EDITORIAL

With this current issue, ONE Magazine enters upon its fifth year. Just concluded in Los Angeles was ONE's 5th Annual Meeting and 1957 Midwinter Institute, attended by visitors from various parts of the United States. A brilliant intellectual, artistic and social success, its sessions marked an unmistakable "coming of age" for the homophile movement in the United States. Those of us who recall that memorable evening in 1952, when the idea came into being of an organization that should serve as spokesman for the millions of homosexual American men and women, and, through its publications, as a public forum for discussion of the whole question, cannot fail to note how far we have come since that evening.

Then, we had only an idea. . . and hopes. Today, there are accomplishments. Then, we had doubts and fears; today, we have the convictions and confidence that come from experience and some measure of success. Yet there is one thing we had then and still have: the unshaken determination that there is a job to be done, and that we are going to do it to the very best of our ability. That has never changed.

Perhaps it has been this solid foundation underlying our every move that has enabled ONE to weather storms others have found disastrous. Perhaps it was this inspiration that pulled us through dark and dangerous days when merely to open the office door and do anything at all took every ounce of courage and endurance we could muster.

A striking feature of ONE's history has been the fewness of its staff changes. Though there have been the weak who just "couldn't take it," the lazy, who found hard work "dreadfully boring," the obtuse, who were unable to grasp the philosophy underlying ONE's attitudes, still the turn-over has been remarkably small.

For, three of the seven founders are still hard at work. Two of the present Magazine Staff started in early 1953, two more of the editors barely a year later. Thus, the key positions throughout the Corporation are largely held by those who manned the walls at the beginning, and who have held on ever since.

This would seem to controvert the various "experts" who charge homosexuals with instability, as sick and neurotic personalities.

Now that the five-year mark has been reached, ONE's case needs no further defense:the need for finding the truth about homosexuality; the need for telling the public this truth through various media (books, classes, lectures, publications); the need for helping the homophile to help himself. What remains to be done is to do all this . . . to do it better, on a larger scale, and with increasing skill.

ONE moves into the next five years determined to continue and expand its work, to sharpen its aim and better its accomplishments. We find deep encouragement in the many and faithful friends throughout the United States and elsewhere, who are today working side by side with us, and feel sure their number will increase. Their very existence signifies to us the "coming of age" of the homophile as a group, willing to help itself and to find for itself an honorable place in society.

one

Board of Directors ONE, Incorporated