move swiftly in the homophile world." This is utter nonsense. Changes do take place, and things happen when they happen, but the significant changes within the homophile movement have taken place with agonizing slowness. Published materials always out of date, and any writer who does not go beyond them for his material can scarcely expect to make any contribution to our knowledge of current events.

are

A little learning is just as dangerous today as it was when Pope wrote his famous lines. Mr. Masters' limited knowledge has led him to form conclusions and to make observations which are so preposterous as to be not only beyond all credibility, but downright laughable. For example, Mr. Masters devotes several pages to a discussion of the ICSE (International Congress for Sexual Equality). It must be that the ICSE's highsounding title has led him into equally high flights of speculation concerning its activities, organization and its influence. He concludes: "If it can be shown that ICSE is coordinating homosexual activities and influencing the social and political and other thinking of inverts in 30 countries, then that is a not inconsiderable amount of power for any group to hold and may be an illegitimate invasion of national domestic affairs by an international body. The matter is certainly worth thoroughgoing investigation." I am sure these remarks must be very flattering to ICSE. It is odd that ONE, Inc., which Mr. Masters describes as being the most powerful, the most influential, the most radical and most "dangerous" homophile group in the United States, has never received a directive, policy, coordinating, or otherwise, from the ICSE. So far as I know. ICSE has never attempted to do much beyond serving as a clearing house for an exchange

of information on an international scale, a laudable and, so far, not very successful undertaking. I should, perhaps, in passing, point out that Mr. Masters states categorically that ONE is a member of ICSE. This, a matter of verifiable fact. is NOT true. ONE was for a short time, affiliated with ICSE, but has not been a member since 1957. This detail is of absolutely no importance, but it should give the reader cause to wonder about many other of Mr. Masters' "facts."

THE HOMOSEXUAL REVOLUTION devotes a flattering amount of space to ONE, Inc., (and to ONE Magazine) which he treats somewhat less charitably than he does the other two members of the "big three," as he calls them. The Mattachine and The Daughters of Bilitis. It is not my intention here to take issue with any of his statements concerning ONE. I would like to say, however, that those readers of this book who have actually visited ONE's austere offices, or met any of its staff members, are quite likely to wonder whether they were in the right building. They were. It was Mr. Masters who was somewhere else. He has written a detailed, thoroughgoing and exhaustive study of ONE, but he has never visited ONE, nor has he, I am told, visited the Mattachine headquarters in San Francisco. I do not know about The Daughters of Bilitis. I can't help wondering what kind of book Mr. Masters might have written. had he made any attempt to pick up a few facts at the source, or to learn at first hand something about the every day problems of the various homophile groups or publications.

As I hope I have already made clear, I strenuously object to Mr. Masters' unscholarly research and inaccurate reporting, and I deplore his slanting of his material and his conclusions. Even so, I found the

21