Balbo Drive, in Chicago commemorates the historic transatlantic flight from Italy to Chicago led by General Italo Balbo of the Royal Italian Air Force (Regia Aeronautica) in 1933, the FIRST Transatlantic Flight of a  FORMATION OF AIRPLANES,(an entire squadron of 24 planes) which was planned to coincide with the Chicago?s Century of Progress World?s Fair of that year.  Some Egg Head Professor's are attempting to discredit him.

Thanks to Manny Alfano of The Alfano Digest of IAOVC ( Italian American One Voice Coalition) 
And Italic Institute of America ? Don Fiore, Robert Allegrini, Rosario Iaconis, William Dal Cerro.

Dear Friends:

As you may or may not be aware, several university professors have created a petition calling for the Chicago City Council to change the name of Balbo Drive.  The petition?s objective was endorsed by the Chicago Tribune in a recent editorial published on 06/27/2011.  The text of the original petition and the Tribune editorial appear below.

The professors? petition presents distorted and false information.  The Chicago Tribune?s bland and unquestioning endorsement of the petition, published without bothering to check the facts, stands as a commentary on the continuing journalistic devolution of that once great institution.

In response, the Italic Institute of America has created a petition calling upon Mayor Rahm Emanuel and the Chicago City Council to retain the name of Balbo Drive, which commemorates the historic transatlantic flight from Italy to Chicago led by General Italo Balbo of the Royal Italian Air Force (Regia Aeronautica) in 1933.

Please take a moment to read our petition.  The original petition and the Tribune Editorial appear below.  Please take a moment to read our petition.  If you agree with our position, please respond through one or more of the following options: 

Sign the on line petition at http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/balbodrive/ 
Send a comment endorsing our position to the Italic Institute of America at ItalicOne@italic.org 

Send a comment endorsing our position to Alderman Bob Fioretti - http://chicago2ndward.com/contact-us 
Send a comment endorsing our position to the Chicago Tribune http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/letters/

We also ask that you forward this message to any persons who might be interested in supporting our position. 

PETITION TO RETAIN THE NAME OF BALBO DRIVE 

This petition is in response to an earlier petition initiated by a group of individuals who identify themselves as educators, and to a subsequent editorial in the Chicago Tribune on 06/27/2011 endorsing the petition?s objective.  The petition and the editorial call for the name of the street known as Balbo Drive to be changed. 

In view of the facts outlined below, we call upon Mayor Rahm Emanuel and all members of the Chicago City Council to permanently retain the name of the Chicago street known as Balbo Drive.

Originally known as 7th Street, the street was re-named to honor General Italo Balbo in 1933 by resolution of the Chicago City Council as a perpetual commemoration of the unprecedented transatlantic flight of an entire squadron of 24 aircraft from Italy to Chicago?s Century of Progress World?s Fair of that year.   At that time, Balbo was chief of the Royal Italian Air Force (Regia Aeronautica). 

The transatlantic crossing was rightly recognized as one of the most important and best executed aeronautical achievements of that time, having made a valuable contribution toward the future realization of routine intercontinental air travel and to technological progress in general.  The street, therefore, not only honors the organizer and commander of that enterprise, but the enterprise itself and the role played by the City of Chicago, a major hub in global aviation, in that historic event. 

The street also commemorates an occasion of incomparable significance to Chicago?s Italian American community which took, and continues to take, justifiable pride in this triumph of Italian aviation.

To support our position, is essential that the distortions, falsehoods implied or directly propagated in the earlier above-referenced petition and Chicago Tribune editorial be directly addressed.

• Italo Balbo was a consistent opponent and vocal critic of Italy?s alliance with Nazi Germany.
• Italo Balbo was a consistent opponent and vocal critic of anti-Semitism.
• Italo Balbo was opposed to Italy?s participation in The Second World War on the side of Nazi Germany.
• Italo Balbo was a well respected and honorable colonial administrator as Governor of Libya.  Contrary to the blatantly false claims in the original petition, Balbo never supervised or operated concentration camps in Libya or anywhere else.
• Italo Balbo was an Italian patriot and anti-Communist who endured completely unfounded accusations by his political opponents. 
• Italo Balbo was never an enemy of the United States. 

However, it should be noted that the British, who were indeed at war with the Italians at that time, responded to news of Balbo?s death with an unprecedented wartime gesture of respect, sorrow and regret, with Commander Arthur Longmore, Chief of the British Air Force in the Middle East, immediately dispatching the following message across the Italian lines in Libya:

The British Royal Air Force expresses sympathy in the death of General Balbo, a leader and gallant aviator personally known by me, whom fate has placed on the other side?

Clearly, and regardless of a state of belligerency, the British still considered Italo Balbo as a person worthy of honor and great respect. 

Italo Balbo was received and honored not only by Illinois Governor Henry Horner, Chicago Mayor Edward Kelly, and literally every other prominent public figure in the City of Chicago, but also those of the City and State of New York, and even President Roosevelt himself. 

Contrary to today?s unfounded revisionism, none of them, not even the President, hesitated to personally greet Balbo and hail him as a hero.

At the time of his transatlantic flight even The Chicago Tribune, (ironically enough, given it?s recent editorial) expressed only praise and admiration in its assessment of General Balbo and his remarkable achievement. 

Finally, the petition falsely asserts that ?in Italy itself, in which Italo Balbo?s crimes are well known, no streets are named after him?.

In fact, there are numerous streets named after Italo Balbo in towns and cities across Italy, including Messina (Siciliy), Falcone (Sicily), Pozzuoli (Campagna), Baiano (Campagna), Gerace (Calabria), Tufara (Molise), Itri (Lazio), Villaurbano (Sardegna), Minturno (Lazio), Montepaone (Calabria), and others.  Further, a section of Ciampino Airport in Rome is named Piazzale Italo Balbo.

In light of these undeniable facts it is obvious that opponents of maintaining Balbo Drive seek to distort history for their own socio-political beliefs.

Consequently, we the undersigned believe that the decision to eradicate a part of Chicago history dishonors our city and should not be condoned. 

Don Fiore, Robert Allegrini, Rosario Iaconis, William Dal Cerro.
 

Be it resolved that whereas Balbo Drive in Chicago was named after the most violent of the Fascist warlords, Italo Balbo, who was a founding member of the Fascist Grand Council, who was responsible for the killing of numerous Italian citizens including the parish priest Giuseppe Minzoni, and who as governor of the Italian colony in Libya supervised concentration camps in which thousands of civilians perished, the name of Balbo Drive should be changed.  Be it further resolved that the former Balbo Avenue be re-named Fermi Drive, after the Italian physicist Enrico Fermi, who won the Nobel Prize in Physics , was driven out of his homeland because his Jewish wife suffered under the Manifesto of Race promulgated by Mussolini, and found refuge in Chicago, where he developed the first nuclear reactor (the Chicago Pile 1). Whereas in Italy itself, in which Italo Balbo?s crimes are well known, no streets are named after him, many are named after Fermi. 

Henry Binford, Associate Professor of History, Northwestern University

Anthony L. Cardoza, Professor of History, Loyola University, Chicago 

Benjamin Frommer, Associate Professor of History, Northwestern University
 

Deidre N. McCloskey, Distinguished Professor of Economics, History, English, and Communication at the University of Illinois at Chicago
 

Joel Mokyr, Robert H. Strotz Professor of Arts and Sciences, Departments of History and Economics, Northwestern University
 

Edward Muir, Clarence L. Ver Steeg Professor in the Arts and Sciences, Department of History, Northwestern University
 

Jesse Rosenberg, Associate Professor in Musicology, Northwestern University
 

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2011-06-27/news
/ct-edit-balbo-20110627_1_wrongs-balbo-drive-fascists

Naming wrongs: Rename Balbo Drive

The embarrassment of Balbo Drive, which is named after Mussolini's air force commander

June 27, 2011

In downtown Chicago, street names generally aren't too hard to understand. Most east-west avenues are named for presidents. Clark Street honors George Rogers Clark, a Revolutionary War general who served in the old Northwest Territory.

Wells Street is a tribute to an officer killed in the Battle of Fort Dearborn. Wabash shares the name of a nearby river. La Salle was one of the first European explorers to set foot in this area.

Then there's Balbo Drive. Most people have never heard of the person it was named for, and those who have might rather forget.

It used to be called 7th Street. But for the 1933 Chicago World's Fair, a squad of Italian seaplanes flew across the Atlantic Ocean and landed on Lake Michigan. They were commanded by Italo Balbo, head of Italy's air force, and the spectacle was such a treat that Mayor Edward Kelly christened the road after him.

What's wrong with that? What's wrong is that Balbo was serving under the Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini, whose government later sided with Adolf Hitler in World War II. Not only that, but Balbo was an important ? and brutal ? leader in the movement that brought the Fascists to power.

The name soon became an embarrassment to the city. It's not as bad as having a street named after Hermann Goering, Hitler's air marshal, but it's bad enough. If you have any doubt, try explaining and justifying it to an out-of-town visitor.

It has persisted, though, more because of inertia than anything else. Various calls to remove the name have gone nowhere. But a new effort has arisen, spearheaded by a few dozen local academics, including many of Italian ancestry.

They recently submitted a petition to Ald. Bob Fioretti, whose ward includes the street, deploring the honoree's record and proposing to rename the street for Enrico Fermi, the Nobel Prize-winning physicist who built the first nuclear reactor, at the University of Chicago.

Fermi, as it happens, came to the United States from Italy to escape Fascism. He would be a worthy honoree, with a prominent place in Chicago's history. But the City Council should be open to other nominations. Three years ago, columnist Eric Zorn put this question to his readers. Ron Santo Drive was their clear favorite.

The new bid could be the catalyst for a stimulating debate. But getting rid of the existing name? Not much room for debate there.
 

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