What would be its name? This was a tedious, wearying hassle, over endless cups of coffee. The "dignified and ambiguous" school argued against the "let's-be-frank" group, The thesaurus and the Oxford Dictionary became the constant companions of everyone in the group.

You will laugh at some of the proposals. We did. Such as "Rapport"-(too much like a Bronx family name, someone quipped). "The bridge" (is it an engineering journal?) There were many others, and even more preposterous. It was finally voted, in sheer desperation-for it had to be admitted that it hardly seemed sensible to debate endlessly over the name for a publication that did not yet exist-that the unborn infant would be christened, "The Wedge." But try as best we might there was little enthusiasm about the decision.

The next assignment had been to discover a masthead-slogan. So the researches began again. Guy Rousseau, a hard-working young negro member of the group came up with one from Thomas Carlyle. It ran, A mystic bond of brotherhood makes all men one."

As a flash of inspiration it hit everyone at once. That was it! For there was the rapport. There was the wedge. And the bridge. "Makes all men one." The name would be... ONE, for that is what everyone had wanted all along, a means for bringing about oneness, a comingtogether with understanding. The bitterness and hatreds, the persecution and injustices and discrimination would be stopped by dispelling ignorance, by showing THE OTHERS that all of us are humans alike, all of us living together on the same earth, under the same skies.

Surely there was "a mystic bond of brotherhood," and ONE would tell them about it, at last all should see that men are brothers indeed, side-by-side, all of them reaching toward the very same stars in the heavens. ONE would do this!

It was a rather dramatic moment. The little handfui sat looking at each other in startled discovery. Something tremendous loomed up and around and among them, a challenge, electric with power and momentum. They well realized that there were obstacles before them, obstacles of almost terrifying proportions. There was no one who felt very confident. But a new concept had been born, a concept that thenceforth took possession of their loyalties and irresistibly carried them along.

||

On a November evening, as the rain streamed dismally down outside, they met to make big and irrevocable decisions. They made them. ONE magazine would be issued monthly. It would first appear in January 1953. It would not be mimeographed. It would be printed, and have the best format that could be managed. High literary standards were set up. There would be essays, scientific articles, original fiction, poetry and reprints from classics. There would be ads. In short it was to be neither a tract nor a pamphlet, but a real magazine.

9