ONE CONFIDENTIAL
Published by ONE, INCORPORATED
A NEWSLETTER FOR MEMBERS
232 SOUTH HILL STREET
⚫ LOS ANGELES 12, CALIFORNIA
VOL. 4, No. 7
TO THE FRIENDS OF ONE
This Corporation exists to help homosexuals understand and accept themselves, to help them develop sufficient group solidarity, to stop being apologetic and unduly ashamed of themselves, to help them hold up their heads in society as equals, contributing heavily to society and receiving a fair share of its benefits in return.
Our chances of success depend largely on you "Friends of ONE." You are ONE'S missionaries. You are needed to support ONE's work, to recruit new supporters, to pass along the word about what ONE is doing, and to try to counteract some of the damaging rumors that get around about what ONE is and what it is doing.
We often hear some pretty weird ideas about ONE. We don't know how these rumors get started, though some have come from fabricated stories about ONE in such magazines as HUSH-HUSH and MAN'S MAGAZINE. We don't know how many of these you hear, but please take every opportunity to spike damaging rumors about ONE you do hear.
ONE is not an underground conspiracy to overthrow the government. ONE is in no way connected with communism. ONE has no specific interest in politics except as homosexuals are directly affected. ONE doesn't hate swishes. ONE is neither religious nor anti-religious such affiliations we leave to the individual. ONE isn't a lobbyist group. ONE doesn't have any big millionaires behind us (or at least we haven't seen the evidence). ONE doesn't sell dirty pictures. ONE doesn't operate a call house, a lonely-hearts club or anything like that. ONE isn't trying to prove that homosexuals are better than heterosexuals. ONE isn't looking for a cure for homosexuality. Nor does ONE believe that all moral and ethical codes should be scrapped. And last, ONE is not raking in profits.
There are other things we don't do even though we may want to, simply because they take large amounts of time and money which we don't have. We aren't attorneys at law, psychoanalysts or medical doctors, and there are some types of advice and assistance we can't give. People who get into serious legal diffi-
cannot expect us to give fr We can give them
suggestions from our experie
sometimes refer them seem trustworth
BACKSTAGE AT ONE
Readers visiting Southern California often drop in on us to see just what kind of critters we are, and what sort of corporate quarters we inhabit. For those who haven't had the pleasure here's a description of our offices as they now
appear
The two-part building is in a half skidrowish section of Los Angeles, a few blocks south of the booming new Civic Center and north of the main business section. The building, so poorly kept up it has been used for a couple of horror films, runs from Hill Street to Broadway, giving us confusingly two addresses. Once a music center, it is now occupied on the ground floor by the Goodwill salvage store and on the other three floors chiefly by cheap garment makers, whose machines are noisy over our ceiling. There is a sprinkling of music teachers (one canary outdoes Florence Foster Jenkins if you know what that means), run-down lawyers, signpainters, and lately, oldsters who find the rent cheap enough to make possible living quarters, despite the lack of certain facilities. Five or six radios blare down the halls. Half a dozen pudgy brats romp and scream, day and night, with their garment-worker mothers screaming back at them. And an indeterminate number of prospectors just like you see in Death Valley movies camping (pardon the phrase) in one room, complete with tent, oilburner, knapsacks, tinned foods, picks and scales no jackass.
-
-
are
Our rooms are halfway down the hall in an alcove. The ONE, Inc. sign on the door can only be seen when our main door is closed. Visitors are generally greeted by Bill Lambert at the reception desk (a good, large desk recently donated by a former editor) in room 326, a 10 x 12 room with a couch, a small book display, and a shipping table plus plans for elaborate display shelves to be built by engineer-member, Fred. This was the first room rented by the Corporation in 1953, and was for a long time the editorial room, in addition to becoming the Book Dept.'s stock room. One wall is covered by a leaf & bird creme-on-grey wallpaper, designed and silk-screened by original ONE editor. T Jennings. The rest of
rooms are
ed green or
to be remedied
NEWSBIT
JULY 1959
A committee is hard at work on plans for the 1960 Midwinter Institute, to be held in Los Angeles January 29-31. They expect to make it our biggest and liveliest program yet. The tentative theme will be THE HOMOSEXUAL IN THE COMMUNITY which will be discussed by a panel of community leaders, and in roundtable groups by those attending the sessions. Dr. Evelyn Hooker, of UCLA, whose impartial studies of male homosexuals we have mentioned several times, will present a challenging new paper. We are also hoping (fingers crossed) to be able to present an American Premiere performance of James Barr's play, GAME OF FOOLS.
Except for the Friday night Annual Corporation Meeting, which is open to "Friends of ONE" only, the sessions are open to the general public. We hope that many of you are planning to attend. We promise it will be worth a cross-country trip.
ONE INSTITUTE classes will continue right into the week prior to the Midwinter Institute for the benefit of out-of-town visitors.
Erratum: There was an erroneous reference in the May Confi to the results of our Spring "fund drive." We haven't had a fund drive this Spring. The author was referring to the response to the recent letter asking lapsed members to renew their memberships.
Also, in the June issue, the reference to Institute classes having started in the Fall of 1958 was a "typo." The first class was given in Fall, 1956.
**
Here are three titles in our bookstock of which we have only a half dozen copies each available to Members on a firstcome, first-served basis: FEATHERS OF DEATH, a British war novel with homosexual undercurrents, reviewed in the July ONE, $3.50; ISLE OF THE DAMNED paper-back from England, with vivid descriptions of sex on Devil's Island, 75¢; HOMOSEXUALITY, TRANSVESTISM AND CHANGE OF SEX, deSavitsch, a graphic little study of the problem by a Swiss doctor, $3.00.
Also, about September, before, a few more copie SEXUALS TODAY will be a
lawyer
(conta. on page of
adjoining 6 x 10 cubi Bill sat at a desk in this allowing visitors only a
(contd. on page 5)
Liberace trial, and its outcome. you all think about it? ... J. D. Mercer, (contd. on page 3)