“I can’t help but wonder if Alinksy learned about Thomas More while working with Catholic Churches in Chicago.”
When Robert Bolt wrote his play about Thomas More, he titled it A Man for All Seasons (a description from More’s friend Desiderius Erasmus). The descriptive nickname has weathered the seasons for nearly five centuries because it is true. “He is more important today than when he lived and he will be more important in the future than he is today,” wrote journalist G. K. Chesterton upon More’s canonization in 1935.
Everything that Thomas More defended in 1535 was under attack in 1935 and is under attack today. Thomas More was defending principles, and institutions that are always under attack: marriage, religious freedom, and the rule of law. The last of which is oft overlooked but vitally important. The rule of law is a persistent theme throughout the play and subsequent film. When More’s future son-in-law, Will Roeper, encourages More to arrest Richard Rich, an argument transpires:
More: Go he should if he were the devil himself until he broke the law.
Roper: So now you’d give the Devil benefit of law!
More: Yes. What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?
Roper: I’d cut down every law in England to do that!
More: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned round on you — where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country’s planted thick with laws from coast to coast — man’s laws, not God’s — and if you cut them down — and you’re just the man to do it — d’you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I’d give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety’s sake.