My fellow countryman: When four years ago we met to inaugurate a President, the Republic, single-minded in anxiety, stood in spirit here.
4年前,當我們聚在一起舉行總統就職典禮,合眾國憂心如焚,群情激奮。
We dedicated ourselves to the fulfillment of a vision
我們致力于實現一個理想
to speed the time when there would be for all the people that security and peace essential to the pursuit of happiness.
讓全體人民為追求幸福所必不可少的安全與和平環境早日到來。
We of the Republic pledged ourselves to drive from the temple of our ancient faith those who had profaned it;
我們合眾國人民立下誓言:要把玷污我們傳統信仰的人趕出廟堂;
to end by action, tireless and unafraid, the stagnation and despair of that day. We did those first things first.
要堅韌不拔地、無所畏懼地用行動來結束當時的蕭條和失望,我們首先解決了這些當務之急。
Our covenant with ourselves did not stop there.
我們的誓約沒有就此止步。
Instinctively we recognized a deeper need the need to find through government
需要通過政府找到實現共同目標的手段,
the instrument of our united purpose to solve for the individual the ever-rising problems of a complex civilization.
為每個人去解決復雜文明社會所日益產生的問題。
Repeated attempts at their solution without the aid of government had left us baffled and bewildered.
試圖不要政府的幫助來解決這些問題,已使我們屢屢碰壁和一籌莫展。
For, without that aid, we had been unable to create those moral controls over the services of science
圇為,沒有這種幫助,我們就無法從道德上來控制科學的使用;
which are necessary to make science a useful servant instead of a ruthless master of mankind.
有了這種必要的控制,才能把科學變成人類的有用的仆人,而不是無情的主人。
To do this we knew that we must find practical controls over blind economic forces and blindly selfish men.
為了做到這一點。我們知道必須找到切實可行的辦法,控制那些盲目的經濟力量和利令智昏的人。
We of the Republic sensed the truth that democratic government has innate capacity to protect its people against disasters once considered inevitable,
我們合眾國人民認識到一條真理:民主政府生來就有能力保護人民,使他們免遭一度認為是不可避免的災難,
to solve problems once considered unsolvable.
解決一度認為是不可解決的問題。
We would not admit that we could not find a way to master economic epidemics just as,after centuries of fatalistic suffering, we had found a way to master epidemics of disease.
我們聽天由命地忍受了幾個世紀之后,找到了控制瘟疫的辦法,所以,我們不承認找不到控制經濟瘟疫的辦法。
We refused to leave the problems of our common welfare to be solved by the winds of chance and the hurricanes of disaster.
我們拒絕把我們的共同福利問題交給機會的陣風和災難的狂飆去擺布。
In this we Americans were discovering no wholly new truth; we were writing a new chapter in our book of self-government.
在這方面,我們美國人不是在發明全新的真理。而是在為我們的自治史冊寫下新的篇章。