参考译文：

1920年人们担心共产主义威胁公民权利

美国宪法保护公民的自由，包括言论自由、新闻自由和宗教自由。美国宪法中的权利法案明确了这些公民权利。然而，联邦政府并不总是遵守这些宪法赋予的公民权利。例如，在十八世纪，约翰.亚当斯总统就支持出台法律停止托马斯.杰斐逊和民主党批评联邦政府。在内战期间，亚伯拉罕.林肯就采取强硬措施阻止报纸发表有关军事消息。在二十世纪五十年代，参议员约瑟夫.麦卡锡指责一些无辜的人为共产主义分子和叛国者。其中一些政府严重指责的行为发生在1919年和1920年之间，一些政府官员有时对劳工领导人、外国人和其他人采取非法措施。本周我们就向你讲述发生在这一时期的著名的所谓的“红色威胁”。

之所以采取这些激进的行为是因为美国人担心共产主义的威胁，这些担心源于在第一次世界大战期间日益增长的劳工运动。在一战期间，工人罢工越来越频繁，工人们愿意冒失去工作的危险，组织罢工以求改善他们的工作条件。伍德罗.威尔逊总统一直支持劳工运动，而且他试图让劳工与企业主进行和平谈判。然而当罢工使工厂关门影响到政府为战争所做的努力时，官方对工人运动的支持也就停止了。威尔逊总统和他的助手认为工人应该把国家利益放在个人利益之上，他们对工人说，只有等战争结束后再提提高工资和改善工作条件的要求。

通常情况下，工人们在等待，但当一战在1918年结束时，美国工人开始为了提高工资而进行大规模的罢工，1919年大约有二百万工人在罢工，这些罢工者有建筑工人，有肉类加工者、有火车司机等，而且还有造船工人、鞋厂工人和电报公司的工人。绝大多数罢工工人所要求的都是工会传统意义上的要求：如更高的工资和更少和劳动时间等。但有一些工人还开始要求改变经济体系本身，他们呼吁联邦政府控制重要的私营企业，如铁路工人要求联邦政府控制铁路运营、煤矿工人也要求联邦政府控制他们的产业，甚至在一些保守的以谷物种植为主的州，有二十万农业组成一个团体，要求改变他们的主要经济成份。

所有这些的抗议震惊了传统的美国人，因为他们认为他们的国家是安居乐业的天堂，他们看到了少数工会的需求，由此他们担心日益增长的罢工潮意味着美国将不得不像俄罗斯那样出现布尔什维克革命，毕竟列宁自己曾经警告说，布尔什维克革命将在世界其他国家传播开来。1919年的几件事件增强了人们对暴力革命的担忧。有一枚炸弹在一位来自美国东南部乔治亚州参议员家门口发生爆炸，甚至还有一枚炸弹在美国司法部长米切尔.帕尔默（Mitchell Palmer）的家门口爆炸。然而，最严重的冲突事件发生在马萨诸塞州的波士顿的警察罢工，这些警察要求提高工资，但警察署长拒绝与警察谈判，结果，这些警察举行罢工。当警察进行罢工时，小偷开始冲击未受保护的家庭和店铺。因此，马萨诸塞州州长加尔文.柯立芝（Calvin Coolidge）最终要求州地方部队采取措施阻止警察的罢工，他的行动击败了警察的罢工，绝大多数警察失去了工作。

对于许多美国人来说，这些行为已经太过份了，于是他们开始指责工会和其他一些计划进行革命行动的组织，而且还举行了强有力的抗议活动，保护国家免遭那些疑似激进分子的影响。这些活动的领导人指责数以千计的人是共产主义分子或“红色分子”，这就是著名的“红色威胁”。当然，绝大多数人对革命是深表担忧的，他们认为那些参与工会活动的许多外国人不诚实，而且他们在经过血腥的一战后已经厌烦了社会变革。因此，来自一些不同城市的许多美国人开始针对那些他们嫌疑的所谓共产主义分子采取了暴力行为。例如，在纽约，一群身穿军队制服的人袭击了一家社会主义的报纸，他们殴打正在工作的工人并摧毁他们的设备，在西部华盛顿州的中心城市，有四个人在工会和其反对者的冲突中死亡。

美国公众普遍情绪是反对劳动工会和政治左派人士，许多人认为任何赞同或支持左派观点的人都是试图推翻民主政治的革命行为。许多州和地方政府通过相关法律，规定参加支持这种革命行为的组织就是属于犯罪，有28个州还通过了挥舞红旗就是犯罪的法律。

美国民众还要求联邦政府对这些左派分子采取行动，当时的总统威尔逊身体很虚弱，他只能关心他让美国加入新成立的国际联盟的梦想。但美国司法部长帕尔默听到了民众要求采取行动的呼声。帕尔默希望在明年的总统大选中能够获胜，于是他决定采取强有力的行动来获得选民的注意。在他所采取的一系列行动中，有一项行动是阻止煤矿工人参加罢工，随后他又命令对左派领导人进行抓捕。在被捕的人中有许多是无辜的，但官方仍然将他们在未经审判的情况下关进监狱数周。帕尔默还将那些被怀疑参与所谓革命行动的外国人驱逐出境，他对记者说，这些计划推翻美国人美好生活的共产主义分子就是罪犯。

人们的恐惧情绪和猜疑也影响到美国人生活的其他各个方面，许多人和社会团体被指控支持共产主义，有一些著名人士也在被指控之中，如电影演员查理.卓别林、教育家约翰.杜威（John Dewey）、法学教授费利克斯.法兰克福（Felix Frankfurter）等都在被指控之中。所谓的红色威胁引起了许多无辜的百姓不敢发表自己的言论，他们担心会因此而被指控为共产主义分子。但很快，所谓的红色威胁于1920年就在全美国消失了，只有短短几个月时间，人们就开始不相信司法部长帕尔默了，人们已经厌烦了他的激进行为。共和党领导人查尔斯.埃文斯.休斯（Charles Evans Hughes）和其他领导人呼吁司法部在逮捕和指控人时必须遵守法律。

到1920年夏天，所谓的红色威胁结束了，即使9月份在纽约发生一次较大规模的炸弹爆炸也没有改变美国人要求恢复言论自由和回归法治社会的决心。

所谓的红色威胁并没有持续多长时间，但这确是一件大事，它表明，在一战后，许多美国人已经厌烦了社会变革，他们需要的是和平和经济发展。当然，对于美国人来说，表达他们情绪的传统方式是选举，而且全国日益增长的保守势力也清楚地表明了1920年美国总统大选的形势。欲知后事如何，请看下周分解。

简评：

在一个民主程度很高的美国社会中，竟然也出现了如此极端的社会行为，这表明一个社会和一个人一样，有时也是很盲目的，有时也是很极端的，如何让社会回归平衡，只有让社会中的每一分子都能够自由地表达其观点时，才能实现。

民众总有各种不同的情绪，如何让每个人都能表达他们自己的情绪呢？选举是一种非常好的和平方式，但这种选举必须是自由的，不受任何人影响的选举，只有这种选举，才能真正地表达每个人的观点，也只有经过这样的选举，其选举结果才会真正得到民众的支持和认可。

因此，我想，一个社会出现什么问题并不可怕，可怕的是当出现问题时，采取什么样的解决方式。是像帕尔默那样，为一己之私利而采取极端行为？还是在民主和法律的框架中，让民众自己来决定社会的走向呢？正如毛主席曾经说过，人民，只有人民才是社会的主人，让每一个人都发挥自己的主观能动性，都能真切地表达自己的观点，那么这个社会是人民的社会，这个国家才是人民的国家。

Fear of Communism in 1920 Threatens Civil Rights　

　

Strikers in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, around 1919　1919年前后，宾夕法尼亚州匹兹堡发生大罢工

The United States Constitution guarantees freedoms such as freedom of speech, freedom of the press and freedom of religion. The Bill of Rights in the Constitution protects these and other individual rights. But the government has not always honored all of the rights in the Constitution.　In the seventeen hundreds, for example, President John Adams supported laws to stop Thomas Jefferson and the Democratic Party from criticizing the government.　During the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln took strong actions to prevent newspapers from printing military news. And, during the nineteen fifties, Senator Joseph McCarthy accused innocent people of being communists and traitors.　Some of the most serious government attacks on personal rights took place in nineteen nineteen and nineteen twenty. A number of government officials took sometimes unlawful actions against labor leaders, foreigners and others.　This week in our series, we discuss the campaign that came to be known as the "Red Scare."　

These actions took place because of American fears about the threat of communism. Those fears were tied closely to the growth of the organized labor movement during World War One. There were a number of strikes during the war. More and more often, workers were willing to risk their jobs and join together to try to improve working conditions.　President Woodrow Wilson had long supported organized labor. And he tried to get workers and business owners to negotiate peacefully.　But official support for organized labor ended when strikes closed factories that were important to the national war effort. President Wilson and his advisers felt workers should put the national interest before their private interest. They told workers to wait until after the war to demand more pay and better working conditions.　

In general, American workers did wait. But when the war finally ended in nineteen eighteen, American workers began to strike in large numbers for higher pay.　As many as two million workers went on strike in nineteen nineteen. There were strikes by house builders, meat cutters, and train operators. And there were strikes in the shipyards, the shoe factories and the telephone companies.　Most striking workers wanted the traditional goals of labor unions: more pay and shorter working hours. But a growing number of them also began to demand major changes in the economic system itself. They called for government control of certain private industries.　Railroad workers, for example, wanted the national government to take permanent control of running the trains. Coal miners, too, demanded government control of their industry. And even in the conservative grain-farming states, two hundred thousand farmers joined a group that called for major economic changes.　

All these protests came as a shock to traditional Americans who considered their country to be the home of free business. They saw little need for labor unions. And they feared that the growing wave of strikes meant the United States faced the same revolution that had just taken place in Russia. After all, Lenin himself had warned that the Bolshevik Revolution would spread to workers in other countries.　Several events in nineteen nineteen only increased this fear of violent revolution. A bomb exploded in the home of a senator from the southeastern state of Georgia. And someone even exploded a bomb in front of the home of Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer, the nation's chief law officer.　However, the most frightening event was a strike by police in Boston, Massachusetts.　The policemen demanded higher wages. But the police chief refused to negotiate with them. As a result, the policemen went on strike. When they did, thieves began to break into unprotected homes and shops. Massachusetts Governor Calvin Coolidge finally had to call out state troops to protect the people. His action defeated the strike. Most of the policemen lost their jobs.　

All this was too much for many Americans. They began to accuse labor unions and others of planning a revolution. And they launched a forceful campaign to protect the country from these suspected extremists.　Leaders of this campaign accused thousands of people of being communists, or "reds." The campaign became known as the Red Scare.　Of course, most people were honestly afraid of revolution. They did not trust the many foreigners who were active in unions. And they were tired of change and social unrest after the bloody world war.　A number of these Americans in different cities began to take violent actions against people and groups that they suspected of being communist extremists.　In New York, a crowd of men in military uniforms attacked the office of a socialist newspaper. They beat the people working there and destroyed the equipment. In the western city of Centralia, Washington, four people were killed in a violent fight between union members and their opponents.　

Riot police

Public feeling was against the labor unions and political leftists. Many people considered anyone with leftist views to be a revolutionary trying to overthrow democracy. Many state and local governments passed laws making it a crime to belong to organizations that supported revolution. Twenty-eight states passed laws making it a crime to wave red flags.　

People also demanded action from the national government. President Wilson was sick and unable to see the situation clearly. He cared about little except his dream of the United States joining the new League of Nations.　But Attorney General Palmer heard the calls for action. Palmer hoped to be elected president the next year. He decided to take strong actions to gain the attention of voters.　One of Palmer's first actions as Attorney General was to prevent coal miners from going on strike. Next, he ordered a series of raids to arrest leftist leaders. A number of these arrested people were innocent of any crime. But officials kept many of them in jail, without charges, for weeks.　Palmer expelled from the country a number of foreigners suspected of revolutionary activity. He told reporters that communists were criminals who planned to overthrow everything that was good in life.　

Strike leader in Gary, Indiana, advising demonstrators around 1919　1919年前后，在印第安那州的加里，一名领导人向示威者发表讲话

Feelings of fear and suspicion extended to other parts of American life. Many persons and groups were accused of supporting communism. Such famous Americans as actor Charlie Chaplin, educator John Dewey, and law professor Felix Frankfurter were among those accused.　The Red Scare caused many innocent people to be afraid to express their ideas. They feared they might be accused of being a communist.　But as quickly as the Red Scare swept across the country so, too, did it end in nineteen twenty. In just a few months, people began to lose trust in Attorney General Palmer. They became tired of his extreme actions. Republican leader Charles Evans Hughes and other leading Americans called for the Justice Department to obey the law in arresting and charging people.　

By the summer of nineteen twenty, the Red Scare was over. Even a large bomb explosion in New York in September did not change the opinion of most Americans that the nation should return to free speech and the rule of law.　

The Red Scare did not last long. But it was an important event. It showed that many Americans after World War One were tired of social changes. They wanted peace and business growth.　Of course, the traditional way for Americans to show their feelings is through elections. And this growing conservatism of the nation showed itself clearly in the presidential election of nineteen twenty. That election will be the subject of our next program.　

http://www.21voa.com/path.asp?url=/201012/se-nation-166-red-scare-09-dec-10.mp3