This was submitted to our Clearwater Ron Paul Meetup Group by John Conway...

Below is taken from The World Book Encyclopedia, 1947 edition.
Any one that has this edition can verify it:

The chief characteristics of Fascism are as follows:

*THE CULTIVATION OF IGNORANCE*

Fascism, like all forms of government, rests firmly on the sincere consent
of a large part of the population... To maintain this consent, the Fascist
leadership must cut off the people from any information which might cause
them to doubt the complete rightness of the fixed Fascist principles... All
forms of communication are carefully censored, so that the public will
receive only those facts that the dictators want known... Travel to other
countries must be controlled, and freedom of speech and assembly must be
rigorously suppressed...

*SUPPRESSION OF LABOR AND INDUSTRY*

Fascism in Italy and Germany at first won the support of the wealthy classes
both landed and industrial... These people saw in Fascism a protection
against the demands of farmers and other workers... Both regimes at first
upheld the rights of private property... They subjected the working classes
to a rigorous discipline... As soon as they were firmly established, the
dictators began to limit profit, impose capital levies, and regulate
business in great detail...

*THE POLICE STATE*

Fascism depends upon the police to crush all opposition or dissent. Secret
police spy on the whole population, and any casual remark against the regime
leads to swift and severe punishment... Opposition parties are dissolved.
Intellectual, athletic and recreational organizations are usually brought
under the control of the Fascist authority... The ruthlessness of the police
gradually becomes less noticeable... This is because within a year or so
after a Fascist government takes power, vigorous opponents of the regime
have either left the country, been killed or jailed...

(Both Fascist and Communist leaders make use of the police state... Every
absolute government has used the police state to some degree... It was
highly developed among the ancient Assyrians...)

*EXTREME NATIONALISM*

Fascism is highly nationalistic... It tries to identify its principles with
the country, so that disagreement will look like treason... Some other
country, or some group within the country, is chosen to serve as the "enemy"
and made to appear as the cause of all evils or misfortunes... For example,
the Nazis in Germany represented their movement first as a crusade against
the Jews, then as a fight against Communism and later as a struggle against
the "attacks" from whatever neighboring country they wished to subdue or
occupy... Extreme nationalism often becomes a kind of racial fanaticism...
Sometimes it combines racial and religious bigotry...

*MILITARISM*

Fascism maintains among the people a permanently warlike frame of mind...
Every citizen feels that he is mobilized against enemies of the regime from
within, and against possible foreign foes... The dictator usually comes to
power during a period of economic crisis or depression... He relieves the
depression partly by employing many people in the making of armaments... To
justify this procedure, he must convince the people that the country is
threatened, and must point toward some of the enemies against whom the
armaments may be needed...

...................sound familiar?.................