美国历史上最经典演讲 A LEFT-HANDED COMMENCEMENT ADDRESS

第一篇：美国历史上最经典演讲 A LEFT-HANDED COMMENCEMENT ADDRESS

A LEFT-HANDED COMMENCEMENT ADDRESS

(1983)

I want to thank the Mills College Class of '83 for offering me a rare chance: to speak aloud in public in the language of women.I know there are men graduating, and I don't mean to exclude them, far from it.There is a Greek tragedy where the Greek says to the foreigner, “If you don't understand Greek, please signify by nodding.” Anyhow, commencements are usually operated under the unspoken agreement that everybody graduating is either male or ought to be.That's why we are all wearing these twelfth-century dresses that look so great on men and make women look either like a mushroom or a pregnant stork.Intellectual tradition is male.Public speaking is done in the public tongue, the national or tribal language;and the language of our tribe is the men's language.Of course women learn it.We're not dumb.If you can tell Margaret Thatcher from Ronald Reagan, or Indira Gandhi from General Somoza, by anything they say, tell me how.This is a man's world, so it talks a man's language.The words are all words of power.You've come a long way, baby, but no way is long enough.You can't even get there by selling yourself out: because there is theirs, not yours.Maybe we've had enough words of power and talk about the battle of life.Maybe we need some words of weakness.Instead of saying now that I hope you will all go forth from this ivory tower of college into the Real World and forge a triumphant career or at least help your husband to and keep our country strong and be a success in everythingas I know you already havethat's their game.Not against men, eitherthe valley of the shadow, the deep, the depths of life.All that the Warrior denies and refuses is left to us and the men who share it with us and therefore, like us, can't play doctor, only nurse, can't be warriors, only civilians, can't be chiefs, only indians.Well so that is our country.The night side of our country.If there is a day side to it, high sierras, prairies of bright grass, we only know pioneers' tales about it, we haven't got there yet.We're never going to get there by imitating Machoman.We are only going to get there by going our own way, by living there, by living through the night in our own country.So what I hope for you is that you live there not as prisoners, ashamed of being women, consenting captives of a psychopathic social system, but as natives.That you will be at home there, keep house there, be your own mistress, with a room of your own.That you will do your work there, whatever you're good at, art or science or tech or running a company or sweeping under the beds, and when they tell you that it's second-class work because a woman is doing it, I hope you tell them to go to hell and while they're going to give you equal pay for equal time.I hope you live without the need to dominate, and without the need to be dominated.I hope you are never victims, but I hope you have no power over other people.And when you fail, and are defeated, and in pain, and in the dark, then I hope you will remember that darkness is your

country, where you live, where no wars are fought and no wars are won, but where the future is.Our roots are in the dark;the earth is our country.Why did we look up for blessing-instead of around, and down? What hope we have lies there.Not in the sky full of orbiting spy-eyes and weaponry, but in the earth we have looked down upon.Not from above, but from below.Not in the light that blinds, but in the dark that nourished, where human beings grow human souls.

第二篇：美国历史上最经典演讲Elizabeth Glaser

Elizabeth Glaser

1992 Democratic National Convention Address

delivered 14 July 1992, New York, NY

I'm Elizabeth Glaser.Eleven years ago, while giving birth to my first child, I hemorrhaged and was transfused with seven pints of blood.Four years later, I found out that I had been infected with the AIDS virus and had unknowingly passed it to my daughter, Ariel, through my breast milk, and my son, Jake, in utero.Twenty years ago I wanted to be at the Democratic Convention because it was a way to participate in my country.Today, I am here because it's a matter of life and death.Exactly--Exactly four years ago my daughter died of AIDS.She did not survive the Reagan Administration.I am here because my son and I may not survive four more years of leaders who say they care, but do nothing.I--I am in a race with the clock.This is not about being a Republican or an Independent or a Democrat.It's about the future--for each and every one of us.I started out just a mom--fighting for the life of her child.But along the way I learned how unfair America can be today, not just for people who have HIV, but for many, many people--poor people, gay people, people of color, children.A strange spokesperson for such a group: a well-to-do white woman.But I have learned my lesson the hard way, and I know that America has lost her path and is at risk of losing her soul.America wake up: We are all in a struggle between life and death.I understand--I understand the sense of frustration and despair in our country, because I know firsthand about shouting for help and getting no answer.I went to Washington to tell Presidents Reagan and Bush that much, much more had to be done for AIDS research and care, and that children couldn't be forgotten.The first time, when nothing happened, I thought, “They just didn't hear me.” The second time, when nothing happened, I thought, “Maybe I didn't shout loud enough.” But now I realize they don't hear because they don't want to listen.When you cry for help and no one listens, you start to lose your hope.I began to lose faith in America.I felt my country was letting me down--and it was.This is not the America I was raised to be proud of.I was raised to believe that other's problems were my problems as well.But when I tell most people about HIV, in hopes that they will help and care, I see the look in their eyes: “It's not my problem,” they're thinking.Well, it's everyone's problem and we need a leader who will tell us that.We need a visionary to guide us--to say it wasn't all right for Ryan White to be banned from school because he had AIDS, to say it wasn't alright for a man or a woman to be denied a job because they're infected with this virus.We need a leader who is truly committed to educating us.I believe in America, but not with a leadership of selfishness and greed--where the wealthy get health care and insurance and the poor don't.Do you know--Do you know how much my AIDS care costs? Over 40,000 dollars a year.Someone without insurance can't afford this.Even the drugs that I hope will keep me alive are out of reach for others.Is their life any less valuable? Of course not.This is not the America I was raised to be proud of--where rich people get care and drugs that poor people can't.We need health care for all.We need a leader who will say this and do something about it.I believe in America, but not a leadership that talks about problems but is incapable of solving them--two HIV commission reports with recommendations about what to do to solve this crisis sitting on shelves, gathering dust.We need a leader who will not only listen to these recommendations, but implement them.I believe in America, but not with a leadership that doesn't hold government accountable.I go to Washington to the National Institutes of Health and say, “Show me what you're doing on HIV.” They hate it when I come because I try to tell them how to do it better.But that's why I love being a taxpayer, because it's my money and they must feel accountable.I believe in an America where our leaders talk straight.When anyone tells President Bush that the battle against AIDS is seriously under-funded, he juggles the numbers to mislead the public into thinking we're spending twice as much as we really are.While they play games with numbers, people are dying.I believe in America, but an America where there is a light in every home.A thousand points of light just wasn't enough: My house has been dark for too long.Once every generation, history brings us to an important crossroads.Sometimes in life there is that moment when it's possible to make a change for the better.This is one of those moments.For me, this is not politics.This is a crisis of caring.In this hall is the future--women, men of all colors saying, “Take America back.” We are--We are just real people wanting a more hopeful life.But words and ideas are not enough.Good thoughts won't save my family.What's the point of caring if we don't do something about it? A President and a Congress that can work together so we can get out of this gridlock and move ahead, because I don't win my war if the President cares and the Congress, or if the Congress cares and the President doesn't support the ideas.The people in this hall this week, the Democratic Party, all of us can begin to deliver that partnership, and in November we can all bring it home.My daughter lived seven years, and in her last y

第三篇：美国历史上最经典演讲John F. Kennedy

John F.Kennedy

Ich bin ein Berliner(“I am a 'Berliner'”)

delivered 26 June 1963, West Berlin

I am proud to come to this city as the guest of your distinguished Mayor, who has symbolized throughout the world the fighting spirit of West Berlin.And I am proud--And I am proud to visit the Federal Republic with your distinguished Chancellor who for so many years has committed Germany to democracy and freedom and progress, and to come here in the company of my fellow American, General Clay, who--

--who has been in this city during its great moments of crisis and will come again if ever needed.Two thousand years ago--Two thousand years ago, the proudest boast was “civis Romanus sum.”1 Today, in the world of freedom, the proudest boast is “Ich bin ein Berliner.”(I appreciate my interpreter translating my German.)

There are many people in the world who really don't understand, or say they don't, what is the great issue between the free world and the Communist world.Let them come to Berlin.There are some who say--There are some who say that communism is the wave of the future.Let them come to Berlin.And there are some who say, in Europe and elsewhere, we can work with the Communists.Let them come to Berlin.And there are even a few who say that it is true that communism is an evil system, but it permits us to make economic progress.Lass' sie nach Berlin kommen.Let them come to Berlin.Freedom has many difficulties and democracy is not perfect.But we have never had to put a wall up to keep our people in--to prevent them from leaving us.I want to say on behalf of my countrymen who live many miles away on the other side of the Atlantic, who are far distant from you, that they take the greatest pride, that they have been able to share with you, even from a distance, the story of the last 18 years.I know of no town, no city, that has been besieged for 18 years that still lives with the vitality and the force, and the hope, and the determination of the city of West Berlin.While the wall is the most obvious and vivid demonstration of the failures of the Communist system--for all the world to see--we take no satisfaction in it;for it is, as your Mayor has said, an offense not only against history but an offense against humanity, separating families, dividing husbands and wives and brothers and sisters, and dividing a people who wish to be joined together.What is--What is true of this city is true of Germany: Real, lasting peace in Europe can never be assured as long as one German out of four is denied the elementary right of free men, and that is to make a free choice.In 18 years of peace and good faith, this generation of Germans has earned the right to be free, including the right to unite their families and their nation in lasting peace, with good will to all people.You live in a defended island of freedom, but your life is part of the main.So let me ask you, as I close, to lift your eyes beyond the dangers of today, to the hopes of tomorrow, beyond the freedom merely of this city of Berlin, or your country of Germany, to the advance of freedom everywhere, beyond the wall to the day of peace with justice, beyond yourselves and ourselves to all mankind.Freedom is indivisible, and when one man is enslaved, all are not free.When all are free, then we look--can look forward to that day when this city will be joined as one and this country and this great Continent of Europe in a peaceful and hopeful globe.When that day finally comes, as it will, the people of West Berlin can take sober satisfaction in the fact that they were in the front lines for almost two decades.All--All free men, wherever they may live, are citizens of Berlin.And, therefore, as a free man, I take pride in the words “Ich bin ein Berliner.”

第四篇：美国历史上最经典演讲 Franklin Delano Roosevelt

Franklin Delano Roosevelt

First Fireside Chat

“The Banking Crisis”

My friends:

I want to talk for a few minutes with the people of the United States about banking--to talk with the comparatively few who understand the mechanics of banking, but more particularly with the overwhelming majority of you who use banks for the making of deposits and the drawing of checks.I want to tell you what has been done in the last few days, and why it was done, and what the next steps are going to be.I recognize that the many proclamations from State capitols and from Washington, the legislation, the Treasury regulations, and so forth, couched for the most part in banking and legal terms, ought to be explained for the benefit of the average citizen.I owe this, in particular, because of the fortitude and the good temper with which everybody has accepted the inconvenience and hardships of the banking holiday.And I know that when you understand what we in Washington have been about, I shall continue to have your cooperation as fully as I have had your sympathy and your help during the past week.First of all, let me state the simple fact that when you deposit money in a bank, the bank does not put the money into a safe deposit vault.It invests your money in many different forms of credit--in bonds, in commercial paper, in mortgages and in many other kinds of loans.In other words, the bank puts your money to work to keep the wheels of industry and of agriculture turning around.A comparatively small part of the money that you put into the bank is kept in currency--an amount which in normal times is wholly sufficient to cover the cash needs of the average citizen.In other words, the total amount of all the currency in the country is only a comparatively small proportion of the total deposits in all the banks of the country.What, then, happened during the last few days of February and the first few days of March? Because of undermined confidence on the part of the public, there was a general rush by a large portion of our population to turn bank deposits into currency or gold--a rush so great that

the soundest banks couldn't get enough currency to meet the demand.The reason for this was that on the spur of the moment it was, of course, impossible to sell perfectly sound assets of a bank and convert them into cash, except at panic prices far below their real value.By the afternoon of March third, a week ago last Friday, scarcely a bank in the country was open to do business.Proclamations closing them, in whole or in part, had been issued by the Governors in almost all the states.It was then that I issued the proclamation providing for the national bank holiday, and this was the first step in the Government¡¯s reconstruction of our financial and economic fabric.The second step, last Thursday, was the legislation promptly and patriotically passed by the Congress confirming my proclamation and broadening my powers so that it became possible in view of the requirement of time to extend the holiday and lift the ban of that holiday gradually in the days to come.This law also gave authority to develop a program of rehabilitation of our banking facilities.And I want to tell our citizens in every part of the Nation that the national Congress--Republicans and Democrats alike--showed by this action a devotion to public welfare and a realization of the emergency and the necessity for speed that it is difficult to match in all our history.The third stage has been the series of regulations permitting the banks to continue their functions to take care of the distribution of food and household necessities and the payment of payrolls.This bank holiday, while resulting in many cases in great inconvenience, is affording us the opportunity to supply the currency necessary to meet the situation.Remember that no sound bank is a dollar worse off than it was when it closed its doors last week.Neither is any bank which may turn out not to be in a position for immediate opening.The new law allows the twelve Federal Reserve Banks to issue additional currency on good assets and thus the banks that reopen will be able to meet every legitimate call.The new currency is being sent out by the Bureau of Engraving and Printing in large volume to every part of the country.It is sound currency because it is backed by actual, good assets.Another question you will ask is this: Why are all the banks not to be reopened at the same time? The answer is simple and I know you will understand it: Your Government does not intend that the history of the past few years shall be repeated.We do not want and will not have another epidemic of bank failures.As a result, we start tomorrow, Monday, with the opening of banks in the twelve Federal Reserve Bank cities--those banks, which on first examination by the Treasury, have already been found to be all right.That will be followed on Tuesday by the resumption of all other functions by banks already found to be sound in cities where there are recognized clearing houses.That means about two hundred and fifty cities of the United States.In other words, we are moving as fast as the mechanics of the situation will allow us.On Wednesday and succeeding days, banks in smaller places all through the country will resume business, subject, of course, to the Government's physical ability to complete its survey It is necessary that the reopening of banks be extended over a period in order to permit the banks to make applications for the necessary loans, to obtain currency needed to meet their requirements, and to enable the Government to make common sense checkups.Please let me make it clear to you that if your bank does not open the first day you are by no means justified in believing that it will not open.A bank that opens on one of the subsequent days is in exactly the same status as the bank that opens tomorrow.I know that many people are worrying about State banks that are not members of the Federal Reserve System.There is no occasion for that worry.These banks can and will receive assistance from member banks and from the Reconstruction Finance Corporation.And, of course, they are under the immediate control of the State banking authorities.These State banks are following the same course as the National banks except that they get their licenses to resume business from the State authorities, and these authorities have been asked by the Secretary of the Treasury to permit their good banks to open up on the same schedule as the national banks.And so I am confident that the State Banking Departments will be as careful as the national Government in the policy relating to the opening of banks and will follow the same broad theory.It is possible that when the banks resume a very few people who have not recovered from their fear may again begin withdrawals.Let me make it clear to you that the banks will take care of all needs, except, of course, the hysterical demands of hoarders, and it is my belief that hoarding during the past week has become an exceedingly unfashionable pastime in every part of our nation.It needs no prophet to tell you that when the people find that they can get their money--that they can get it when they want it for all legitimate purposes--the phantom of fear will soon be laid.People will again be glad to have their money

where it will be safely taken care of and where they can use it conveniently at any time.I can assure you, my friends, that it is safer to keep your money in a reopened bank than it is to keep it under the mattress.The success of our whole national program depends, of course, on the cooperation of the public--on its intelligent support and its use of a reliable system.Remember that the essential accomplishment of the new legislation is that it makes it possible for banks more readily to convert their assets into cash than was the case before.More liberal provision has been made for banks to borrow on these assets at the Reserve Banks and more liberal provision has also been made for issuing currency on the security of these good assets.This currency is not fiat currency.It is issued only on adequate security, and every good bank has an abundance of such security.One more point before I close.There will be, of course, some banks unable to reopen without being reorganized.The new law allows the Government to assist in making these reorganizations quickly and effectively and even allows the Government to subscribe to at least a part of any new capital that may be required.I hope you can see, my friends, from this essential recital of what your Government is doing that there is nothing complex, nothing radical in the process.We have had a bad banking situation.Some of our bankers had shown themselves either incompetent or dishonest in their handling of the people¡¯s funds.They had used the money entrusted to them in speculations and unwise loans.This was, of course, not true in the vast majority of our banks, but it was true in enough of them to shock the people of the United States, for a time, into a sense of insecurity and to put them into a frame of mind where they did not differentiate, but seemed to assume that the acts of a comparative few had tainted them all.And so it became the Government¡¯s job to straighten out this situation and do it as quickly as possible.And that job is being performed.I do not promise you that every bank will be reopened or that individual losses will not be suffered, but there will be no losses that possibly could be avoided;and there would have been more and greater losses had we continued to drift.I can even promise you salvation for some,at least, of the sorely presses banks.We shall be engaged not merely in reopening sound banks but in the creation of more sound banks through reorganization.It has been wonderful to me to catch the note of confidence from all over the country.I can never be sufficiently grateful to the people for the loyal support that they have given me in their acceptance of the judgment that has dictated our course, even though all our processes may not have seemed clear to them.After all, there is an element in the readjustment of our financial system more important than currency, more important than gold, and that is the confidence of the people themselves.Confidence and courage are the essentials of success in carrying out our plan.You people must have faith;you must not be stampeded by rumors or guesses.Let us unite in banishing fear.We have provided the machinery to restore our financial system, and it is up to you to support and make it work.It is your problem, my friends, your problem no less than it is mine.Together we cannot fail.

第五篇：美国历史上最经典演讲 First Inaugural Address

Woodrow Wilson

First Inaugural Address

There has been a change of government.It began two years ago, when the House of Representatives became Democratic by a decisive majority.It has now been completed.The Senate about to assemble will also be Democratic.The offices of President and Vice-President have been put into the hands of Democrats.What does the change mean? That is the question that is uppermost in our minds to-day.That is the question I am going to try to answer, in order, if I may, to interpret the occasion.It means much more than the mere success of a party.The success of a party means little except when the Nation is using that party for a large and definite purpose.No one can mistake the purpose for which the Nation now seeks to use the Democratic Party.It seeks to use it to interpret a change in its own plans and point of view.Some old things with which we had grown familiar, and which had begun to creep into the very habit of our thought and of our lives, have altered their aspect as we have latterly looked critically upon them, with fresh, awakened eyes;have dropped their disguises and shown themselves alien and sinister.Some new things, as we look frankly upon them, willing to comprehend their real character, have come to assume the aspect of things long believed in and familiar, stuff of our own convictions.We have been refreshed by a new insight into our own life.We see that in many things that life is very great.It is incomparably great in its material aspects, in its body of wealth, in the diversity and sweep of its energy, in the industries which have been conceived and built up by the genius of individual men and the limitless enterprise of groups of men.It is great, also, very great, in its moral force.Nowhere else in the world have noble men and women exhibited in more striking forms the beauty and the energy of sympathy and helpfulness and counsel in their efforts to rectify wrong, alleviate suffering, and set the weak in the way of strength and hope.We have built up, moreover, a great system of government, which has stood through a long age as in many respects a model for those who seek to set liberty upon foundations that will endure against fortuitous change, against storm and accident.Our life contains every great thing, and contains it in rich abundance.But the evil has come with the good, and much fine gold has been corroded.With riches has come inexcusable waste.We have squandered a great part of what we might have used, and have not stopped to conserve the exceeding bounty of nature, without which our genius for enterprise would have been worthless and impotent, scorning to be careful, shamefully prodigal as well as admirably efficient.We have been proud of our industrial achievements, but we have not hitherto stopped thoughtfully enough to count the human cost, the cost of lives snuffed out, of energies overtaxed and broken, the fearful physical and spiritual cost to the men and women and children upon whom the dead weight and burden of it all has fallen pitilessly the years through.The groans and agony of it all had not yet reached our ears, the solemn, moving undertone of our life, coming up out of the mines and factories, and out of every home where the struggle had its intimate and familiar seat.With the great Government went many deep secret things which we too long delayed to look into and scrutinize with candid, fearless eyes.The great Government we loved has too often been made use of for private and selfish purposes, and those who used it had forgotten the people.At last a vision has been vouchsafed us of our life as a whole.We see the bad with the good, the debased and decadent with the sound and vital.With this vision we approach new affairs.Our duty is to cleanse, to reconsider, to restore, to correct the evil without impairing the good, to purify and humanize every process of our common life without weakening or sentimentalizing it.There has been something crude and heartless and unfeeling in our haste to succeed and be great.Our thought has been “Let every man look out for himself, let every generation look out for itself,” while we reared giant machinery which made it impossible that any but those who stood at the levers of control should have a chance to look out for themselves.We had not forgotten our morals.We remembered well enough that we had set up a policy which was meant to serve the humblest as well as the most powerful, with an eye single to the standards of justice and fair play, and remembered it with pride.But we were very heedless and in a hurry to be great.5 We have come now to the sober second thought.The scales of heedlessness have fallen from our eyes.We have made up our minds to square every process of our national life again with the standards we so proudly set up at the beginning and have always carried at our hearts.Our work is a work of restoration.We have itemized with some degree of particularity the things that ought to be altered and here are some of the chief items: A tariff which cuts us off from our proper part in the commerce of the world, violates the just principles of taxation, and makes the Government a facile instrument in the hand of private interests;a banking and currency system based upon the necessity of the Government to sell its bonds fifty years ago and perfectly adapted to concentrating cash and restricting credits;an industrial system which, take it on all its sides, financial as well as administrative, holds capital in leading strings, restricts the liberties and limits the opportunities of labor, and exploits without renewing or conserving the natural resources of the country;a body of agricultural activities never yet given the efficiency of great business undertakings or served as it should be through the instrumentality of science taken directly to the farm, or afforded the facilities of credit best suited to its practical needs;watercourses undeveloped, waste places unreclaimed, forests untended, fast disappearing without plan or prospect of renewal, un-regarded waste heaps at every mine.We have studied as perhaps no other nation has the most effective means of production, but we have not studied cost or economy as we should either as organizers of industry, as statesmen, or as individuals.Nor have we studied and perfected the means by which government may be put at the service of humanity, in safeguarding the health of the Nation, the health of its men and its women and its children, as well as their rights in the struggle for existence.This is no sentimental duty.The firm basis of government is justice, not pity.These are matters of justice.There can be no equality or opportunity, the first essential of justice in the body politic, if men and women and children be not shielded in their lives, their very vitality, from the consequences of great industrial and social processes which they can not alter, control, or singly cope with.Society must see to it that it does not itself crush or weaken or damage its own constituent parts.The first duty of law is to keep sound the society it serves.Sanitary laws, pure food laws, and laws determining conditions of labor which individuals are powerless to determine for themselves are intimate parts of the very business of justice and legal efficiency.These are some of the things we ought to do, and not leave the others undone, the old-fashioned, never-to-be-neglected, fundamental safeguarding of property and of individual right.This is the high enterprise of the new day: To lift everything that concerns our life as a Nation to the light that shines from the hearthfire of every man's conscience and vision of the right.It is inconceivable that we should do this as partisans;it is inconceivable we should do it in ignorance of the facts as they are or in blind haste.We shall restore, not destroy.We shall deal with our economic system as it is and as it may be modified, not as it might be if we had a clean sheet of paper to write upon;and step by step we shall make it what it should be, in the spirit of those who question their own wisdom and seek counsel and knowledge, not shallow self-satisfaction or the excitement of excursions whither they can not tell.Justice, and only justice, shall always be our motto.And yet it will be no cool process of mere science.The Nation has been deeply stirred, stirred by a solemn passion, stirred by the knowledge of wrong, of ideals lost, of government too often debauched and made an instrument of evil.The feelings with which we face this new age of right and opportunity sweep across our heartstrings like some air out of God's own presence, where justice and mercy are reconciled and the judge and the brother are one.We know our task to be no mere task of politics but a task which shall search us through and through, whether we be able to understand our time and the need of our people, whether we be indeed their spokesmen and interpreters, whether we have the pure heart to comprehend and the rectified will to choose our high course of action.This is not a day of triumph;it is a day of dedication.Here muster, not the forces of party, but the forces of humanity.Men's hearts wait upon us;men's lives hang in the balance;men's hopes call upon us to say what we will do.Who shall live up to the great trust? Who dares fail to try? I summon all honest men, all patriotic, all forward-looking men, to my side.God helping me, I will not fail them, if they will but counsel and sustain me!