On His Seventieth Birthday
乔治·萧伯纳 / George Bernard Shaw
乔治·萧伯纳（1856—1950），爱尔兰作家、戏剧家和政论家，出身于都柏林一个公务员之家，曾当过抄写员、会计，赴伦敦后开始从事创作。1925年获诺贝尔文学奖，他的主要作品有《巴巴拉上校》《苹果车》《圣女贞德》等。
Ace in the Hole
Understand these new words before you read this article.
1. constitutional adj. 宪法规定的，合乎宪法的；宪法的；体质上的，生来的
2. compromisen. 妥协，折中方法
3. capitalism n．资本主义(制度)；资本(或财富)的拥有；资本(私人占有和生产盈利)的支配地位
4. promulgate v. 宣扬(某事物)；传播；公布，颁布(法令、新法律等)
5. absurdity n. 极端无理性，悖理；荒谬；谬论；荒谬的行为
Of late years the public have been trying to tackle me in every way they possibly can， and failing to make anything of it they have turned to treating me as a great man. This is a dreadful fate to overtake anybody. There has been a distinct attempt to do it again now， and for that reason I absolutely decline to say anything about the celebration of my seventieth birthday. But when the Labor Party， my old friends the Labor Party， invited me here， I knew that I should be all right.
Now， however， we have built up a Constitutional Party. We have built it up on a socialistic basis. My friend， Mr. Sidney Webb， Mr. Macdonald and myself said definitely at the beginning that what we had got to do was to make the Socialist Party a constitutional party to which any respectable God-fearing man could belong without the slightest compromise of his respectability. We got rid of all those traditions that is why Governments in the present day are more afraid of us than they were of any of the Radical people.
Our position is a perfectly simple one and we have the great advantage of understanding our position. We oppose socialism to capitalism.