trips) aiming at social reform and education. Its name will be "The Moulin Organization." Officers have been elected. We would like to have its name listed in your Directory of Organizations and Publications.

Glentlemen:

Mr. E. O. L. Meurling, President

P. O. Box 851 COLOMBO, CEYLON

This is just a short note to say how much I enjoyed your July issue. The article on beatniks and the Editorial were of special note. I've been reading your Magazine since it first started and think you are improving it all the time.

I can't help wondering why you have never had article about Fire Island, especially Cherry Grove and "The Pines." Certainly it is one of the most well-known Gay Resorts in the country.

Dear ONE:

Mr. M.

NEW YORK, N. Y.

Read with interest "Tangents" (September, 1959) about Fire Island. It is forty miles long and the only Gay community is Cherry Grove. However, the New York Post article gave the impression that the community was exclusively of the swishy type. This is far from the truth. New Yorkers who have homes there resent the unfair publicity that the Post and Confidential Magazine have been giving. The weekenders are the low, trashy type of homo who saves up all year for one big weekend.

Be that as it may, our annual Costume Ball has been cancelled, our drag show was a flop and the Island is tense. A bunch of hoodlums from Patchogue, just across the Bay, after reading the Post article, came over to the Grove, beat up a bartender, who nearly lost an eye and hit a woman over the head to show how "straight'' they were. These straights" are the same "men" who head for the "Meat Rack" at night for an evening's fun.

The Post article has done much to ruin our reputation and arouse disgust for their tabloid.

Dear Mr. Kepner:

Mr. G. NEW YORK, N. Y.

I enjoyed meeting you in Denver and attending your short course of topics taught at ONE Institute. You have so much to offer that I wish the two cities were not so far apart. We are having a special meeting to hear Fioris van Mechelin, ICSE representative from Amsterdam, Holland.

DENVER, COLORADO Mr. M.

Gentlemen:

I want to compliment you on your recent book The Keval. It is very well done. Nice make-up, very good cover, and of course the contents very enjoyable. I hope you find it practical to publish more books like it, containing stories from ONE Magazine. I also found the July ONE Confidential particularly interesting.

Dear Mr. Slater:

Mr. K.

SKOKIE, ILLINOIS

I write concerning the friendly but patronizing review of my novel SAM in your June issue. The reviewer refers to it as a "romance" and as "Victorian drama of love triumphant." It is neither. Perhaps I can best state the case by quoting from a letter | wrote recently to Dr. Edmund Bergler, who had written me about SAM. (In spite of reservations, he considered it one of the two best novels on homosexuality he knew.) In answer to his criticism of the ending I said:

"There is nothing naive or idyllic about the ending. The two men meet and fall in love; they are experienced enough to know what they want and to appreciate each other's qualities. I imply that they have a chance for a successful relationship. Why not? I know such men who have been successfully married to each other for many years. They are rare, I readily grant. Successful marriage is rare, whatever sex we are talking about. It seems to me more original to end the book as I do than to end it with the by-now conventional tragedy. The currently acceptable unhappy ending is as false as Elsie Dinsmore. Most people don't kill themselves or each other; they go on living; some of them solve some of their problems, the others muddle through to the end somehow. While I would never sacrifice logic to originality, the ending as I wrote it seems to me sound. Given the character of the people involved, any other ending would be contrived and forced."

By the way, may I say congratulations to Dr. Blanche M. Baker for the really splendid work toward understanding and sanity she makes in your pages. My best wishes to you and your staff.

Lonnie Coleman NEW YORK, N. Y.

Cheerful room-single, employed man. Use of dining-livingroom and kitchen. Freshly painted, artistically furnished, handy to downtown. Golden Ave. and 9th Street. $42.50 per month. Call FarleyRI 9-0590.

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