|
|
历史背景：1943年为了取得美国对中国抗战的更多支持和同情，宋美龄作为蒋中正的特使，于该年二月访问美国。她成为美国罗斯福总统的夫人的贵宾，在白宫住了十一天。她那优美的仪态、高雅的风度和适度的言谈，赢得了罗斯福夫妇的敬佩。在此期间并完成对美国募款的任务，并于二月十八日在国会发表演说，成为第一位在美国国会发表演说的中国人，也是第二位女性（第一位是荷兰女王），劝说美国将注意力从欧洲战场转移到日本对中国的侵略，为中国赢得了美国的同情，随后，宋美龄又去美国各地发表演说，所到之处无不引起轰动，总计有超过25万人听过她的演说。
宋美龄1943年2月18日在美国众议院的演说
(Soong Mei-ling, “Addresses to the House of Respresentatives and to the Senate,” February 18, 1943.)
Mr. Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives of the United
States:
At any time it would be a privilege for me to address Congress, more
especially this present august body which will have so much to do in shaping the
destiny of the world. In speaking to Congress I am literally speaking to the
American people. The Seventy-seventh Congress, as their representatives,
fulfilled the obligations and responsibilities of its trust by declaring war on
the aggressors. That part of the duty of the people’s representatives was
discharged in 1941. The task now confronting you is to help win the war and to
create and uphold a lasting peace which will justify the sacrifices and
sufferings of the victims of aggression.
Before enlarging on this subject, I should like to tell you a little about
my long and vividly interesting trip to your country from my own land which has
bled and borne unflinchingly the burden of war for more than 5 1/2 years. I
shall not dwell, however, upon the part China has played in our united effort to
free mankind from brutality and violence. I shall try to convey to you, however
imperfectly, the impressions gained during the trip.
First of all, I want to assure you that the American people have every
right to be proud of their fighting men in so many parts of the world. I am
particularly thinking of those of your boys in the far-flung, ut-of-the-way
stations and areas where life is attended by dreary drabness—this because their
duty is not one of spectacular performance and they are not buoyed up by
excitement of battle. They are called upon, day after colorless day, to perform
routine duties such as safeguarding defenses and preparing for possible enemy
action. It has been said, and I find it true from personal experience, that it
is easier to risk one’s life on the battlefield than it is to perform customary
humble and humdrum duties which, however, are just as necessary to winning the
war. Some of your troops are stationed in isolated spots quite out of reach of
ordinary communications. Some of your boys have had to fly hundreds of hours
over the sea from an improvised airfield in quests often disappointingly
fruitless, of enemy submarines.
They, and others, have to stand the monotony of waiting—just waiting. But,
as I told them, true patriotism lies in possessing the morale and physical
stamina to perform faithfully and conscientiously the daily tasks so that in the
sum total the weakest link is the strongest.
Your soldiers have shown conclusively that they are able stoically to
endure homesickness, the glaring dryness, and scorching heat of the Tropics, and
keep themselves fit and in excellent fighting trim. They are amongst the unsung
heroes of this war, and everything possible to lighten their tedium and buoy up
theirmorale should be done. That sacred duty is yours. The American Army is
better fed than any army in the world. This does not mean, however, that they
can live indefinitely on canned food without having the effects tell on them.
These admittedly are the minor hardships of war, especially when we pause to
consider that in many parts of the world, starvation prevails. But peculiarly
enough, oftentimes it is not the major problems of existence which irk a man’s
soul; it is rather the pin pricks, especially those incidental to a life of
deadly sameness, with tempers frayed out and nervous systems torn to shreds.
The second impression of my trip is that America is not only the cauldron
of democracy, but the incubator of democratic principles. At some of the places
I visited, I met the crews of your air bases. There I found first generation
Germans, Italians, Frenchmen, Poles, Czechoslovakians, and other nationals. Some
of them had accents so thick that, if such a thing were possible, one could not
cut them with a butter knife. But there they were—all Americans, all devoted to
the same ideals, all working for the same cause and united by the same high
purpose. No suspicion or rivalry existed between them. This increased my belief
and faith that devotion to common principles eliminates differences in race, and
that identity of ideals is the strongest possible solvent of racial
dissimilarities.
|
|
发表于 2016-7-12 22:07:06