VoiceofCourage勇气之声译文.docx

仅供个人参考 仅供个人参考 不得用于商业用途 不得用于商业用途 Unit Two: History and Personality Text A Voice of Courage By Jon athan Alter ?勇气之声 〔美国〕乔纳森?奥尔特 ?A few days after Franklin Delano Roosevelt was sworn into office, he sat in the White House working on a radio speech about the countrys banking crisis, scheduled for delivery on Sun day, March 12, 1933. It was the depths of the Depressi on, with a quarter of America ns out of work, homeless and destitute. Glancing out the win dow, FDR saw a workma n tak ing dow n the in augural scaffoldi ng on the White House groun ds. 在富兰克林?德拉诺?罗斯福宣誓就职的几天后， 他坐在白宫里起草一份关于美国银行 业危机的广播演说， 它将于1933年3月12日这个星期天播出。 此时此刻，美国正处于经济 大萧条的水深火热之中，四分之一的美国人不是失业，就是无家可归， 穷困潦倒。罗斯福向 窗外望去，只见一个工人正在拆掉白宫临时搭建的总统就职演说的平台。 ? I decided rd try to make a speech that this workman could understand, he told Louis Howe, his chief aide. “我一定要让这样的普通工人也能听得懂我的演讲。”他对首席助理路易斯?霍夫说。 ??The American economic system was in a state of shock. On Saturday, March 4, a few hours before FDRs swearing-in, the governors of New York, Illinois and Pennsylvania signed orders clos ing banks in those states. The New York Stock Excha nge had suspe nded tradi ng, and the Chicago Board of Trade bolted its doors for the first time since its founding in 1848. The terrifying runs that began the year before on more than 5,000 failing banks had stripped rural areas of capital and now threate ned to overwhelm America n cities. 美国的经济体系正处于危难之中。 3月4日星期六，就在罗斯福宣誓就职前几个小时， 纽约州、伊利诺斯州和宾夕法尼亚州的州长们刚刚签署了指令， 关闭这些州的银行。纽约证 券交易所已经暂停了交易。而自从 1848年成立以来，芝加哥期货交易所也头一次关上了大 门。始于前一年的“挤兑”现象令人惊慌， ？5000多家银行倒闭，农村资金极度匮乏，而现 在美国的城市也面临着全面的危机。 This was the bottom. If you had your money in a bank that went bust, you were wiped out. With no idea whether banks would reope n, milli ons of people hid their few rema ining assets un der their mattresses, where no one could steal them without a fight. 这就是底线了。如果你存钱的银行倒闭了， 那么你也就完蛋了。 数以百万计的美国人无 法确定银行是否能够重新开门， 于是把自己仅剩的那点财产都藏在褥垫下面。 除非经过一场 激战，藏在这里的钱谁也偷不走。 Roosevelts in augural address at the Capitol had begu n to restore hop