There is a difference between sympathy and compassion, but it has been hard for me to describe until I read this story about Mayor LaGuardia. He was a little man with a large presence. The story was part of a religious article about generosity and how this particular organization was being taught to be generous with everything that the Lord had blessed them with. The article was titled, “How Am I Doing?” written in January of 2006, by Dale Argot. The setting: The story is told about an event during the dark days of the last century—the Great Depression and World War II:
“The people of New York City often referred to Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia as “the Little Flower,” because he was only five feet four and always wore a carnation in his lapel. He was a colorful character who rode along on fire trucks, raided speakeasies with the police, took entire orphanages to baseball games, and whenever New York City newspapers were on strike, read the Sunday funnies to the kids via radio.
One bitterly cold night in January 1935, the mayor turned up at the night court that served the poorest ward of the city. An obscure law allowed the mayor of New York to serve as a magistrate. On this particular evening, LaGuardia invoked his right, 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 her daughter’s husband had deserted her, the daughter was sick, and her two grandchildren were starving. Yet the shopkeeper, from whom the bread was stolen, refused to drop the charges.
“It’s a real bad neighborhood, your Honor,” the shopkeeper 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—10 dollars or 10 days in jail.” But even as he pronounced sentence, the mayor was already reaching into his pocket. He extracted a bill and tossed it into his famous sombrero saying, “Here is the ten dollar fine which I now remit; and furthermore I am going to fine everyone in this courtroom fifty cents for living in a town where a person has to steal bread so that her grandchildren can eat. Mr. Bailiff, collect the fines and give them to the defendant.”
The following day, New York City newspapers reported $47.50 was turned over to a bewildered old lady who had stolen a loaf of bread to feed her starving daughter and grandchildren—50 cents of that amount being contributed by the red-faced store owner. Some 70 petty criminals, as well as a number of New York City policemen—each of whom had just paid 50 cents for the privilege of doing so—gave the mayor a standing ovation.”
Someone has beautifully said, Sympathy sees and says, “I’m sorry.” Compassion sees and says, “I’ll help.” When we learn and understand the difference, we can make a difference. Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia lived the difference and tried to teach his constituency the difference on that cold night in 1935 in a courtroom in New York City.