they got through with the politician, they threw him out: literally they