Dear Sir:

Wish to compliment you on "Game of Fools." I have never read a story so moving and unforgettable. I shall recommend it to all my friends. It will make an ideal Xmas present. Put the pressure on Mr. Fugate and make him write another one soon.

Dear Miss Reid:

MR. 1. SAN FRANCISCO, CALIF.

I have not read every issue from cover to cover-I don't think, but maybe I have!but anyway, I thought "Pirouette" by Gabrielle Ganelle, while a little obscure to me on a cursory reading, seemed to show the first bit of really professional quality writing I've seen in ONE. I hope you can pass my sincerest encouragement on to her if she needs encouragement, which I doubt.

I thought that article in your last issue, THE MARGIN OF MASCULINITY, rather limited in scope. Isn't it just this assumption of veneers and pretense which the self-admitted homosexual has had to scrape off of himself? Are homosexuals to put themselves in second place in their own esteem by taking on the "accepted" mannerisms of masculinity?

The point, I think, the author should have made which is so much more basic and real is that the homosexual-like everyone else -needs masculinity of mind, more than of body. Of course it helps make a convincing case if we are endowed with pleasing attributes, but not everyone is. It is when they are not so endowed that we evaluate people -anyone-by their inner worth, their moral stamina and masculinity of mind. This preOccupation with the surface aspects is all right, and is often powerful and good, but it really makes so little difference in the long run. Considering the real sources of mental well-being, considering life as the productive, creative, positive and engaging activity it should be, I say why not be effeminate in appearance. Why keep a stiff wrist? Why not be delicate and all the rest of it if one is at the same time fulfilling one's own rightful path. Do we beg for a more masculine ghost of Oscar Wilde? No, everyone accepts him because he had the character to be who he was, and never pretended to be someone else.

Of course, few of us have the guts of Oscar Wilde and dare hold our position for long, and, I would hardly say that this belief or approach is easy or diplomatic, but I admire the person who can do it much more-much, much more-than the one who imitates Daddy, so to speak, or Superman, or Humphrey Bogart or whatever figment of the imagination strikes his unimaginative fancy.

MR. A. NEW YORK, N. Y.

Dear One:

I do not know what the advertising rates in ONE are but I am sure that if Dr. Ellis paid for all the space he had in the April issue that it will help your financial situation indeed. The front cover and five pages devoted to trying to get everyone to run to the nearest psychiatrist should bring the doctor a whooping business.

Why don't you people live and let liveand help others to live happier? I thought this was what your cause was dedicated to in publishing ONE. Now you want everyone to believe he or she is a neurotic. And who is to take care of all the neurotic dogs and cats? Does Dr. Ellis have psychiatrists for animals and birds too?

Does he also want to treat all people who paint pictures and all those who dig ditches until they all do both? Maybe now that he has set himself up as the supreme decider of who is who and what is what he can make a few worthwhile suggestions as to how to attain world peace rather than to say that whatever a person does sexually is wrong unless he does everything in or out of the books.

Before they invented the word neurotic we were called something else and after Dr. Ellis others will think of new names for usbut what is in a name? It does not make us any different than we are. Why not let all of us-homo or hetero, dog or cat just be ourselves as God created us??? Like the myriads of flowers-each with its own beauty and good qualities and usefulness in the realm of nature.

You do not blame a rose for not blooming like a hollyhock nor a pansy for having more colors than a violet. Let's stop neurotic talk and think sensibly.

The psychiatrists can make a living doing something on the side without bothering us. Dr. Ellis says himself that it is neurotic to do just one thing so, to keep from becoming neurotic, maybe he'd better raise a few bees. Maybe being a butcher or driving a tractor could save him. Neurosis certainly does not only apply to sexual acts.

ONE Magazine should be ashamed of itself to publish such a ridiculous article. Read it over again and see if you honestly can say it makes any sense.

You probably would not dare publish this letter but I would like to know your rates for space to have it published please.

MR. J.

NEW YORK, N. Y. EDITOR'S NOTE: We dare-because, you see, ONE is a magazine of opinion. You have as much right to express yours as Dr. Ellis had to express his-free of charge..

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