this may help you in your understanding of others. If you do not know what your talents are it would be well for you to consult a vocational guidance center.

It has long been the policy of the staff of ONE, as well as of other homosexual organizations not make acquaintance referrals between correspondents. Since ONE is local-

ized in the Los Angeles area I have gained permission to refer you to the Mattachine Society which has chapters in various parts of the United States, with its National Headquarters in San Francisco. The Mattachine group closest to you is the New York Area Council located at 1133 Broadway, New York 10, Suite 304, N. Y. With all good wishes, Doctor Blanche

Letters

UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES DO THE EDITORS FORWARD LETTERS FROM READERS TO OTHER PERSONS NOR DO THEY ANSWER CORRESPONDENCE MAKING SUCH REQUESTS.

Dear Editor-friends:

I do not think ONE should mix up Alexander and Xenophon with Hitler and his "Brown Shirts" as Hollister Barnes (May, 1958) does, though doubtlessly there was a certain element of homosexuality in both the Brown Shirts" and the "Black Shirts."

The historical facts, as I know them, are as follows: When Hitler came into power in 1933 he elected his friend Ernst Roehm as C. O. of the "Brown Shirts." Now Roehm and some other high-ranking officers were homosexuals. This fact was widely known in Germany at the time. However, it was never publicly mentioned and when I was arrested by the Gestapo for political activity. against Hitler I met a man in prison whose sole crime was the public mentioning of Roehm's homosexuality. In 1934, only one year after he came into power, Hitler on the advice of Goebbels and Goering had Roehm and a number of his staff-officers arrested and executed without a trial. Special mention was made of Roehm's and the other officers' homosexuality, condemning it in the strongest possible terms. Maybe this was the first example of how clever Hitler was in finding scapegoats to feed to the masses.

one

A sidelight on all this is the fact that the infamous #175 of the German Penal Code, the one against homosexuals, was made much stronger by Hitler after 1934, causing endless numbers of homosexuals to be sent to concentration camps. After the war the Penal Code was cleared of all the changes Hitler made, except #175. Thus homosexuals in Germany are liable to be punished for their "crime" by a Hitler paragraph in the Penal Code.

Alexander and Xenophon, Leonidas and his Spartans, the Theban warriors they have not and cannot have any counterpart in modern warfare. They belong to another era. Not that modern warfare excludes or makes impossible individual homosexual love and all the personal strength gained from it for the lovers. It didn't in my own case. Rudolf Burkhardt Zurich, Switzerland

Dear sirs:

Our friend Hollister Barnes has plenty of moral fervor, all right, but he seems to be deficient in good judgment. Although I share his feelings about the services' policy toward homosexuals, I question whether such a decidedly intemperate statement will do much. to further our cause. The policy of ONE should be to bring about changes, not to give vent to our hurt feelings. . . I have been critical of Barnes' article because I believe it is inaccurate, hysterical and likely to do more harm than good, but this is a disagreement over methods, not aims.

I often regret some of your policies and some of the things that you publish, but I greatly admire you for what you are doing. Some of the recent editorials have been fine -hard-hitting but reasonable in tone.

Dear Mr. Barnes:

Mr. S.

Yonkers, New York

Your article was well thought out and well-written. I am sure that its contents are familiar to all thinking homosexuals. To the biased non-homosexual it may offer food for