名人演讲:这场美国总统的就职演说,堪称20世纪之最
2018-04-13 15:36
来源:沪江
作者:
True they have tried, but their efforts have been cast in the pattern of an outworn tradition. Faced by failure of credit they have proposed only the lending of more money. Stripped of the lure of profit by which to induce our people to follow their false leadership, they have resorted to exhortations, pleading tearfully for restored confidence. They only know the rules of a generation of self-seekers. They have no vision, and when there is no vision the people perish.
是的,他们努力过,但他们的努力摆脱不了传统的巢臼。面对不良的信誉,他们提议的只是更多的贷款。当利润失去了吸引力,不能再用来引诱人们服从他们的错误领导时,他们就尝试规劝,声泪俱下的请求人们恢复信心。他们知道的无非是追求私利的那一代人的规则。他们缺乏见地,一旦如此,人民就要蒙难。
Yes, the money changers have fled from their high seats in the temple of our civilization. We may now restore that temple to the ancient truths. The measure of the restoration lies in the extent to which we apply social values more noble than mere monetary profit.
货币兑换商已经从我们文明庙宇中的宝座上逃之夭夭了。我们现在可以使那庙堂恢复传统的信念。至于能恢复到什么程度,这要看我们如何运用比纯粹的金钱利润更可贵的社会价值。
Happiness lies not in the mere possession of money; it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort. The joy and the moral stimulation of work no longer must be forgotten in the mad chase of evanescent profits. These dark days, my friends, will be worth all they cost us if they teach us that our true destiny is not to be ministered unto but to minister to ourselves and to our fellow men.
幸福并不在于拥有多少金钱;而在于成功的喜悦和创造过程中所带来的心灵震颤。在疯狂地追逐那些转瞬即逝的利润后,千万不能忘记劳动带来的喜悦和激励。如果这些惨淡的日子能使我们认识到,我们不是接受别人侍奉,而是为自己和人民服务,那么,我们付出的代价就完全是值得的。
Recognition of the falsity of material wealth as the standard of success goes hand in hand with the abandonment of the false belief that public office and high political position are to be valued only by the standards of pride of place and personal profit; and there must be an end to a conduct in banking and in business which too often has given to a sacred trust the likeness of callous and selfish wrongdoing.
既已认识到把物质财富当作成功的标准是荒谬的,随之而来的则是,我们需要放弃职位显赫仅仅在于高官厚禄的想法;我们必须制止银行界和企业界的这种常常使神圣的职责混同于冷酷无情和自私自利的恶行。
Small wonder that confidence languishes, for it thrives only on honesty, on honor, on the sacredness of obligations, on faithful protection, and on unselfish performance; without them it cannot live. Restoration calls, however, not for changes in ethics alone. This Nation is asking for action, and action now.
难怪信心在减弱,因为自信心的提高需要诚实、荣誉感、神圣的责任感、忠实地维护和无私地作为;而没有这些,哪来的有信心?但是复兴不仅仅在道德领域。这个国家呼唤行动,行动现在开始。我们的首要任务是让人们有工作。只要明智地、勇敢地面对这困难,这不是什么解决不了的问题。
Our greatest primary task is to put people to work. This is no unsolvable problem if we face it wisely and courageously. It can be accomplished in part by direct recruiting by the Government itself, treating the task as we would treat the emergency of a war, but at the same time, through this employment, accomplishing greatly needed projects to stimulate and reorganize the use of our great natural resources.
我们可以像对待战时紧急情况那样,通过政府本身的直接招雇来解决部分问题,并通过这种招雇,同时建设迫切需要的工程,以此来促进和调整天然资源的使用。
Hand in hand with that we must frankly recognize the overbalance of population in our industrial centers and, by engaging on a national scale in a redistribution, endeavor to provide a better use of the land for those best fitted for the land.
同时,我们要坦白地承认工业中心已经劳动力过剩,需借助全国性的重新分配来努力来为最善于使用土地的人提供更好的使用条件。
Yes, the task can be helped by definite efforts to raise the values of agricultural products and with this the power to purchase the output of our cities. It can be helped by preventing realistically the tragedy of the growing loss through foreclosure of our small homes and our farms. It can be helped by insistence that the Federal, the State, and the local governments act forthwith on the demand that their cost be drastically reduced. It can be helped by the unifying of relief activities which today are often scattered, uneconomical, unequal. It can be helped by national planning for and supervision of all forms of transportation and of communications and other utilities that have a definitely public character. There are many ways in which it can be helped, but it can never be helped by merely talking about it. We must act. We must act quickly.
为了促进这项工作,可以通过适当的抬高农产品的价值,这一策略会提高对城市产品的购买力;要从实际出发,防止出现小房产主和农场主因丧失赎回权而日益蒙受损失的悲剧发生;要坚持联邦政府、州政府和地方政府立项响应呼吁大幅度削减经费;要统筹安排救济工作,改变目前那种常常是分散的、效益不大的和不公平的局面;要国家统一规划和监督各种形式的运输、交通以及明确具有公共性质的其他设施。完成这一任务,有许多可以借助的方法,但它绝不能借助于只是说说而已。我们必须行动,而且必须迅速地行动。
And finally, in our progress toward a resumption of work we require two safeguards against a return of the evils of the old order; there must be a strict supervision of all banking and credits and investments; there must be an end to speculation with other people's money, and there must be provision for an adequate but sound currency.
最后,在恢复的过程中,为防止种种弊端卷土重来,我们需要两项保证:必须严格监督所有的银行、信贷和投资;必须严格制止利用他人钱财参与投机行为,必须具备一种充足而健全的货币体系。
These, my friends, are the lines of attack. I shall presently urge upon a new Congress in special session detailed measures for their fulfillment, and I shall seek the immediate assistance of the 48 States.
这就是我们的行动纲领。我会督促新一届国会召开特别会议,提出实施这些路线的详细措施,我还将寻求各州的紧急援助。
Through this program of action we address ourselves to putting our own national house in order and making income balance outgo. Our international trade relations, though vastly important, are in point of time and necessity secondary to the establishment of a sound national economy. I favor as a practical policy the putting of first things first. I shall spare no effort to restore world trade by international economic readjustment, but the emergency at home cannot wait on that accomplishment.
通过这个行动方案,我们要致力于整顿国库和平衡收支。我们的国际贸易关系固然重要,但在时间上和必要性上,要从属于建立健全的国家经济的任务。我赞成务实的方针,首要任务要居首位。我将全力以赴地通过国际经济调整来恢复同各国的贸易,但是,国内的紧急情况不能等待这些的完成。
The basic thought that guides these specific means of national recovery is not narrowly nationalistic. It is the insistence, as a first consideration, upon the Interdependence of the various elements in all parts of the United States of America--a recognition of the old and permanently important manifestation of the American spirit of the pioneer. It is the way to recovery. It is the immediate way. It is the strongest assurance that recovery will endure.
国家复兴的这些具体方法,其基本指导思想不是狭隘的民族主义。它首先考虑的是坚持合众国各个部分、各种因素的相互依赖——即认识到这是美国拓荒精神的传统和永久的重要性。这是通向复兴的道路。这是直接的道路。这是持久复兴的最坚强的保证。
In the field of world policy I would dedicate this Nation to the policy of the good neighbor--the neighbor who resolutely respects himself and, because he does so, respects the rights of others--the neighbor who respects his obligations and respects the sanctity of his agreements in and with a world of neighbors.
在外交政策方面,我认为美国应当奉行睦邻政策——决心尊重自己,也尊重其他国家的权利的邻国——遵守自己的义务,也遵守与世界各国的神圣协议的邻国。
If I read the temper of our people correctly, we now realize as we have never realized before our interdependence on each other; that we can not merely take but we must give as well; that if we are to go forward, we must move as a trained and loyal army willing to sacrifice for the good of a common discipline, because without such discipline no progress can be made, no leadership becomes effective. We are, I know, ready and willing to submit our lives and our property to such discipline, because it makes possible a leadership which aims at the larger good. This I propose to offer, pledging that the larger purposes will bind upon us, bind upon us all as a sacred obligation with a unity of duty hitherto evoked only in times of armed strife.
如果我正确的理解我国人民的情绪的话,那就是:我们现在比以往任何时候都更加认识到我们必须相互依靠;我们不能有所得,并有所施与;我们要前进,就必须像一支受过训练的忠心耿耿的军队那样行动,并甘愿为纪律有所牺牲,因为没有这种纪律,我们就不可能前进,就不可能形成有效的领导力。我知道,我们准备并且愿意为这种纪律献出生命和财产,因为它使一个以更远大的利益为目标的领导成为可能。这就是我想要提供的领导。我保证,这些远大目标将如同一种神圣的义务对我们大家都产生约束,实现迄今只有在战争时期才有过的共同责任感的局面。
With this pledge taken, I assume unhesitatingly the leadership of this great army of our people dedicated to a disciplined attack upon our common problems.
作了这项保证,我毫不犹豫地开始领导这支由我国人民组成的大军,纪律严明的向我们共同的问题开进。
Action in this image, action to this end is feasible under the form of government which we have inherited from our ancestors. Our Constitution is so simple, so practical that it is possible always to meet extraordinary needs by changes in emphasis and arrangement without loss of essential form. That is why our constitutional system has proved itself the most superbly enduring political mechanism the modern world has ever seen. It has met every stress of vast expansion of territory, of foreign wars, of bitter internal strife, of world relations.
用这样的行动并达到这样的目的是可行的,因为我们继承了先辈创立的政体。我们的宪法明确而实用,总是可以在保证基本原则的情况下,通过着重点和排列的变化来满足特殊的需要。正因为如此,在经受过了大规模领土扩张、对外战争、痛苦的内战和国际关系等种种压力后,我们的宪制才不愧为现代世界所产生的最经得起考验的政治体制。
And it is to be hoped that the normal balance of executive and legislative authority may be wholly adequate to meet the unprecedented task before us. But it may be that an unprecedented demand and need for undelayed action may call for temporary departure from that normal balance of public procedure.I am prepared under my constitutional duty to recommend the measures that a stricken nation in the midst of a stricken world may require. These measures, or such other measures as the Congress may build out of its experience and wisdom, I shall seek, within my constitutional authority, to bring to speedy adoption.
我希望,行政权和立法权之间的正常平衡完全能应付我们面临的空前任务。但是,史无前例的要求和迅速行动的需要,也可能使我们暂时偏离公共程序上的这种正常平衡。根据宪法赋予我的职责,我准备提出一些措施,而一个受灾世界上的受灾国家也许需要这些措施。对于这些措施,以及国会根据本身的经验和智慧可能制定的这类其他措施,我将在宪法赋予我的权限内,设法予以迅速的采纳。
But in the event that the Congress shall fail to take one of these two courses, in the event that the national emergency is still critical, I shall not evade the clear course of duty that will then confront me.
但是,一旦国会拒不采纳这两条路线中的一条,如果国家紧急情况刻不容缓,我将不再回避我所面临的责任。我将要求国会允许我使用最后的非常情况开展的广泛的行政权来应付危机,就像我们真的遭到外敌入侵时授予的权力那样。
I shall ask the Congress for the one power to wage a war against the emergency, as great as the power that would be given to me if we were in fact invaded by a foreign foe.
感谢大家寄予我重任,我一定以时代所要求的勇气和献身精神来承担,我会鞠躬尽瘁。
For the trust reposed in me, I will return the courage and the devotion that befit the time. I can do no less. We face the arduous days that lie before us in the warm courage of national unity; with the clear consciousness of seeking old and precious moral values; with the clean satisfaction that comes from the stern performance of duty by old and young alike. We aim at the assurance of a rounded, a permanent national life.
正视眼前的严峻考验,怀着举国一致给我们带来的热情和勇气,怀着追寻传统的、珍贵的道德观念的明确意识,怀着男女老少都能通过克尽职守而得到的问心无愧的满足。我们的目标在于保证国民生活的圆满和长治久安。
We do not distrust the future of essential democracy. The people of the United States have not failed. In their need they have registered a mandate that they want direct, vigorous action. They have asked for discipline and direction under leadership. They have made me the present instrument of their wishes. In the spirit of the gift I take it.
我们并不怀疑基本民主制度前途光明。美国人民并没有失败。他们在需要时表达了自己的委托,即要求采取直接而有力的行动。他们要求有领导的纪律和引导,他们现在选择了我作为实现他们的愿望的工具。
In this dedication of a Nation we humbly ask the blessing of God. May He protect each and every one of us. May Heguide me in the days to come
在此举国奉献之际,我们谦卑地请求上帝恩赐。愿上帝保佑我们每个人。愿上帝在未来的日子里指引我前进。