THE ARMED FORCES

Dear ONE:

I was most interested in Dr. Baker's column (January, 1960) regarding our military obligations. It is sad that one entire section of our population should be deprived of one of the duties and (for us) pleasures of citizenship by mere collective discrimination.

I received one of the discharges a few years ago. As Dr. Baker has stated, the Army handled it all most discreetly and compassionately. To this day I have never had any slight inconvenience or discrimination traceable to my General Discharge. Most people jump to the correct conclusion that it is some sort of a medical discharge.

I don't feel that this treatment is uncommon. I have contacted several men who were released at the same time and all of them seem to have had no trouble from this quarter. So my good luck was not just personal.

The last issue of ONE Institute Quarterly looks wonderful. It now reminds me of some of the professional quarterlies published by the large general psychology organizations. Keep up the good work.

Mr. D. Spokane, Wash.

A FRIEND OF ONE SPEAKS OUT Dear ONE:

We readers have been taking for granted that ONE's editors are good, but in perusing the Corporation Annual Report one notes that one incalculably precious asset has not yet been referred to: the fact that there exists a functioning group of editors, writers, artists and managers capable of publishing the things you have been publishing.

That you can take a manuscript and, while improving it expertly, fit it to your readership's needs and not just one manuscript, but manuscript after manuscript, month after month-this is something that did not happen before you all went to work.

Before ONE came along, with all the wealth and good will in the world, nobody could have produced the thing that ONE is now. What we have now is the fruit of your experience and practice, your coming to grips with your many and exasperating frustrations over the years. Your friends, and the world, are more fortunate than many suppose.

I thought "The Girl with the Red Gold Hair" extraordinary, but then, so much of your stuff is so good that it's invidious to mention any one piece. I enjoy your poetry, even when I don't quite understand it. Mr. B.

El Segundo, Calif.

STRAIGHT AND NOT SO STRAIGHT

Dear Sir or should I say She:

I happened to come across this magazine. today. I found it in his belongings. There's no doubt about it I have a brother who is homosexual, and I hate his guts for it. He never tried to pull anything on me and better not. I read one of his queer magazines and think whoever publishes it and everyone who reads it has to be a queer! I think the stuff you write in those books is a bunch of B. S.

I met a few homos not too long ago. They tried to take advantage of me. However, I got in a struggle with two of them. I had a chain and wrapped it around both of their queer necks.

That's how I feel about fairys, queers, homos-whatever you want to call them. How can a man have sex with another man I'll never know and don't care to know. The same for the women. If I ever meet up with any more I'll use my .38 on them. That's what they deserve.

A Straight Guy New York, N. Y. P.S.: I'll expose you all! Ha, ha, you queers.

Dear ONE:

Good grief, Charley Brown! The cover of the February issue is simply TOO MUCH! For months now, with a snarl on my lips and no joy in my heart, I have been looking at those effeminate line drawings, girlish youths and that awful photograph of a nelly cop on one cover without so much as a line of protest to you. Looking back I can't find anything like a real male figure all the way back to that sailor drawing in '57. And now these weird creatures! They're enough to steam a saint!

I know that many people have a positive predilection for effeminancy, as opposed to true femininity. I don't have such a feeling; in fact an overdose of male girlishness gives me the vapors. If real male art is hard. to come by couldn't you canvass friends? Nobody wants ONE to ape the muscle mags with sweaty weightlifters all over the place, but this shouldn't deny us the opportunity of seeing an occasional attractive man in your pages.

One last item: I think all this grotesquely womanish art is bad psychologically for those of your readers who are battling to free themselves from self-identification with the popularly-held homosexaul stereotype. Please help them remember once in a while that the average person with homosexual preferences looks, and is, as male as the next guy.

Don Rifle

Santa Monica, Calif.