[low voices in background]
E. G. MARSHALL: I've just had my say in the government of our country.
My own private say--and if you, or the policeman over there, or the
President of the United States asks me how I voted I can say,
"That's none of your business." As an American, I have that right.
Every one of these people has that right. You have it. It's something special.
Americans have a heritage of the vote no other nation on Earth can match,
because in the modern world we were the first.
The first to build a working system of government on the foundation
of the vote.
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Webster's Dictionary says, "Vote: the right to exercise a wish, choice, or
expression of will." Here in Berlin, one of these men is about
to vote-- in the only effective way he can.
With his feet.
Thousands and tens of thousands have made the dash to freedom from behind the
Iron Curtain, and a graphic phrase came into being:
"They were voting with their feet."
Then in Berlin came the Wall. As elsewhere, the Communists had to do
something. Too many people wanted out.
And despite the Wall, men and women would still risk
prison or death. It is well not to underestimate
how deeply runs the need of human beings for freedom of choice.
Freedom of choice is the essence of voting.
The polling place in which only one answer is acceptable
is no polling place. Of course, when you give each man a free choice
you run the risk of wide disagreement. Fine!
Harry Emerson Fosdick said it well: "Liberty is always dangerous,
but it's the safest thing we have." The vote itself is nothing
recent in man's history. The first ballots known were used in the
popular courts of ancient Athens. The juries used balls like these to
register their votes-- white for innocence, black for guilt.
From these came our word "ballot," which means, literally, "little ball."
No, voting is nothing new, but not until the 18th century,
in the American Colonies, did the vote become the actual foundation
of a governmental system. This was something new in the world
and it was not easily done. With us, the secret ballot became the rule
This way the voter couldn't be intimidated before the voting,
or punished afterward. Power groups of course
looked for ways to get around it.
For example, a man might be ordered to write his name
or put an identifying mark on his ballot, so his vote could be checked.
So a law was passed--Any ballot so marked would not be counted.
Or a voter might be told to take a friend with him to the polls
to help him with the paperwork, and again, to make sure of his vote.
So another law was passed. No one is allowed in the polling place
but election officials and individual voters.
Private voting booths naturally followed. And so it went.
Over the years we made the system work, but there were a lot of kinks to be
ironed out along the way. For example, what about citizens in
uniform? Before the Civil War, most states
wouldn't let soldiers vote at all. They were afraid of military control of
elections in communities near large army installations.
The few who could vote had to do it in person or not at all.
There was no absentee balloting. During the Civil War some Union states
set up ways for men away from home to vote.
Some arranged for voting in the field. Others allowed men to
mail votes home for a friend or relative to take to the polls for them.
All this, however, was strictly temporary.
By the time World War I came, many
states had set up absentee voting systems, and in 1917,
with most troops still in the States, the military vote was substantial,
if not truly impressive.
But in 1918, with two million men overseas
and no provision for voting outside the United States,
the military vote was virtually non-existent.
Clearly, these men had the right to vote, but there was just no provision for it.
When World War II came, the problem had to be tackled all over again.
Congress passed the Federal Voting Law to allow service people
away from home in time of war to vote.
Now those overseas could vote for Senate,
House, and presidential candidates.
In 1944, some two and a half million voted overseas.
It was somewhat complicated to get the ballots through the mail
and send them back to the States again.
Still, if you really wanted to, there was a way.
During the Korean War, it was made easier for a service man overseas to cast his vote
and he was encouraged to do so.
But this was still a special combat zone provision,
and like all the others before it, a temporary one.
So, in 1955, it was a major step forward when the Federal Voting Assistance Act
became law, providing the mechanism
for absentee voting anytime, anywhere, war or peace, on a permanent basis.
This law provided for getting election information
to the serviceman and helping him to obtain an absentee ballot.
It also recommended to every state
that it adopt a simple and uniform voting procedure
to make the whole process less complicated.
The FPCA Federal Postal Card Application became the key to the program
and today every state accepts it as a valid application for an absentee ballot
from service personnel.
Today, casting your vote from any spot on Earth
is an easy matter. No matter how you look at it,
from your viewpoint as a soldier, sailor, airman, or Marine,
the steps you take are simple. Your Voting Officer will see to it
that you get an application card, together with the voting information you
need for your voting district.
You fill out the FPCA and drop it in the mail.
No need for a stamp! It goes by free air mail
right to your voting district back home.
They will send you an absentee ballot back, again by air mail.
You have it with a minimum of delay. The rest is up to you,
and rightly so.
Your vote, for whatever candidate, for whatever reasons,
is your business, and no one else's.
Finally, your ballot goes back home by air
and into the voting total, along with the votes of your neighbors.
And wherever you are, you have the means of making sure
that your vote is an informed vote-- of following the issues, the candidates,
the platforms, as the campaign gets underway.
If you're ever tempted to wonder if your single vote
means anything, just remember that every vote is counted
and everyone counts. A single vote can swing an election.
Don't underestimate it.
This is something no amount of money can
buy for you if you don't have it. It's just a piece of paper,
but, it represents your basic right as a citizen.
More than 130 years ago, a man named William Cobbett hit it right
on the head when he said, "The great right of all, without which
there is, in fact, no right, is the right of taking part
in the making of the laws by which we are governed."
Important aspects of your life in uniform are directly regulated
by the Congress--pay rates, allowances, benefits, term of service, and so on.
But the Congress is also directly regulated by you, as citizens.
This is the means by which you can have your say.
Wherever the needs of the nation demand it, around the world,
you are on duty--dramatic duty sometimes, not so dramatic most times,
but always important. Necessary to the overall purpose--
The same purpose it has always been: to secure the blessings of liberty
to ourselves and our posterity.
Who more than you,
who in this moment of history are providing the defense of the nation,
who more than you should use the free voice,
which you are helping to ensure?
That free voice is the vote.
[music]