Speech #970259797

This Saturday marks the 100th anniversary of La Guardias birth and I am pleased that this Chamber recently passed a resolution designating December 11. 1982. as Forello H. La Guardia Day. Born to immigrant parents in the Italian section of Greenwich Village. New York City. La Guardia was raised on western army posts where his father served as an enlisted bandmaster. As an ambitious and idealistic young man. he worked his own way through New York University Law School at night. while working as an interpreter at Ellis Island during the day. In the 1920s. La Guardia denounced the hypocrisy of prohibition and opposed the immigration laws as discriminatory. Moreover. he publicly criticized the tax plans of then Secretary of the Treasury Andrew W. Mellon as favoring the rich.