This
is the strangers’ case,
And
this your mountainish inhumanity.
-Thomas More
Sir Thomas More
Act
II
Today, for the first time, we are not going to be looking at
a random line. And it’s for a few reasons. First, Sir Thomas More is a play
that is not included in the compilation that I pick my Totally Random lines
from, and so it would be impossible to pick this line. But more importantly,
it’s a great line that I’ve been meaning to blog on, and further, it’s a line
that has an incredible amount of relevance to what’s going on today.
Sir Thomas More is a play that is believed to be written by
several playwrights, William Shakespeare included. The scene that this line is
take from is the scene believed to be written by Will. It’s a scene where
Thomas More is brought in to speak to the town folk of London who are on the
verge of a riot. They are rioting because they’re mad at the foreigners who
they believe are stealing their jobs. Thomas More goes into a long speech, but
instead of explaining it further to you, I’ll give you this link and Sir Ian
will explain and then give you the speech. I hope you will take the time to look at it
and I hope you will appreciate the relevance.
This is a picture, circa 1940, of my great-grandparents and their five
grandchildren. The big kid sitting between his grandparents is my dad. This old
couple here came over from Lithuania when they were young, sometime around
1900. My great-grandparents came to America in search of a better life. We’ve
been told that if he had stayed in Lithuania great-granddad would have stood a
good chance of being conscripted into the Russian army. So he fled to what he
hoped would be a better place. John and Theodora came through Ellis Island
separately, legally, and eventually became citizens.
So that all of us in my family are children, removed by one or more generations, of immigrants.
Yes, the two pictured above came legally, but only because they could. If they had to do it
illegally there is no doubt in my mind that they would have. After all, they
were looking for a chance to have a better life for themselves and their
children. This is a universal goal that’s as old as mankind, and This
is the strangers’ case.
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