Beautiful design, but was there ever an uproar?

I am a big fan of Mercury Dimes. In fact, I love early 20th Century coinage in general. It is a look that really corresponds to the time in which it was minted. I've been sitting here looking at a Mint State 1942 that I just purchased, and i got to thinking, as I'm prone to do.

The reverse of the coin displays what's called, I believe, a Fascia, which was a symbol of Roman authority. It was also the symbol of the Italian Fascist Party under Benito Mussolini in the 1920s and up through 1945, when poor Benito found himself hanging from a streetlight in Milan. I wonder, and I'm hoping that one of our members who is more familiar with the history of coinage than I, could tell us if there was any attempt to change this coinage once World War II started, and we were at war with Italy.

Hope that those not in the know, like myself, might find this to be an interesting question to ponder.

Happy Collecting...