Foundation must keep itself clear as a body to be able to invoke the safeguards of the 1st, 5th, 9th, and 10th amendments. Each person connected with the Foundation, therefore, is required to have the personal valor and the social integrity to be able to refute the scrutiny of any and all public groups, should it become necessary, even as has Mr. Snider. The rest of the Foundation Council may not approve for themselves the content of Mr. Snider's conscience. It might be equally assumed that Mr. Snider, in agreement with the community majority, does not approve as a pattern for himself the content of the average homosexual's social conscience. But, to apply a quotation long identified with the core of the American ideal, so long as Mr. Snider defends with his life the homosexual's right to keep inviolate his own social conscience, then equally so long must the Foundation constitute itself an equal respecter of Mr. Snider's rights.

In taking such a stand as a body, and by simultaneously re-affirming its basic principle of aligning itself with, and participating in, no partisan politcal action whatsoever at any time, the Foundation is declaring that it hereby reserves the right to advance suggestions, to criticise, and to evaluate at anv and at all times the status quo between the begrudging community majority and the contending coalition of the homosexual minority with its summer soldierv of sympathizers. The Foundation is acutely aware that such a declared role invalidates it completely as a fountain-head of leadership. But, in truth, it must be recorded that the Foundation never conceived of its contribution as more than that of a modest fountain-head of inspiration and encouragement, and perhaps that of a mirror to reflect and reveal the strengths and weaknesses of the community social conscience responding to such ideas. On the day when the present coalition of homosexuals and well-wishers assumes the self-assured dignity of a National Representative Congress, similar in scope and direction to those currently flourishing in Europe, the Foundation will have outlived its usefulness and will automatically fold its tents. But until that day of open and acceptable convention, the Foundation feels that its inviolable position must be maintained.

Donald Webster Cory, in his now famous book, made the point that in America the beginnings and developments of homosexual congresses would be most difficult. Few sane and substantial people are willing to make martyrs of themselves. Yet open leaders of beginning and unpopular causes have been martyred traditionally in the American experience. The Mattachine Foundation members acutely realized this somber fact at least two years before Mr. Cory's volume appeared in print. They fully appreciated the need of most homosexuals, prominent or obscure, to remain anonymous as to their personal

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