VOICE OF COMPASSION
Posted: under "LOVE is LOVELY".
Tags: attorney, character, children, compassion, cop, court, difference, eyes, family, flowers, Games, heart, honor, husband, inspiration, jail, judge, La Guardia, language, lawyer, lesson, life, love, man, mayor, money, neighborhood, New York, New York City, police, sports, Sunday, sympathy, traffic, truck, vehicle, voice, wife, woman, words
I heard a story about Fiorello LaGuardia who was mayor of New
York City during the worst days of the Great Depression and all
of WWII. He was adored by many New Yorkers who took to calling
him the “Little Flower,” because he was so short and always wore
a carnation in his lapel.
He was a colorful character — he rode the New York City fire
trucks, raided city “speakeasies” with the police department,
took entire orphanages to baseball games, and when the New York
newspapers went on strike, he got on the radio and read the
Sunday funnies to the kids.
One bitterly cold night in January of 1935, the mayor turned up
at a night court that served the poorest ward of the city.
LaGuardia dismissed the judge for the evening and took over the
bench himself. Within a few minutes, a tattered old woman was
brought before him, charged with stealing a loaf of bread. She
told LaGuardia that her daughter’s husband had deserted her, her
daughter was sick, and her two grandchildren were starving.
But the shopkeeper, from whom the bread was stolen, refused to
drop the charges. “It’s a real bad neighborhood, your Honor,” the
man told the mayor. “She’s got to be punished to teach other
people around here a lesson.”
LaGuardia sighed. He turned to the woman and said, “I’ve got to
punish you. The law makes no exceptions. Ten dollars or ten days
in jail.” But even as he pronounced sentence, the mayor was
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Aug 02 2008