us. The lawyer made all the arrangements and collected his fees.

Being a free man once more, I went down to the post office to report for work. But I was told that I had been suspended-more of the dirty work of the post office inspectors. Next I called upon the managing editor of the Examiner. I confronted him with the article in the paper. He told me he would look into the matter and make corrections, but nothing was ever done. I had no means to sue the paper, and that was the end of that.

Meanwhile a friend of mine succeeded in getting me a better lawyer -the one who had made our request for a charter. He agreed to take my case, also for $200.00 a trial. Calling the shyster, I told him of my inability to pay for another trial.

Three Times Tried is the title of a book dealing with the trials of Oscar Wilde. For we founders of the Society for Human Rights it was to be our third appearance in court. But unlike the fate of Oscar Wilde, our's turned out altogether differently. I knew before hand that our case would be dismissed since my new lawyer advised me that everything had been "arranged" satisfactorily.

The day of the third trial we met a new judge. The detective who had made the arrests was there, the prosecuting attorney, the two post office inspectors, and even my first lawyer who found he had become interested in the case. The judge, who had reviewed our earlier trials, immediately reprimanded the prosecution. He said "It is an outrage to arrest persons without a warrant. I order the case dismissed." Al who had pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct received a fine of $10.00 and costs. The social worker was not present at this trial. Our lawyer told the judge in the presence of the baffled post office inspectors that he knew for sure that the Commis-

one

sioner would take no action as far as the alleged obscenity of mailed literature was concerned. The judge also ordered the detective to return my property to me. I got my typewriter, but my diaries had been turned over to the postal inspectors and I never saw them again. I had never put down in my diaries anything that could be used against me, fortunately.

Since I had paid the fine for Al, we were all set free. The fellow who had been with Al also went free. As we prepared to leave, the prosecuting attorney spoke to me. "Well, its all over now and there are no hard feelings on my part. I admit I had nothing on you, but the boy who had been rooming with the preacher had confessed to having sex with him." Ah! This explained the question of the detectives when they arrested me. "Where is the boy?" This had puzzled me ever since. The experience generally convinced me that we were up against a solid wall of ignorance, hypocrisy, meanness and corruption. The wall had won. The parting jibe of the detective had been, "What was the idea of the Society for Human Rights anyway? Was it to give you birds the legal right to rape every boy on the street?"

I took a new room, on Oak Street near the beach, and since I had no more job, took life easy now recovering from the mental shock of having been in the clutches of such Unholy Inquisition.

The lawyer advised me he could get my post office job back. But I had no more money for fees and took no action. After a few weeks a letter from Washington arrived advising me that I had been officially dismissed from the Post Office Department for "conduct unbecoming a postal worker." That definitely meant the end of the Society for Human Rights.

After this I left Chicago for New