Address to the U.S. Congress -- Carrie Chapman Catt
Address to the Congress on Women's Suffrage
在妇女选举权大会上的讲话
delivered November 1917, Washington D.C.
1917 年 11 月交付于华盛顿特区
Woman suffrage is inevitable.
妇女选举权是不可避免的。
Suffragists knew it before November 4, 1917; opponents afterward.
妇女参政论者在 1917 年 11 月 4 日之前就知道了这一点；之后的对手。
Three distinct causes made it inevitable.
三个不同的原因使得它不可避免。
First, the history of our country.
首先，我们国家的历史。
Ours is a nation born of revolution, of rebellion against a system of government so securely entrenched in the customs and traditions of human society that in 1776 it seemed impregnable.
我们的国家是一个诞生于革命和反抗政府体系的国家，这种政府体系在人类社会的习俗和传统中根深蒂固，在 1776 年似乎坚不可摧。
From the beginning of things, nations had been ruled by kings and for kings, while the people served and paid the cost.
从一开始，国家就由国王统治并为国王服务，而人民则服务并付出代价。
The American Revolutionists boldly proclaimed the heresies: "Taxation without representation is tyranny." "Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed." The colonists won, and the nation which was established as a result of their victory has held unfailingly that these two fundamental principles of democratic government are not only the spiritual source of our national existence but have been our chief historic pride and at all times the sheet anchor of our liberties.
美国革命党人大胆宣扬异端邪说：“没有代表权的税收就是暴政”。 “政府的正当权力来自于被统治者的同意。”殖民者取得了胜利，而由于他们的胜利而建立的国家始终坚信，民主政府的这两项基本原则不仅是我们国家存在的精神源泉，而且一直是我们主要的历史骄傲，并且始终是我们自由的支柱。
Eighty years after the Revolution, Abraham Lincoln welded those two maxims into a new one: "Ours is a government of the people, by the people, and for the people." Fifty years more passed and the president of the United States, Woodrow Wilson, in a mighty crisis of the nation, proclaimed to the world: "We are fighting for the things which we have always carried nearest to our hearts: for democracy, for the right of those who submit to authority to have a voice in their own government."
独立战争八十年后，亚伯拉罕·林肯将这两条格言融合成一条新格言：“我们的政府是民有、民治、民享的政府。”又过了五十年，美国总统伍德罗·威尔逊在国家面临巨大危机时向世界宣布：“我们正在为我们一直以来最关心的事情而战：为了民主，为了那些屈服于权威的人在自己的政府中拥有发言权的权利。”
All the way between these immortal aphorisms political leaders have declared unabated faith in their truth.
在这些不朽的格言之间，政治领导人一直宣称对其真理的信心丝毫未减。
Not one American has arisen to question their logic in the 141 years of our national existence.
在我们国家存在的 141 年里，没有一个美国人质疑他们的逻辑。
However stupidly our country may have evaded the logical application at times, it has never swerved from its devotion to the theory of democracy as expressed by those two axioms...
无论我们的国家有时多么愚蠢地回避逻辑应用，它从未偏离过对这两条公理所表达的民主理论的奉献……
With such a history behind it, how can our nation escape the logic it has never failed to follow, when its last un-enfranchised class calls for the vote?
有了这样的历史背景，当最后一个没有选举权的阶级要求投票时，我们的国家怎么能逃脱它从未失败过的逻辑呢？
Behold our Uncle Sam floating the banner with one hand, "Taxation without representation is tyranny," and with the other seizing the billions of dollars paid in taxes by women to whom he refuses "representation." Behold him again, welcoming the boys of twenty-one and the newly made immigrant citizen to "a voice in their own government" while he denies that fundamental right of democracy to thousands of women public school teachers from whom many of these men learn all they know of citizenship and patriotism, to women college presidents, to women who preach in our pulpits, interpret law in our courts, preside over our hospitals, write books and magazines, and serve in every uplifting moral and social enterprise.
看看我们的山姆大叔，一只手举着横幅，“没有代表权的征税就是暴政”，另一只手却没收了他拒绝“代表权”的妇女缴纳的数十亿美元税款。再看看他，他欢迎二十一岁的男孩和新成为的移民公民“在自己的政府中发出声音”，而他却剥夺了成千上万名公立学校女教师的基本民主权利，其中许多人从这些女教师那里学到了所有关于公民和爱国主义的知识，拒绝了女大学校长，拒绝了在我们的讲坛上讲道、在我们的法院解释法律、主持我们的医院、撰写书籍和杂志以及在每一个令人振奋的道德和社会事业中服务的妇女的民主权利。
Is there a single man who can justify such inequality of treatment, such outrageous discrimination?
有谁能为这种不平等待遇、这种令人发指的歧视辩护？
Not one...
没有一个...
Second, the suffrage for women already established in the United States makes women suffrage for the nation inevitable.
其次，美国已经确立的妇女选举权使得妇女为国家争取选举权是不可避免的。
When Elihu Root, as president of the American Society of International Law, at the eleventh annual meeting in Washington, April 26, 1917, said, "The world cannot be half democratic and half autocratic.
1917 年 4 月 26 日，美国国际法学会主席伊莱胡·鲁特 (Elihu Root) 在华盛顿举行的第十一届年会上表示：“世界不能是半民主半独裁的。
It must be all democratic or all Prussian.
它必须是完全民主的或完全普鲁士的。
There can be no compromise," he voiced a general truth.
不能妥协，”他说出了一个普遍的事实。
Precisely the same intuition has already taught the blindest and most hostile foe of woman suffrage that our nation cannot long continue a condition under which government in half its territory rests upon the consent of half of the people and in the other half upon the consent of all the people; a condition which grants representation to the taxed in half of its territory and denies it in the other half a condition which permits women in some states to share in the election of the president, senators, and representatives and denies them that privilege in others.
正是同样的直觉已经告诉那些最盲目、最敌视妇女选举权的敌人，我们的国家不能长期继续这样一种状况，即政府在其一半领土上建立在一半人民的同意之上，而在另一半领土上则建立在全体人民的同意之上；这一条件赋予纳税人在其一半领土上的代表权，而在另一半领土上则剥夺了纳税人的代表权；在某些州允许妇女参与总统、参议员和众议员的选举，而在其他州却剥夺了她们的这一特权。
It is too obvious to require demonstration that woman suffrage, now covering half our territory, will eventually be ordained in all the nation.
现在覆盖我们一半领土的妇女选举权最终将在全国范围内实现，这是显而易见的，不需要证明。
No one will deny it.
没有人会否认这一点。
The only question left is when and how will it be completely established.
剩下的唯一问题是何时以及如何完全建立。
Third, the leadership of the United States in world democracy compels the enfranchisement of its own women.
第三，美国在世界民主中的领导地位迫使美国妇女获得选举权。
The maxims of the Declaration were once called "fundamental principles of government." They are now called "American principles" or even "Americanisms." They have become the slogans of every movement toward political liberty the world around, of every effort to widen the suffrage for men or women in any land.
该宣言的格言曾被称为“政府的基本原则”。它们现在被称为“美国原则”，甚至“美国主义”。它们已成为全世界每一次争取政治自由的运动、每一次扩大任何国家的男性或女性选举权的努力的口号。
Not a people, race, or class striving for freedom is there anywhere in the world that has not made our axioms the chief weapon of the struggle.
世界上任何一个争取自由的民族、种族或阶级都将我们的公理作为斗争的主要武器。
More, all men and women the world around, with farsighted vision into the verities of things, know that the world tragedy of our day is not now being waged over the assassination of an archduke, nor commercial competition, nor national ambitions, nor the freedom of the seas.
更重要的是，世界各地所有对事物真相具有远见卓识的男女都知道，当今世界的悲剧并不是因大公被刺杀、商业竞争、民族野心或海洋自由而引发的。
It is a death grapple between the forces which deny and those which uphold the truths of the Declaration of Independence...
这是否认《独立宣言》真理的势力与维护《独立宣言》真理的势力之间的殊死搏斗……
Do you realize that in no other country in the world with democratic tendencies is suffrage so completely denied as in a considerable number of our own states?
您是否意识到，世界上没有哪个具有民主倾向的国家像我们自己的许多州一样完全剥夺了选举权？
There are thirteen black states where no suffrage for women exists, and fourteen others where suffrage for women is more limited than in many foreign countries.
有十三个黑人州没有妇女选举权，另外十四个州的妇女选举权比许多外国国家更有限。
Do you realize that when you ask women to take their cause to state referendum you compel them to do this: that you drive women of education, refinement, achievement, to beg men who cannot read for their political freedom?
你是否意识到，当你要求女性将她们的事业诉诸国家公投时，你就迫使她们这样做：你驱使受过教育、有教养、有成就的女性向那些不识字的男性乞求政治自由？
Do you realize that such anomalies as a college president asking her janitor to give her a vote are overstraining the patience and driving women to desperation?
你是否意识到，像大学校长要求看门人给她投票这样的反常行为会让人失去耐心，让女性陷入绝望？
Do you realize that women in increasing numbers indignantly resent the long delay in their enfranchisement?
您是否意识到越来越多的妇女对长期拖延她们的选举权感到愤怒？
Your party platforms have pledged women suffrage.
你们的政党纲领已承诺妇女选举权。
Then why not be honest, frank friends of our cause, adopt it in reality as your own, make it a party program, and "fight with us"?
那么为什么不成为我们事业的诚实、坦率的朋友，将其作为自己事业的实际应用，使其成为党的纲领，并“与我们一起战斗”呢？
As a party measure -- a measure of all parties -- why not put the amendment through Congress and the legislatures?
作为一项政党措施——所有政党的措施——为什么不将该修正案提交国会和立法机构通过呢？
We shall all be better friends, we shall have a happier nation, we women will be free to support loyally the party of our choice, and we shall be far prouder of our history.
我们都将成为更好的朋友，我们将拥有一个更幸福的国家，我们妇女将可以自由地忠诚地支持我们选择的政党，我们将为我们的历史感到更加自豪。
"There is one thing mightier than kings and armies" -- aye, than Congresses and political parties -- "the power of an idea when its time has come to move." The time for woman suffrage has come.
“有一种东西比国王和军队更强大”——是的，比国会和政党更强大——“当时机成熟时，一个想法的力量”。妇女选举权的时代已经到来。
The woman's hour has struck.
女人的时刻到了。
If parties prefer to postpone action longer and thus do battle with this idea, they challenge the inevitable.
如果各方更愿意推迟行动，从而与这一想法进行斗争，他们就会挑战不可避免的事情。
The idea will not perish; the party which opposes it may.
这个想法不会消失；反对的一方可以。
Every delay, every trick, every political dishonesty from now on will antagonize the women of the land more and more, and when the party or parties which have so delayed woman suffrage finally let it come, their sincerity will be doubted and their appeal to the new voters will be met with suspicion.
从现在起，每一次拖延、每一次诡计、每一次政治不诚实都会越来越激怒这片土地上的妇女，而当那些如此拖延妇女选举权的政党最终放任不管时，他们的诚意将受到怀疑，他们对新选民的呼吁也将受到怀疑。
This is the psychology of the situation.
这就是这种情况的心理。
Can you afford the risk?
你能承担这个风险吗？
Think it over.
想一想。
We know you will meet opposition.
我们知道您会遇到反对。
There are a few "women haters" left, a few "old males of the tribe," as Vance Thompson calls them, whose duty they believe it to be to keep women in the places they have carefully picked out for them.
剩下了一些“憎恨女性的人”，万斯·汤普森称他们为“部落的老男性”，他们认为他们的职责是将女性留在他们为她们精心挑选的地方。
Treitschke, made world famous by war literature, said some years ago, "Germany, which knows all about Germany and France, knows far better what is good for Alsace-Lorraine than that miserable people can possibly know." A few American Treitschkes we have who know better than women what is good for them.
因战争文学而闻名于世的特雷奇克几年前曾说过，“德国了解德国和法国的一切，它比那些悲惨的人们更了解什么对阿尔萨斯-洛林有利。”我们有一些美国特雷奇克斯比女性更了解什么对她们有好处。
There are women, too, with "slave souls" and "clinging vines" for backbones.
也有以“奴隶灵魂”和“攀附藤蔓”为脊梁的女性。
There are female dolls and male dandies.
有女娃娃和男花花公子。
But the world does not wait for such as these, nor does liberty pause to heed the plaint of men and women with a grouch.
但世界不会等待这样的人，自由也不会停下来倾听那些牢骚满腹的男人和女人的抱怨。
She does not wait for those who have a special interest to serve, nor a selfish reason for depriving other people of freedom.
她不等待那些有特殊利益的人去服务，也不以自私的理由剥夺他人的自由。
Holding her torch aloft, liberty is pointing the way onward and upward and saying to America, "Come."
自由高举火炬，指引着前进和向上的道路，并对美国说：“来吧。”
To you and the supporters of our cause in Senate and House, and the number is large, the suffragists of the nation express their grateful thanks.
全国妇女参政论者向您和参众两院众多支持我们事业的人表示衷心的感谢。
This address is not meant for you.
该地址不适合您。
We are more truly appreciative of all you have done than any words can express.
我们对你们所做的一切的感激之情是无法用言语来表达的。
We ask you to make a last, hard fight for the amendment during the present session.
我们请你们在本届会议上为修正案进行最后的、艰苦的斗争。
Since last we asked a vote on this amendment, your position has been fortified by the addition to suffrage territory of Great Britain, Canada, and New York.
自从上次我们要求对该修正案进行投票以来，英国、加拿大和纽约的选举权领土的增加进一步巩固了您的立场。
Some of you have been too indifferent to give more than casual attention to this question.
你们中的一些人对这个问题过于漠不关心，只是随意关注。
It is worthy of your immediate consideration.
这值得您立即考虑。
A question big enough to engage the attention of our allies in wartime is too big a question for you to neglect.
一个足以在战时引起我们盟友注意的大问题是一个你不能忽视的大问题。
Some of you have grown old in party service.
你们中的一些人已经在党的服务中变老了。
Are you willing that those who take your places by and by shall blame you for having failed to keep pace with the world and thus having lost for them a party advantage?
你是否愿意那些逐渐取代你的人指责你未能跟上世界的步伐，从而失去了政党优势？
Is there any real gain for you, for your party, for your nation by delay?
拖延对你、你的政党、你的国家有什么真正的好处吗？
Do you want to drive the progressive men and women out of your party?
你想把进步人士赶出你的政党吗？
Some of you hold to the doctrine of states' rights as applying to woman suffrage.
你们中的一些人坚持适用于妇女选举权的州权利原则。
Adherence to that theory will keep the United States far behind all other democratic nations upon this question.
坚持这一理论将使美国在这个问题上远远落后于所有其他民主国家。
A theory which prevents a nation from keeping up with the trend of world progress cannot be justified.
阻碍一个国家跟上世界进步潮流的理论是没有道理的。
Gentlemen, we hereby petition you, our only designated representatives, to redress our grievances by the immediate passage of the Federal Suffrage Amendment and to use your influence to secure its ratification in your own state, in order that the women of our nation may be endowed with political freedom before the next presidential election, and that our nation may resume its world leadership in democracy.
先生们，我们特此请求你们，我们唯一指定的代表，通过立即通过《联邦选举权修正案》来平息我们的不满，并利用你们的影响力确保该修正案在你们自己的州获得批准，以便我们国家的妇女在下届总统选举之前能够获得政治自由，使我们的国家能够恢复在民主方面的世界领导地位。
Woman suffrage is coming -- you know it.
妇女选举权即将到来——你知道的。
Will you, Honorable Senators and Members of the House of Representatives, help or hinder it?
尊敬的参议员和众议院议员，你们会帮助还是阻碍它？
Book/CDs by Michael E.
Michael E. 的书籍/CD
Eidenmuller, Published by McGraw-Hill (2008) Page Updated : 10/28/21 U.S. Copyright Status : Text and Image = Public domain.
Eidenmuller，McGraw-Hill 出版 (2008) 页面更新日期：21 年 10 月 28 日美国版权状态：文本和图像 = 公共领域。
� Copyright 2001-Present.
� 版权所有 2001 年至今。
American Rhetoric.
美国修辞学。