easily. It was a long, a bitter, and expensive struggle two courts decided against ONE, but ONE did not give up. The first great victory came when the Supreme Court of these United States deigned to review the case. The success of ONE's legal counsel in preparing a brief which attracted the attention of our highest tribunal cannot be praised too highly. At last, in January, 1958, came the decision in ONE's favor, and the postmaster was directed to release the long impounded copies.
It is hard to appreciate the significance of this victory. ONE's own victory was tremendous, and yet it pales into unimportance alongside the overall gains which came with this decision. Freedom of the press, freedom to publish! Yes, of course. But there was more than that! The real, the basic, the honest and fundamental issue resolved was that the mention, the treatment, whether in fact or in fiction, of homosexuality was not, in and by itself, obscene. This, of course, despite the legal obfuscation and verbiage, was exactly and precisely what the post office was contending, and is what would have been established had the decision gone the other way. What has this meant, what can this mean to all fields of communication, to all the arts, to radio, to TV, the stage, the novel and the movies? The answer has long since become obvious. I had no part in this drama and so I can say that if ONE should disappear tomorrow it would still have made one of the greatest contributions to humanism and civil liberty of our day. How many of you, by the way, have ever seen this issue? It is still available-simply because it was, for so long, unmailable. "The Gay Menagerie," a six-page cartoon sequence in this issue, is considered by some to be one of the most unforgettable things the magazine has ever done.
In January, 1955, there appeared, for the first time, what has since become ONE's most popular, most essential, feature "Tangents." News, in various form, has appeared in almost every issue since the very beginning, but with this issue, news, written with the particular style and commentary of Dal McIntire, was to become a must. Today, sometimes, the lack of space occasioned by some special feature, forces the omission of "Tangents" from a given issue. Nothing, except, perhaps, the non-appearance of the Magazine itself, brings in so many protests from our readers.
ONE's tribulations were still not over. Legal acceptance had been won, but financial and staffing problems had not yet been overcome. There must have been many, many moments when ONE's editors, above all, were convinced that the early doubters were completely and entirely right. Deadlines simply could not be met; issues were almost always late, by weeks or months, or were skipped all together. As late as 1957 issues were to be combined, appearing as August-September, October-November. From the very beginning ONE has been a "printed" magazine, but the printing, off-set or type, has varied from issue to issue, makeup, format, column width, column length, type font, color of ink, covers, illustrations everything varied from issue to issue. It was anybody's guess as to when or how the next issue might appear, or what it would look like.
In June, 1957, a significant change appeared on the cover. Up to that time the cover had always announced: ONE-The Homosexual Magazine. With the issue of June-July, 1957, the cover read: ONE-The Homosexual Viewpoint. This change was not made lightly. Many hours of argument and discussion preceded it; discussion and argument have followed it, but the change, for better or for worse, was made. As a linquist, I personally feel the change was for the better, though not necessarily more expressive of ONE's aims.
In that same issue ONE also acquired the "new look." From this time on, ONE has been a letterpress magazine, pages have been illustrated, paper has been of a
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