EDITORIAL

The signs of the times are extremely disturbing ones. There appear to be great tides running against each other on the national scene. One tide has great faith in the dignity of man and seeks to preserve constitutional guarantees of freedom for the benefit of all citizens. The other tide seems to be motivated by the blackest despair for the human condition and seeks either a blind state of anarchy or fascistic state which would make Hitler's Germany look puny by comparison.

ONE's clipping service has its finger on the pulse of some of these developments and does not care particularly for what it reads. For instance: News item-government intelligence agents are taking down names and addresses in gay bars from coast to coast 'in case of trouble.' What kind of trouble? A central intelligence file is being made up of suspected homosexuals perhaps? Hitler's Germany did the same for Communists, homosexuals, and Jews. . . in that order. News items from coast to coast indicate a crackdown on sexual variants via the "obscene literature" route. News vendors and paperback book stands are being wiped out of existence with expensive court trials for carrying 'magazines containing material regarding homosexuality and other sexual abnormalities.' If not that, they are intimidated by local pressure groups. The Citizens for Decent Literature cross swords with the Freedom to Read Committee in San Francisco and Sacramento. So far, in California, at least, the Freedom to Read Committee has the edge. Can you think of a more important freedom in a civilized nation? Well, there's one that might not have occurred to us: the traditional right to the privacy of U. S. first class mail. ONE has received several letters of cancellation of subscription and many letters of protest from those who have reason to believe their first class mail is no longer private, that it is being opened by postal inspectors and they are called in to explain their reading habits. These are usually people in small towns where everybody knows everybody else and they are too fearful or too vulnerable to challenge this illegal inquisition. A bill (defeated) was introduced in Congress recently to make post office opening of first class and registered mail legal where 'warranted.' They would like to wrap the cloak of 'legality' about themselves before the taxpayers find out what higher postage rates are actually buying?

There are other areas of grave interest. There is the never ending battle to make search and seizure without warrant legal. The angle is to protect us from narcotics, it is said. There is the never ending war to make wiretapping and other electronic snooping legal. Every month, every year, there are hundreds of bills presented across the nation to take away the private citizen's right to have a firearm in his home to protect himself if necessary. There are too few people and too few organizations fighting on the side of the citizen in these areas. There are too many citizens who feel all threats, real or imaginary, can be taken care of with a new law and more power given the police. Police are important and need our support and understanding; but we must never vote them into position of becoming our masters. "Absolute power corrupts absolutely," as Lord Acton once commented. Sten Russell, Associate Editor

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