2018年2月22日纽约时报：华盛顿的樱花树预计将盛放

News from Washington often isn’t so pleasant these days. But one of the U.S. capital’s most-celebrated springtime traditions begins this coming weekend: Its famed cherry trees are predicted to be in peak bloom.

如今，来自华盛顿的消息往往不是那么让人愉快。但美国首都最受推崇的春季传统之一会在接下来的一周开始：著名的樱花树预计将盛放。

More than 3,000 of the trees were presented as a gift by the city of Tokyo in 1912. The gesture of international good will has a rich history, but one of its more contentious episodes occurred 80 years ago: the Cherry Tree Rebellion.

1912年，东京将3000多棵樱花树作为礼物送给了华盛顿。这个代表国际友好的姿态拥有丰富的历史，但其最受争议的事件之一发生在80年前：樱花树叛乱(the Cherry Tree Rebellion)。

The trees had already become a favorite of Washingtonians by 1938, when construction was set to begin on the Jefferson Memorial. The site for the monument was along the Tidal Basin, where many of the trees had been planted.

到1938年，这些树已经深受华盛顿人的喜爱，那会儿，杰弗逊纪念碑(Jefferson Memorial)即将开始施工。纪念碑的地址沿着潮汐湖，很多樱花树都种在那里。

The planned removal of the trees was opposed by parts of Washington society, in particular by the city’s newspapers. A group of women even briefly chained themselves to a tree on the site in an effort to stop construction.

把树移走的计划受到了华盛顿部分人的反对，尤其是该市的报纸。一群女性甚至一度把自己和这里一棵树绑在一起，以叫停修建工程。

An exasperated President Franklin D. Roosevelt dismissed the controversy — which died down soon after the memorial’s groundbreaking — as a “flimflam game” designed to sell newspapers.

被激怒的富兰克林·罗斯福总统(Franklin D. Roosevelt)谴责这场争议是为了报纸销量的“瞎胡闹”。争议在纪念碑奠基仪式结束后不久就平息了。

“If anybody wants to chain herself to the tree and the tree is in the way, we will move the tree and the lady and the chains, and transplant them to some other place,” he said.

“如果有人想把她自己跟树绑在一起，而树挡住了路，我们会把这棵树、这位女士以及锁链挪走，把他们移到其他地方去，”他说。