duty as an American. "I," he said at one point in his frenzy, "am an American." Exactly in what way he thought this characteristic distinguished him from the other delegates is not clear.

Wring Out The Old

To those who have worked during the past three years in the Mattachine Movement, the First Semi-Annual Convention of the Mattachine Society must have been a debacle. Meeting on Saturday and Sunday, Novmber 14th and 15th, 1953, the delegates, misled by red-baiting and Mattachine-baiting from the State leadership, denounced and rejected the policies of the Movement's founders, scrapped the original preamble to the constitution and adopted a laissez-faire program for the coming period. To those of us who have observed the Mattachine from its early days (regretting, perhaps, that we haven't been able to participate more fully) developments at the convention seemed like a sell-out to the most conservative elements of the heterosexual world. We felt lost and defenseless as though something we loved and trusted had died.

It is impossible in the space available to give anything like a complete background of events leading up to the Convention, but a few words are necessary: The original Mattachine Society (founded in 1950) and the Mattachine Foundation with which it worked closely, believed a highly ethical homosexual culture should be integrated into the dominant, heterosexual society. Their program was one of militant, legal and legislative action on behalf of the homosexual minority. While convinced the homosexual minority must, through its own efforts, strive to accomplish necessary changes. the original Mattachine believed in working with enlightened elements in the heterosexual world. The original Mattachine believed in education both of the homosexual and heterosexual elements but was convinced the most important educative

factor among homosexuals was working and campaigning together for what they believed in. The original Mattachine absolutely rejected the idea that homosexuals were any more likely subjects for psychiatric "cure" than were heterosexuals. Dominant in early Mattachine thinking was action, and the Jennings trial afforded the Mattachine the opportunity to fight its first case through aggressive defense. "I am a homosexual," said Jennings on the stand, "but I am not lewd nor dissolute, and I am not guilty of the charges against me."

The original Mattachine, with its lodgelike structure, was turned over to the membership in the spring of 1953 for reorganization along more democratic lines. Members of the Foundation were nominated for offices in the new Society but declined, firm in the conviction that the time had come for a fully democratic organization in the original Mattachine spirit but without the paternal assistance of the Foundation or its members.

From the Convention floor came cries of "Mr. Chairman, I demand the explusion of the delegate," "Outrageous," "I feel this delegate's presence endangers all of us," The security of the Convention is in jeopardy," "Who is this man?" The Chairman, interested only in a smoothly running meeting and evidently unable to comprehend the issues involved, wrapped feebly for order, first threatened, then called an intermission in the hope it would "cool off" the delegates. And Cool Off Hotly

If anything, the intermission had the opposite effect than the Chairman had hoped. Charges and counter-charges swept the corridors and ante-rooms of the convention hall. In one corner I heard two delegates, acting on emotion rather than reason, verbally attack an original founder of the Movement as a red. As soon as the body reconvened, a member rose formally to demand the expulsion of the delegate who had threatened to re-

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