名人轶事:Susan B. Anthony: She Fought for U.S. Women's Right to

（单词翻译）

Susan B. Anthony: She Fought for U.S. Women's Right to Vote

Written by Shelley Gollust

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VOICE ONE:

People in America, a program in Special English on the Voice of America. In

the eighteen-fifties, women in the United States began to try to gain the same

rights as men. One woman was a leader in the campaign to gain women the right

to vote.

I'm Stan Busby.

VOICE TWO:   

And I'm Shirley Griffith. Today we tell about a fighter for rights for women,

Susan B. Anthony.

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VOICE ONE:

In seventeen seventy-six, a new nation declared its freedom from Britain. The

Declaration¹ of Independence was the document written to express the reasons

for seeking that freedom. It stated that all men were created equal. It said

that all men had the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit² of happiness.

VOICE TWO:

Not every citizen of the new United States of America had one important right,

however. That was the right to vote. At first, the only people permitted to

vote in the United States were white men who owned property and could read. By

eighteen sixty, most white male citizens over the age of twenty-one had the

right to vote. The Fourteenth and Fifteenth amendments⁴ to the Constitution

gave black male citizens the right to vote. These amendments were passed in

eighteen sixty-eight and eighteen seventy.

VOICE ONE:

Women were not really full citizens in America in the eighteen hundreds. They

had no economic independence. For example, everything a woman owned when she

got married belonged to her husband. If a married woman worked, the money she

made belonged to her husband. In addition, women had no political power. They

did not have the right to vote. In the eighteen fifties, women organized in an

effort to gain voting rights. Their campaign was called the women's suffrage⁵

movement. Suffrage means the right to vote. American women sought to gain that

right for more than seventy years.

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VOICE TWO:

One of the leaders of the movement was Susan B. Anthony of Massachusetts. Miss

Anthony was a teacher. She believed that women needed economic and personal

independence. She also believed that there was no hope for social improvement

in the United States until women were given the same rights as men. The rights

included the right to vote in public elections.

VOICE ONE:

Susan B. Anthony was born in eighteen twenty. Her parents were members of the

Quaker religion. She became one too. The Quakers believed that the rights of

women should be honored. They were the first religious group where women

shared the leadership with men.

VOICE TWO:

As a young woman, Susan had strong beliefs about justice and equality for

women and for black people. And she was quick to speak out against what she

believed was not just. Many young men wanted to marry her. But she could not

consider marrying a man who was not as intelligent as she. She once said: "I

can never understand why intelligent girls should want to marry fools just to

get married. Many are willing to do so. But I am not. " She did meet some

young men who were intelligent. But it always seemed that they expected women

to be their servants, not their equals.

VOICE ONE:

Susan B. Anthony became a school teacher in New York state. She realized that

women could never become full citizens without some political power. They

could never get such power until they got the right to vote. She went from

town to town in New York state trying to get women interested in their right

to vote. But they did not seem interested. Miss Anthony felt this was because

women were not able to do anything for themselves. They had no money, or

property of their own. The struggle seemed long and hard. She said: #p#副标题#e#

VOICE TWO:

"As I went from town to town, I understood more and more the evil we must

fight. The evil is that women cannot change anything as long as they must

depend on men for their very lives. Women cannot change anything until they

themselves are independent. They cannot be free until they have the legal

right to own property and to keep the money they make by working. "

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VOICE ONE:

Miss Anthony went to every city, town and village in New York state. She

organized meetings in schools, churches, and public places. Everywhere she

went, she carried pamphlets⁶ urging rights for women. She urged the lawmakers

of New York to change the state law and give women the right to own property.

Her campaign in New York failed at that time. But elsewhere the struggle for

women's rights was making progress.

VOICE TWO:

In eighteen fifty-one, Susan B. Anthony met Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Missus

Stanton also supported equal rights for women. Missus Stanton had many

children. She needed to remain at home to raise her large family. Miss

Anthony, however, was not married. She was free to travel, to speak, and to

organize for the women's rights movement. The two women cooperated in leading

the fight to gain rights for women in the United States. Their first important

success came in eighteen sixty when New York finally approved a married

woman's law. For the first time in New York, a married woman could own

property. And, she had a right to the money she was paid for work she did. At

last, Miss Anthony's campaign was beginning to show results. The campaign

spread to other states.

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VOICE ONE:

The end of the American Civil War in eighteen sixty-five freed Negroes from

slavery. Susan B. Anthony felt that there was still much to be done to get

full freedom -- for Negroes and also for women. She began to campaign for the

right for Negroes and women to vote. The Fourteenth Amendment³ to the United

States Constitution was approved in eighteen sixty-eight. It gave Negro men

the right to vote. But it did not give women the right to vote.

VOICE TWO:

Susan B. Anthony led efforts to have voting rights for women included in the

Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution. Her efforts were not successful.

Then Miss Anthony decided⁷ to test the legal basis of the Fourteenth Amendment.

She did this during the presidential election of eighteen seventy-two. On

election day, Miss Anthony led a group of women to vote in Rochester, New

York. Two weeks later, Miss Anthony was arrested. She was charged with voting

although she had no legal right to do so.

VOICE ONE:

Before her trial, Susan B. Anthony traveled around New York state. She spoke⁸

to many groups about the injustice⁹ of denying women the right to vote. She

said:

VOICE TWO:

"Our democratic, republican¹⁰ government is based on the idea that every person

shall have a voice and a vote in making the laws and putting them to work. It

is we, the people -- all the people -- not just white men or men only, who

formed this nation. We formed it to get liberty not just for half of us -- not

just for half of our children -- but for all, for women as well as men. "Is

the right to vote a necessary right of citizens? To my mind, it is a most

important right. Without it, all other rights are nothing. "

VOICE ONE:

Susan B. Anthony was tried and found guilty of violating¹¹ the law. She was

ordered to pay one hundred dollars as a punishment. She said the law was

wrong. She refused to pay. Miss Anthony then led efforts to gain voting rights

for women through a new amendment to the Constitution. She traveled across the

country to campaign for such an amendment until she was seventy-five years

old. In nineteen-oh-four, she spoke to a committee of the United States Senate

for the last time. The committee was discussing the proposal for an amendment

to the Constitution giving women the right to vote. She knew the victory would

come. But she also knew it would not come while she was alive.

VOICE TWO:

Susan B. Anthony died in nineteen-oh-six at the age of eighty-six. Thirteen

years later, in nineteen nineteen, Congress passed the Nineteenth Amendment to

the Constitution. The amendment stated that the right to vote shall not be

denied because of a person's sex. The amendment had to be approved by three-

fourths of the states. It won final approval on August twenty-sixth, nineteen

twenty. It was called the Anthony Amendment, to honor Susan B. Anthony.

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VOICE ONE:

This Special English program was written by Shelley Gollust. It was produced

by Lawan Davis. I'm Stan Busby.

VOICE TWO:
And I'm Shirley Griffith. Join us again next week for another People in

America program on the Voice of America.