It is an extraordinary thing to think that American citizens living abroad - both civilians and members of the Armed Forces - could, by their votes in the coming elections, determine the outcome.
     The same may be said for any sizable group of Americans; but it is occasionally forgotten that those living abroad have the same obligation and privilege to vote, to the extent permitted by their home State laws, as citizens at home.
     They should, in fact, keep in mind that a single vote or a few votes could put in office a President, Senator, Representative, or Governor who could determine the course of history.
     There are spectacular instances of the value of a few votes in past elections. In 1916, Woodrow Wilson was reelected President when Charles Evans Hughes lost California to him by 3,806 votes. This is about four-fifths of a vote for each of California's precincts. In 1918, five votes in each of Colorado's precincts would have elected a Democratic Senator and given the Democrats control of the Senate. Instead, the Republicans won control, Henry Cabot Lodge, of Massachusetts, became chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and President Wilson's plan for United States entry into the League of Nations was blocked. In 1952, President Eisenhower lost Kentucky by 700 votes out of 993,000 cast. In 1956, Representative Robert Hale won in Maine by 29 votes.
     United States citizens overseas in view of the distance from their country and against a different background often see the issues at home and the problems facing the United States abroad in clearer perspective. A qualified voter abroad should, therefore, give his country the benefit of his considered judgment by voting by mail.
     The potential value of the vast worldwide absentee civilian and military ballot goes beyond the winning of isolated elections. This voting segment in 1956, for example, consisted of over 500,000 civilians, and approximately 1,900,000 of the 3 million military personnel were eligible by age to vote. About 500,000 of the latter actually voted by absentee ballot. Considering that a few thousand votes have decided many political contests, neither the absentees themselves nor the candidates should overlook the power of this out-of-State absentee vote arriving home where it belongs.
     Voting by mail requires no more time or effort than going to the polls to vote in person, and often less. For qualified civilians there are usually two main steps: (1) Registering in person or by mail and (2) securing and returning the marked ballot. For military personnel and associated groups, registration is waived or facilitated. Civilians may obtain detailed information by writing the county clerk in their home State, and military personnel from their commanding officer or county clerk.
     Forty-six of the fifty States permit qualified civilians outside the State to vote by mail, with certain limitations (all except Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, and South Carolina), and two-thirds of the States permit registration by mail. Registration is kept intact in most States by voting every 2 or 4 years.
     All States permit military personnel to vote by mail.
     Given their numbers, it will not be surprising, then, if Americans overseas have a decisive influence on the coming elections.

     America today stands at a crossroads - and I think few people in the world are better aware of the fact than Americans both military and civilian who are abroad, many miles from their hometowns in America.
     Those who are far from the States are sometimes personally closer to the big issues of this campaign than their families and friends back home - for they are often in the thick of the fight between Red imperialism and the world of the freeman.
     Many of you abroad have seen the Red imperialism actively at work. You have faced the continuing blockade of Berlin. Or you have seen - and helped - the flood of refugees from the oppression of Red masters. Or you have seen the Communist. technicians at work in their subtle subversion of the aspirations of people to be free. Or you have seen the Communist political bankers and businessmen working to disrupt markets, corrupt free world sources of supply, or set the stage, in the names of peoples aspiring to independent nationalism, for the control, seizure, and expropriation of American enterprises abroad.
     I think, too, that as you have seen these steady, relentless activities directed from the Kremlin, you have known the urgent necessity for America to act - to move forward from the standstill that has gripped American leadership for 7 ½ long years - the years the locusts have eaten.
     The attempt at containment of communism has failed - and we know very surely that it has failed as we at home and you abroad see the very real specter of communism standing astride the island of Cuba, only 90 miles from the Florida coast.
     In the land of the Cuban people, traditionally our friends, a billion dollars' worth of American private business has been confiscated. American citizens are arrested in the middle of the night after the Gestapo-like knock on the door and hauled off to jail. And the Castro dictatorship threatens now to renounce our traditional treaty of friendship and seize our great naval base at Guantanamo.
     From Cuban shores - from any of a hundred hidden inlets in Cuba's twisting, 2,000-mile coast, hostile submarines could range the breadth of the Middle Atlantic and the Caribbean and the approaches to the Panama Canal - make the Caribbean a red lake. And from hidden launching sites on Cuba, fixed or mobile, missiles of only intermediate range could reach far into the heart of America - New York and Philadelphia and Washington and Chicago and Galveston and Houston and as far as Omaha.
     Nor is containment an adequate formula by itself for meeting the very active challenge of communism in the world today. Containment can be one aspect of a policy. It is bound to fail if it is the sole policy.
     We must move forward to meet communism, rather than waiting for it to come to us and then reacting to it.
     The man who merely builds a fortress of his home will always find in the end that the enemy has devised a way to get in the back door. While we do guard every door, we must move outside the home fortress and we must challenge the enemy in fields of our own choosing. We must indeed take the initiative again - we must start moving forward once more - at home and abroad.
     We are a nation of individuals. As individuals we make up a people and a nation. Our fathers designed our democracy so that the vote of every single American is important.
     In this year, when the decision we make - whether to move forward again or to sit still for another 4 years - is going to affect our capacity to deal with our destiny, every one of us must take advantage of his precious vote.
     One vote can swing a country, a State, an election.
     Every one of us must act individually now - so that we may act together tomorrow.