(单词翻译:单击)
听力文本
Welcome to THE MAKING OF A NATION -- American history in VOA Special English. Grover Cleveland was elected president of the United States in eighteen eighty-four. He was the first Democratic Party candidate to win a presidential election in almost twenty-eight years. Grover Cleveland defeated James Blaine, a senator from the Republican Party. The election was very close. Many Republicans did not vote for their own candidate. They voted for Cleveland instead. They believed he was honest and that Blaine was not. This week in our series, Kay Gallant and Harry Monroe tell us about the presidency of Grover Cleveland. Cleveland began his administration by announcing that he would reduce waste in the government. He would make government more like business. He said he would support reforms to let ability -- not politics -- decide who would get government jobs. Democratic Party leaders were quick to protest. They explained to Cleveland that the party owed jobs to those who had worked for his victory.
Cleveland had to compromise. He permitted about eighty thousand government jobs to be taken from Republicans and given to Democrats. This left twelve thousand jobs. These would be given to people who did the best on government examinations. Cleveland's decision angered Republican reformers who had voted for him. They accused him of surrendering to the leaders of the Democratic Party. On other issues, however, Cleveland refused to compromise. He opposed government economic aid to any industrial group. He vetoed a bill giving aid to farmers whose crops had failed. And he vetoed another bill giving more money to men who had served as soldiers during America's civil war of the eighteen sixties. The president also showed his independence by investigating gifts of public land that the government had made to the railroad, wood and cattle industries. He found that many of these land grants were made illegally. He got back much of the land. He opened it to settlers. President Cleveland signed into law two bills he believed would improve government. One was the Electoral Count Act. It set new rules for counting the electoral votes of the states. It would prevent future disputes over presidential elections, like the one in eighteen seventy-six. The other bill changed the list of officials who could become president, if the president and vice president died or were removed from office.
First on the list -- after the vice president -- was the secretary of state. Congress changed this law again in nineteen forty-seven. And there have been four amendments since then. Today, the speaker of the House of Representatives would succeed the vice president as president. Then would come the president pro tempore of the Senate. And then, the secretary of state. Grover Cleveland approved a bill giving the government control over the cost of railroad transportation. The bill was called the Interstate Commerce Act. It limited the amount of money railroads could demand from people who needed to travel or transport their goods. The law established the idea that the government could control industries, when necessary, for the public good. President Cleveland also was concerned about a growing number of labor disputes that took place in the United States in the late eighteen hundreds. He proposed that Congress create a labor committee to help settle the disputes. Congress failed to act on this proposal. But its lack of action did not stop the rise of a labor organization that had been formed a few years earlier. The group soon would become the most important labor union in the United States. It was the American Federation of Labor, or A.F.L. Led by Samuel Gompers, the A.F.L. was different from earlier labor groups. It did not try to put all workers into one union. Instead, it tied together a number of different unions and gave them general leadership.
The A.F.L. was different in other ways. It did not oppose the economic system of capitalism. It said only that labor should get more of the earnings of capitalism. The A.F.L. also opposed extremists who used labor protests to change the social system. What the A.F.L. called for were things workers wanted immediately. Higher wages. A shorter work day. Better working conditions. One of its first demands was an eight-hour work day. This demand led to a number of strikes and protests throughout the country. The most serious incident took place in Chicago's Haymarket Square. More than one thousand union supporters went to a meeting there organized by an extremist. They stood calmly and listened to speeches. Just before the meeting ended, someone threw a bomb into a group of policemen. The bomb exploded with a blinding flash. Seven policemen were killed. The other policemen began shooting at the crowd. Some people in the crowd fired back. When it was all over, ten persons had been shot to death. Fifty others were hurt. The incident set off a wave of fear and anger across the country. The public demanded action against union extremists. The Haymarket Square violence slowed the growth of organized labor in the United States for many years. It would be some time before labor became a powerful force in national events.
In the spring of eighteen eighty-six, President Cleveland announced that he was to be married. The ceremony took place in the White House. A few months later, President Cleveland and the First Lady went to New York City for the official ceremony welcoming the Statue of Liberty. The statue was a gift to the people of the United States from the people of France. It represented the alliance between their two countries during America's war for independence from Britain. The statue was the creation of French artist Frederic-Auguste Bartholdi. He decided to make a statue that would represent freedom -- a Statue of Liberty. He said it should stand on an island in New York harbor. There, he said, it would welcome all who came to America through that gateway. Bartholdi decided to make a copper statue in the image of a woman -- Lady Liberty. High above her head, she would hold a torch of freedom to light the world. The statue's face was the face of Bartholdi's mother. The artist asked French engineer Gustave Eiffel to build a steel support to hold the heavy statue. Eiffel was the man who later built the Eiffel Tower in Paris. The statue was built in France. Then the pieces were sent across the Atlantic Ocean. It was rebuilt in New York.
Grover Cleveland and his wife were not the only Americans to attend the Statue of Liberty ceremonies in eighteen eighty-six. Thousands of people crowded onto ships in the harbor to watch the great event. Thousands of others crowded the shorelines around the harbor. Everyone cheered wildly when a signal was given and a huge cloth fell from the statue. Lady Liberty stood holding her torch high for freedom. Under her feet were the broken chains of tyranny. Below the statue was a poem. It called to the poor and oppressed people of the world. It told them to come to America to find a land of hope and freedom. Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shores. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door. The Statue of Liberty was a great success. It was one of the great engineering wonders of its time. And it filled Americans with pride in their tradition of freedom and openness to people from all lands. We will continue our story next week.
重点解析
1.fail to 未能；没有
Many doctors fail to report cases, even though food poisoning is a notifiable disease.
很多医生没有报告病例，尽管食物中毒是应该通报的。
2.a number of 一些；很多
The research begs a number of questions.
研究绕过了一些问题。
3.call for 呼吁；主张
They angrily called for Robinson's resignation.
他们愤怒地要求鲁宾逊辞职。
4.be different from 和......不同；不同于
This will be different from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
这将与伊拉克战争和阿富汗战争不同。
参考译文
欢迎收听VOA慢速英语之建国史话节目。格罗弗·克利夫兰于1884年当选为美国总统，他是近28年来第一位赢得总统选举的民主党候选人。格罗弗·克利夫兰击败了共和党参议员詹姆斯·布莱恩。选举结果非常接近，许多共和党人没有给他们自己的候选人投票，他们反而给克利夫兰投了票。他们相信他是诚实的，而布莱恩不是。本周，在我们的系列节目中，凯·格兰特和哈里·门罗将向我们讲述格罗弗·克利夫兰的总统任期内发生的故事。克利夫兰政府一开始就宣布他将减少政府的浪费行为，他会让政府更像企业。他说，他将支持改革，让能力（而不是政治）决定谁将获得政府工作。解释说，该党对那些为他的胜利而工作的人负有责任。
克利夫兰不得不妥协，他允许把大约8万个政府职位从共和党人手中转移给民主党人。这样就留出了一万两千个工作岗位。这些职位将授予那些在政府考试中表现最好的人。克利夫兰的决定激怒了为他投票的共和党改革者，他们指责他向民主党领导人投降。但在其他问题上，克利夫兰拒绝妥协。他反对政府向任何工业集团提供经济援助，他否决了一项向庄稼歉收的农民提供资助的法案。此外，他还否决了另一项法案，该法案将更多的钱款捐给在19世纪60年代参与美国内战的军人。总统还通过调查政府拨给铁路、木材和养牛业的公共土地来显示其独立性。他发现这些土地出让金中有许多是非法获得的。他收回了大部分土地，将其向定居者开放。总统克利夫兰签署了两项他认为可以改善政府的法案。一项是选举计数法，它为各州的选举计票制定了新规则，这将防止未来在总统选举中出现争端，比如1876年的那次选举。将改变可能成为总统的官员名单。
名单上的第一位，列在副总统之后的是国务卿。国会于1947年再次修改了这项法律。自此，出现过四个修正案。现在，众议院议长将接替副总统担任总统，随后是参议院临时主席，然后是国务卿。格罗夫·克利夫兰批准了一项法案，让政府控制铁路运输成本，这项法案被称为《州际商业法》。它限制了铁路公司向那些需要旅行或运输货物的人收取的资金。法律确立了这样一种观念，即政府可以在必要时为了公共利益控制工业。总统克利夫兰还对美国18世纪末发生的越来越多的劳资纠纷感到担忧，他建议国会成立一个劳工委员会来帮助解决争端。国会未就该项提案采取行动，但其缺乏行动的表现并未阻止几年前成立的劳工组织的崛起。该组织不久将成为美国最重要的工会，这就是美国劳工联合会（A.F.L）。在塞缪尔·戈佩斯的领导下，美国劳工联合会与早期的劳工团体不同。它并没有试图让所有的工人组成一个工会。相反，它把一些不同的工会联结在一起，赋予他们总的领导权。
美国劳工联合会在其他方面有所不同。它并不反对资本主义的经济制度。它只说，劳工应该从资本主义的收益中获得更多收益。劳工联合会还反对极端分子利用劳工抗议来改变社会制度。劳工联合会要求的是工人们想立即获得的东西，更高的工资、更短的工作日、更好的工作环境。其最初的一项要求是每天工作8小时，这项要求导致全国各地出现一些罢工和抗议活动。最严重的事件发生在芝加哥海市广场。一千多名工会支持者参加了一个极端分子组织的会议，他们平静地站着，聆听演讲。就在集会结束前，有人向一群警察投掷了一枚炸弹。炸弹突然爆炸，导致七名警察遇害。其他警察开始向人群开枪，人群中有些人还击。一切都结束时，有10人惨遭枪杀。另有50人受伤。这一事件在全国掀起了一股恐惧和愤怒的浪潮，公众要求对工会的极端分子采取行动。干草市广场暴动在几年的时间里减缓了美国有组织劳工的增长。工党在国家大事中成为一支强大的主力军还需要一段时间。
1886年春天，克利夫兰总统宣布他将结婚，仪式在白宫举行。几个月后，克利夫兰总统和第一夫人前往纽约参加欢迎自由女神像的正式仪式。该雕像是法国人民送给美国人民的礼物，代表了美国与英国开战时，为获得独立而在美法两国之间建立的联盟。该雕像是由法国艺术家弗雷德里克·奥古斯特·巴托尔迪创作的。他决定制作代表自由的雕像，自由女神像。他说，它应该站在纽约港口的一个小岛上。在那里，它将欢迎所有经由此处来到美国的人。巴托尔迪决定以一个女人的形象制作一尊铜像，即自由女神像，她高举自由的火炬照亮世界。雕像的面孔是巴托尔迪母亲的脸庞。这位艺术家请法国工程师古斯塔夫·埃菲尔建造一个钢支架，用来支撑这尊沉重的雕像。埃菲尔就是后来在巴黎建造埃菲尔铁塔的人。这座雕像是在法国建造的。然后，人们将各部分送到大西洋彼岸，在纽约重新组装。
格罗弗·克利夫兰和他的妻子并非1886年参加自由女神像落成仪式唯一的美国人，成千上万的人挤在港口的船只上观看这一盛事。还有很多人挤满了港口周围的海岸线。当信号发出后，巨大的帷幕从雕像上落下来时，每个人都疯狂地欢呼雀跃。自由女神高举着火炬屹立在那里寻求自由，在她的脚下是暴政的枷锁。雕像下面有一首诗，向全世界的穷人和受压迫的人民发出号召。它告诉他们到美国来寻找一片充满希望和自由的土地。给我那些疲惫的、可怜的、蜷缩着的、渴望自由呼吸的民众，那些拥挤在海岸上可怜的无用物。把这些无家可归的人抛给我吧，我把灯举到金色的大门旁。自由女神像大获成功，这是当时最伟大的工程奇迹之一。它让美国人对他们的自由传统和对来自世界各地的人们抱持的开放态度感到自豪。我们将在下周继续讲述这个故事。
译文为可可英语翻译，未经授权请勿转载！
