WHEN LOVE AND JUSTICE MEET

 by adam harbinson

Fiorello Enrico LaGuardia was Mayor of New York City from 1934 until 1944, one of the most difficult decades in American history for it spanned the Great Depression and most of the Second World War. He was born of Italian parents in the Bronx, an underprivileged district of New York, but as a child he moved with his family to Arizona where he grew up, returning to New York in his teens to finish his education.

LaGuardia was adored by many New Yorkers, he was affectionately known as ‘Little Flower,’ partly because Fiorello is the Italian word for flower, partly because he stood only five feet two inches tall, and partly because he always wore a carnation in his lapel.

History remembers him as a colourful character – he liked to ride the New York City fire engines and he was often seen accompanying members of the Police Department as they raided the city’s illegal drinking houses, the ‘speak easies’. There were times when he took entire orphanages to baseball games, and when the New York newspapers went on strike, he’d be on the radio reading stories to the children.

One bitterly cold January day when he was Mayor, LaGuardia turned up at a Petty Sessions Court that served the poorest ward of the city. He gave the magistrate the day off and took charge of the proceedings himself. Soon, there stood before him an old man dressed in tattered clothes who was accused of stealing a loaf of bread.

‘Why did you steal the bread?’ he asked the old man.

‘Because my daughter’s husband has deserted her, she’s sick and my two grandchildren are starving,’ he was told.

But the shopkeeper, from whom the bread was stolen, wanted no mercy. He insisted on justice, even when LaGuardia asked if he would drop the charges.

‘It's a real bad neighbourhood, your Honour,’ said the shopkeeper. ‘He’s got to be punished to teach other people around here a lesson.’

LaGuardia turned to the man and sighed. ‘I've got to punish you,’ he said. ‘The law makes no exceptions. Ten dollars or ten days in jail?’

But even as he pronounced sentence, and before the defendant could opt for jail – for he didn’t have the ten dollars – LaGuardia had already reached into his wallet and taken out a ten dollar bill. He tossed it into his hat, saying, ‘There, your fine is paid.’ But he hadn’t finished yet. ‘I’m going to fine each person in this courtroom fifty cents for living in a town where a man has to steal bread to feed his grandchildren. Mr Bailiff, collect the fines and give them to the defendant.’

The next morning the New York Times reported the story. A man who had been taken to court for stealing bread, fully expecting to go to prison, left the court house with $47.50 in his pocket, courtesy of the presiding magistrate. Ironically, fifty cents of that amount was contributed by the heartless shopkeeper together with over seventy petty criminals, a handful of New York City policemen and some court officials, all of whom gave the magistrate a standing ovation.

When I was growing up I was introduced to a God of love, but I was always reminded that he’s a God of justice too. The implication being that while God loved me, I had to keep on the right side of him, for he would surely see each of my misdemeanours and punish me.

But my tutors missed the point. They were never quite able to put God’s two great characteristics together as the New York City mayor did that day, when love and justice met.

You can read more of my columns here>>