Ice Cream Every Day

The 2,700 recorded years of Sicily's history read like a roll call of invaders--Phoenicians, Greeks, Romans, Carthaginians, Byzantines, Vandals, Saracens, Normans, Spaniards, Garibaldi and his red-shirted Thousand, the Allies of World War II. Last week the 4,500,000 inhabitants of the biggest island in the Mediterranean were subjected to a fresh invasion. This one was noisy but peaceable, consisting of a stream of orating visitors from the Italian mainland. The attraction was not Sicily's resources or its harshly lovely geography, but its political loyalties. As a semi-autonomous region of the Italian Republic, Sicily was preparing to elect a new regional parliament.

Despite the fact that votes will not change a single Deputy or Senator in the national Parliament in Rome, the Sicilian campaign has taken on a special significance. Some of the stakes:

P:The faltering regime of Premier Mario Scelba, who might gain a few months' more of power from a solid Christian-Democratic victory in his native Sicily.

P:The dented prestige of Demo-Christian Boss Amintore Fanfani, who has made the Sicilian contest a test of his organizing prowess, and has sent in a posse of young and enthusiastic party workers.

P:A test of the Communist claim that while losing strength in the north, they are gaining in the south.

P:A contest between Sicily's program for letting foreign companies develop oil resources, and mainland Italy's program allowing only state-controlled development.

An army of nearly 900 candidates ranged the countryside last week in competition for the regional assembly's 90 seats. (Current division: Demo-Christians 30, the Communist and left-wing Socialist "bloc of the people" 30, neo-Fascist M.S.I, _II, Monarchists 10, others 9). Sicilians, as is their habit, reveled in the spectacle. What mainlanders call political rallies, Sicilians zestfully term parlata (gabfest), and they turn out for them all with impartial thoroughness. "And you would never guess from seeing him at a parlata what is hatching in the Sicilian's brain," explained a Sicilian bishop.

Last week alone, the Demo-Christians staged 511 parlate, big and small, all over the island, which is about the size of Vermont. This week the big attraction will be Premier Scelba, the lawyer son of a Sicilian sharecropper. The Communists, bringing over 800 mainland activists, staged almost 200 parlate. The Monarchists with funds from their lavish Neapolitan leader, Achille Lauro, passed out empty wallets at one rally and promised that a Monarchist regime would fill them with lire.

Oil Politics. The basic struggle is between the Communists and a coalition headed by Regional President Franco Restivo, a simple, honest Demo-Christian who has led Sicily with the support of the Monarchists and occasional backing of the small center parties. "Eight years of Accomplishment" proclaimed the Demo-Christian banners.

One big issue is oil. Unlike the Rome government, which has prevented energetic private exploitation of oil up north, Sicily in 1950 let Gulf Oil Corp. come in and develop oil fields to a current 500-barrel-a-day output, with an eventual royalty of 20% for Sicily. Though the Communists originally voted for the Si cilian law, they have now reversed them selves and are trying to convert the oil issue into a gusher of votes.

"Sicilian oil for the Sicilians," cry Communist posters. The Communist accent on oil not only caught the Demo-Christians by surprise, but also caught them divided. President Restivo had a good defense: American participation has been profitable for Sicilians. But the Fanfani men sent down to take over the campaign have let him use the argument only halfheartedly. Up in Rome, important Demo-Christians have a stake in keeping oil production in the hands of the government monopoly.

Local Gain. Until World War II, Sicily contributed far more to Italy than Italy ever gave back. "They grow fat up north with our money," is an old Sicilian com plaint. But in its postwar autonomy, Res tivo and his colleagues are able to claim, Sicily has got 8,500 new schoolrooms, 3,026 kilometers of sorely needed new roads, 131,000 rooms of new housing, a new water system for 247 communities. Total investment by Rome and the regional government in eight years: about $1.5 billion. Tourist business is booming (helped among other things by the visit to ancient Syracuse of that eminent painter, Sir Winston Churchill). Gross income went up by some 20% last year, as against 8% for overall Italy. Sicily's own version of land reform has somewhat eased -- though by no means solved -- the crush of poverty.

"All we Christian Democrats need to do," said one young party worker, "is to invite the voters to look around. Here in Agrigento eight years ago, we had only one badly attended cinema, now we have three and they are all full; three cafes, now at least a dozen. Eight years ago the province had ice cream only on special feast days, now everybody in every small town can buy ice cream every day of the year."

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