Word: piras
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...rainy day when Florence's Mayor Giorgio La Pira was a Deputy in Rome, he characteristically started for the door without umbrella, overcoat, or hat. A fellow Deputy insisted on lending him a raincoat. An hour later, La Pira returned, dripping from head to foot. To the astonished Deputy, he explained: "I came across an old man in the street who was cold . . ." "Yes," stammered the Deputy, "but that was my raincoat." La Pira replied soothingly: "You can buy another, my son, you can buy another...
Last week this willingness to sacrifice other people's property to his own Christian impulses had got controversial Mayor La Pira, the man who wrested Florence from Communist control for the Christian Democrats four years ago, into his deepest trouble...
Villas on the Hill. It is the precept of bachelor Mayor La Pira, who for years lived in a single cell in the famed Convent of San Marco, that every man in Florence is entitled to a roof over his head-no matter what the law says. When, in late 1952, yielding to landlords' pleas, the national government began to permit evic-ions from rent-controlled apartments, La Pira took action. "A Christian society is a fraternal society," he proclaimed, "and when even one man is excluded, when even one man lacks bread or a roof, society ceases...
...prepared to sell the property for demolition. But the workers staged a sit-in strike, demanding that the government take over the plant and save their jobs. Since 70% of them are Communists, they directed their appeal principally to the Communist Party. Last week none other than Mayor la Pira drove up to the old building, formally requisitioned the foundry for the city of Florence, handed the workers checks totaling $1,600 and told them to keep working. The workers thereupon chose a 26-year-old Communist among them to be their boss...
...legality of Giorgio's requisition was, to put it mildly, highly dubious. As justification for it, Lawyer la Pira cited an 1865 law empowering requisition in case of disaster, and a similar clause in the present constitution-ignoring the fact that the intent in both cases was for the national government to take over, not a municipality. Communists uttered cheers and huzzahs, the right-wing Socialists passed a resolution of approval, and Tuscany's industrialists, who hate La Pira, denounced him. La Pira might gain more popularity, they sputtered, but he had achieved it by adding one more...