新自由 The New Freedom

工业化及大量生产的技术，改变了许多美国人工作场所的本质

    民族的新生不是来自上层阶级而是来自下层民众。

    (托马斯) 伍德罗 ． 威尔逊(1856-1924) 出生于弗吉尼亚州，父亲是位严厉的长老会牧师。青少年时代，威尔逊曾在佐治亚州及南卡罗来纳州生活过，置身于内战留下的一片荒凉之中。威尔逊毕业 于北卡罗来纳州戴维森学院，普林斯顿大学，并在约翰．霍普金斯大学获得历史学和政治学的博士学位。威尔逊有关时事问题的演说和文章使他举国闻名。1910年，威尔逊当选为新泽西州州长。依靠民主党中的进步力量，威尔逊于1912年获民主党总统候选人的提名。由于共和党中威廉．霍华德．塔夫特及西奥多．罗斯福的二派支持者闹分裂，威尔逊赢得了竞选。

    下面文章节选自威尔逊竞选总统演讲集《新自由》一书。“新自由”是威尔逊进步演说的口号。

    当我回首历史进程，当我回顾美国的诞生，我发现每一页都写有：民族的新生不是来自上层阶级而是来自下层民众；从默默无闻的民众行列里脱颖而出的天才是使人民重获青春活力的天才。我的全部历史知识，以及有助于我思想的点滴经验和观察，都使我坚信：人类生活的真正智慧是由普通人的经历累积而成的。生活之效用，生活之活力，生活之果实不是自上而下地形成，而是像一棵大树的自然生长一样，从土壤向上形成树干，树干长出树枝，树枝长出叶子，结出果实。默默无闻、奋斗不息的伟大民众，位于万事万物之底，是提高社会水准的动力。一个民族之伟大体现于，也只能体现 于，其普通民众之伟大。

    因此，当今我们国家的首要之急，就是要使那些将成为我们未来领袖，将复活美国生机的伟大的无名人士出来参政。我已表明对普通人的信任；同时，我还要表明，我对自己所说的一清二楚。一个逆流而上的人知道水力；一个正在格斗的人知道打了几拳，知道何处流了血；一个正在热心追求向上的人，是当今美国之事的评判人。这评判人是正在为自己为他人的生活而斗争的人，他热爱别人胜过爱护自己。这样的人将以其判断使你明白当今美国正在发生的事。拿我来说，我希望能以这人的判断为指导。

    我们没有公正的陪审团，一群不公的人──不，我不愿说一群不公的人，而只是极少数人──左右着美国的政策。普通人没有发言权，由于害怕永远不会有发言权而开始感到失望，或害怕将来会再度失去发言权而开始感到失望。因此，我们必须建立一个与美国全体民众同心同德的政府，一个愿意在行动前尽可能最广泛地征求美国人民意愿的政府。执政的首要问题就是要了解普通人正在做什么，想什么。我们大都是普通人；除非突然走运，很少人会高出我们社区的一般水平。因此，有普通人思想的人，有普通人经历的人，通常总是能正确解释美国的人。这难道不正是我们把有关亚伯拉罕．林肯的故事引以自豪的原因吗? 林肯来自普通民众，与来自特权阶级或受过教育的阶级里的人相比，林肯更了解美国。

    美国今天与未来的希望都与昨天的毫无二致，即，希望并相信，从默默无闻的家庭中将出现一批人，一批能成为工业界及政界主人的人。美国的富强存在于普通人的希望，普通人的福利，普通人的事业心及普通人的积极性之中。我们不会因少数绅士指挥工业而富有；我们的富有是因为我们拥有自己的智慧，拥有自己的工业。美国不是由名字见报的人组成的，美国不是由政治上想成为政治领袖的人组成的，美国也不是由夸夸其谈的人组成的──只有当这些人为我们国家的主体，我们国家的原动力，千百万无声无息的伟大民众说话的时候，才谈得上他们的重要性。不能想民众之所想，不能为民众激情所动的人，是不会为美国及其未来目标说话的。能代表美国说话的只能是了解伟大的公民主体思想的人，只能是每日忙于公务的人，只能是日夜辛劳的人，只能是夜晚拖着疲惫的身躯回家的人，只能是继承我们引为自豪的事业的人。

    你们知道，我们有时热血沸腾，是因为我们想到，地球上所有其它国家正等着瞧美国如何以其力量而有所作为，以其物力，以其丰富的资源，以其巨大的财富而有所作为。这些国家正在静观我们这个年轻的民族以自己完整的青春活力将会干出何种事业。我们不禁为自己的强大而自豪。但什么东西能使我们强大呢? 那就是干百万人的艰苦劳动，这些人从不夸夸其谈，毫不出众，而是一天又一天过着谨慎的日子；正是劳动者这一伟大主体才使美国强大。没有人能预测出，我们国家的未来领袖将出自哪个家庭，出自哪个地区，甚至哪个种族。这正是我们这片国土上的一大荣耀。这个国家的伟大领袖并非常常来自那些根基坚固的“成功”之家。

    我记得不久前我在一所学校讲过一番话。我知道那里几乎所有年轻人都是有钱人家的子弟。我让他们明白，我觉得他们很可怜，因为我说：“你们当中大部分同学注定不会有出息。你们不会有所作为，你们也永远不会去争取有所作为。当我们国家的伟大任务正等待人们去完成时，很可能就是你们将拒绝接受任务。那种‘上顿不接下顿’的人，那种离群独立的人，那种背受贫困鞭打的人，将从群众中脱颖而出，将证明他理解群众，了解一个统一而非分裂的国家之利益，将挺身而出成为我们的领袖。”

    以我亲身经历为例，我发现，由“普通人”组成的听众，比起我教过的许多大学生来，能更快地抓住一个要点，能更快地接受一种论点，能更快地明白一种倾向，能更快地领会一种原则──并不是说大学生智力低下，而是他们与生活实际脱节，而“普通”公民天天置身 于日常生活中。对触到他们痛处的东西，你无需向他们解释。

    关于社会自下而上不断获得新生的意义，有这么个例证，一直使我深感兴趣。中世纪的政府，在当时甚行的贵族制度下，并没有腐朽不堪，其唯一原因是，有那么多人，作为政府中卓有成效的工具，是来自教会──那时的唯一教会，伟大的宗教团体，就是我们今天有别于其它宗教团体的罗马天主教会。罗马天主教会在当时乃至今天实行的是一种伟大的民主制。那时，没有一个农民会因为地位谦卑而成不了 神父；没有一个神父会因为毫无名气而成不了教宗。那时，欧洲的各大使馆，各个法庭都是由学问渊博，训练有素，深有造诣的人来掌管，由一个占统治地位的伟大团体，即牧师界来掌管。使中世纪政府富有活力的正是从社会底层不断上升的元气，就是靠从牧师制敞开的渠道里获得的这一伟大团体中普通民众的元气。在我看来，这是一个非常有趣，令人信服的例子，可作为我现在所涉及之事的一个例证。

    政府要保持廉洁，其唯一途径就是要保持各种渠道畅通无阻；这样，没有人会因为自以为地位谦卑而成不了国家的一个组织成分；这样，国家的血脉里将不断拥有新鲜血液来补充；这样，没有人会因为曾经默默无闻而无法从自己所属的阶级中脱颖而出，一跃而上，加入国家领袖的行列。任何压制他人的事，任何将一个机构摆在个人之上的事，任何阻碍贫民百姓。使他们灰心丧气的事，都是有悖于进步之原则的。

    当我看到商界巨头与政界大亨建立了联盟时，当我看到他们还在继续这么做时，我便知道，事情不妙了，这种事定会阻碍社会进步，使社会失去活力。高高在上的这类联盟，旨在压制下层人民，使他们原位不动，甚至使他们降到更低点因此，开明政治应不断打碎这种同盟，在政府组织与伟大的民众主体之间重新搭起桥梁。

    今日，我们政府已经沦入特权人物的手中；今日，有一种默契，即只有少数遴选出的上层阶级才拥有执政的必备条件；今日，如此众多勤勤恳恳的公民遭受社会不公的痛苦打击，成为荒谬绝伦的牺牲品，说么人民将从仁慈的受委托掌管巨额财富的人手中获得一个仁慈的政府，说什么雇员们尽职尽责，其福利的保卫者将给他们一个仁慈的政府──时至今日，当务之急应使这个国家记住：一个国家要么由深卧于她胸膛内的力量来拯救，要么灭亡；国家的新希望、新道德、新威力是由其长涌不息的古井甘泉来浇灌的，而不是靠上层，靠贵族庇护来实现的。花朵不会生根，而是根须长出花朵。天宇清风中万般美貌芳容总是从其根须获得元气。所有生命，除非从深深根植 于普通土壤里的梗茎中汲取养分。否则，决不可能开花结果。玫瑰花儿的所有艳丽，包括其温柔的面颊带有的红润之色，全都归因于躺在土壤深处、无声无息的生命源泉的神奇作用。从土壤里，从无声无息的地球怀抱，往上涌出生命之流、力量之流。从普普通通的土壤里，从人民沈静的心灵里将升腾起今日幸福之流、希望之流、决心之流，它们必定会使大地旧貌换新颜，增添一片光辉。

    听着，我们时代的所谓激进主义，只不过是将人民心中的能量释放出来的自然之功。美国，这一伟大民族，正处于正义之底，美德之底，希望之底；民族存在的根子扎进美丽纯洁的土地，荣誉的土地。当前需要的正是这种激进主义，它将为我们实现一个强大民族的雄心壮志而扫清道路。

When I look back on the processes of history, when I survey the genesis of America, I see this written over every page: that the nations are renewed from the bottom, not from the top; that the genius which springs up from the ranks of unknown men is the genius which renews the youth and energy of the people. Everything I know about history, every bit of experience and observation that has contributed to my thought, has confirmed me in the conviction that the real wisdom of human life is compounded out of the experiences of ordinary men. The utility the vitality, the fruitage of life does not come from the top to the bottom it comes like the natural growth of a great tree, from the soil up through the trunk into the branches to the foliage and the fruit. The great struggling unknown masses of the men who are at the base of everything are the dynamic force that is lifting the levels of society. A nation is as great and only as great as her rank and file.

      So the first and chief need of this nation of ours to-day is to include in the partnership of government all those great bodies of unnamed men who are going to produce our future leaders and renew the future energies of America. And as I confess that, as I confess my belief in the common man, I know what I am saying. The man who is swimming against the stream knows the strength of it. The man who is in the melee knows what blows are being struck and what blood is being drawn. The man who is on the make is the judge of what is happening in America, not the man who has made good; not the man who has emerged from the flood; not the man who is standing on the bank looking on, but the man who is struggling for his life and for the lives of those who are dearer to him than himself. That is the man whose judgment will tell you what is going on in America; that is the man by whose judgment I, for one, wish to be guided.

      We have had the wrong jury; we have had the wrong group,―no, I will not say the wrong group, but too small a group,―in control of the policies of the United States. The average man has not been consulted, and his heart had begun to sink for fear he never would be consulted, and his heart had begun to sink for fear he never would be consulted again. Therefore, we have got to organize a government whose sympathies will be open to the whole body of the people of the United States, a government which will consult as large a proportion of the people of the United States as possible before it acts. Because the great problem of government is to know what the average man is experiencing and is thinking about. Most of us are average men; very few of us rise, except by fortunate accident, above the general level of the community about us; and therefore the man who thinks common thoughts, the man who has had common experiences is almost always the man who interprets America aright. Isn't that the reason that we are proud of such stories as the story of Abraham Lincoln,―a man who rose out of the ranks and interpreted America better than any man had interpreted it who had risen out of the privileged classes or the educated classes of America?

      The hope of the United States in the present and in the future is the same that it has always been: it is the hope and confidence that out of unknown homes will come men who will constitute themselves the masters of industry and of politics. The average hopefulness, the average welfare, the average enterprise, the average initiative, of the United States are the only things that make it rich. We are not rich because a few gentlemen direct our industry; we are rich because of our own intelligence and our own industry. America does not consist of men who get their names into the newspapers; America does not consist politically of the men who set themselves up to be political leaders; she does not consist of the men who do most of her talking,―they are important only so far as they speak for that great voiceless multitude of men who constitute the great body and the saving force of the nation. Nobody who cannot speak the common thought, who does not move by the common impulse, is the man to speak for America, or for any of her future purposes. Only he is fit to speak who knows the thoughts of the great body of citizens, the men who go about their business every day, the men who toil from morning till night, the men who go home tired in the evenings, the men who are carrying on the things we are so proud of.

      You know how it thrills our blood sometimes to think how all the nations of the earth wait to see what America is going to do with her power, her physical power, her enormous resources, her enormous wealth. The nations hold their breath to see what this young country will do with her young unspoiled strength; we cannot help but be proud that we are strong. But what has made us strong? The toil of millions of men, the toil of men who do not boast, who are inconspicuous, but who live their lives humbly from day to day; it is the great body of toilers that constitutes the might of America. It is one of the glories of our land that nobody is able to predict from what family, from what region, from what race, even, the leaders of the country are going to come. The great leaders of this country have not come very often from the established, "successful" families.

      I remember speaking at a school not long ago where I understood that almost all the young men were the sons of very rich people, and I told them I looked upon them with a great, deal of pity, because, I said: "Most of you fellows are doomed to obscurity. You will not do anything. You will never try to do anything, and with all the great tasks of the country waiting to be done. probably you are the very men who will decline to do them. Some man who has been 'up against it,' some man who has come out of the crowd, somebody who has had the whip of necessity laid on his back, will emerge out of the crowd, will show that he understands the crowd, understands the interests of the nation. united and not separated, and will stand up and lead us."

      If I may speak of my own experience, I have found audiences made up of the "common people" quicker to take a point, quicker to under- stand an argument, quicker to discern a tendency and to comprehend a principle, than many a college class that I have lectured to,― not because the college class lacked the intelligence. but because college boys are not in contact with the realities of life, while "common" citizens are in contact with the actual life of day by day: you do not have to explain to them what touches them to the quick.

      There is one illustration of the value of the constant renewal of society from the bottom that has always interested me profoundly. The only reason why government did not suffer dry rot in the Middle Ages under the aristocratic system which then prevailed was that so many of the men who were efficient instruments of government were drawn from the church,― from that great religious body which was then the only church, that body which we now distinguish from other religious bodies as the Roman Catholic Church. The Roman Catholic Church was then, as it is now, a great democracy. There was no peasant so humble that he might not become a priest, and no priest so obscure that he might not become Pope of Christendom; and every chancellery in Europe, every court in Europe, was ruled by these learned, trained and accomplished men,―the priesthood of that great and dominant body. What kept government alive in the Middle Ages was this constant rise of the sap from the bottom, from the rank and file of the great body of the people through the open channels of the priesthood. That, it seems to me, is one of the most interesting and convincing illustrations that could possibly be adduced of the thing that I am talking about.

      The only way that government is kept pure is by keeping these channels open, so that nobody may deem himself so humble as not to constitute a part of the body politic, so that there will constantly be coming new blood into the veins of the body politic; so that no man is so obscure that he may not break the crust of any class he may belong to, may not spring up to higher levels and be counted among the leaders of the state. Anything that depresses, anything that makes the organization greater than the man, anything that blocks, discourages, dismays the humble man, is against all the principles of progress. When I see alliances formed, as they are now being formed, by successful men of business with successful organizers of politics, I know that something has been done that checks the vitality and progress of society. Such an alliance, made at the top, is an alliance made to depress the levels, to hold them where they are, if not to sink them; and, therefore, it is the constant business of good politics to break up such partnerships, to re-establish and reopen the connections between the great body of the people and the offices of government.

      To-day, when our government has so far passed into the hands of special interests; to-day, when the doctrine is implicitly avowed that only select classes have the equipment necessary for carrying on government; to-day when the doctrine is implicitly avowed that only select classes have the equipment necessary for carrying on government; to-day, when so many conscientious citizens, smitten with the scene of social wrong and suffering, have fallen victims to the fallacy that benevolent government can be meted out to the people by kind-hearted trustees of prosperity and guardians of the welfare of dutiful employees―to-day, supremely, does it behoove this nation to remember that a people shall be saved by the power that sleeps in its own deep bosom, or by none; shall be renewed in hope, in conscience, in strength, by waters welling up from its own sweet, perennial springs. Not from above; not by patronage of its aristocrats. The flower does not bear the root, but the root the flower. Everything that blooms in beauty in the air of heaven draws its fairness, its vigor, from its roots. Nothing living can blossom into fruitage unless through nourishing stalks deep-planted in the common soil. The rose is merely the evidence of the vitality of the root; and the real source of its beauty, the very blush that it wears upon its tender cheek, comes from those silent sources of life that lie hidden in the chemistry of the soil. Up from that soil, up from the silent bosom of the earth, rise the currents of life and energy. Up from the common soil, up from the quiet heart of the people, rise joyously to-day streams of hope and determination bound to renew the face of the earth in glory.

      I tell you, the so-called radicalism of our times is simply the effort of nature to release the generous energies of our people. This great American people is at bottom just, virtuous, and hopeful; the roots of its being are in the soil of what is lovely, pure, and of good report, and the need of the hour is just that radicalism that will clear a way for the realization of the aspirations of a sturdy race.