Mattachine Society, Inc.

POST OFFICE BOX 1925

MAIN POST OFFICE LOS ANGELES 53, CALIFORNIA

3rd Annual Convention

The third annual convention of the Mattachine Society, was held May 11-13 at San Francisco in the Hotel Bellevue. Members and delegates from San Francisco, Oakland, Berkeley, Los Angeles, Long Beach and New York City were present.

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The event (reported here in advance of its actual happening) opened with a reception on Friday evening, May 11. On Saturday, the meeting was called to order by the chairman after registration and a brief meeting of directors.

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Reports of the chairman, the representative from the new Area Council in New York, a representative on the staff of ONE magazine, and a San Francisco attorney were heard in the morning session.

At an informal luncheon, reports were made by a member of Daughters of Bilitis, a women's educational and research group, and by two members of a Los Angeles organization dedicated to aiding sex variants with an alcoholic problem.

The program chairman opened the main Saturday afternoon session with an introduction to the main convention theme, "A Survey to the Homophilic Problem, 1956" He in turn presented speakers who discussed the subject from the aspects which follow:

EDUCATION-Mrs. Roberta Kellogg, San Francisco. Mrs. Kellogg for more than 20 years has headed Golden Gate Nursery School, and has written several books on the child psychology subject, including "Babies Need Fathers, Too." She spoke on "Conditioning of Pre-School Children

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PSYCHIATRY-Dr. Daniel Lieberman, superintendent and medical director of Mendocino State Hospital, Mendocino, Calif. Dr. Lieberman's subject was "When Does the Homophile Need Psychiatric Treatment ?"

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CORRECTION Psychological counselor and parole board advisor Robert Flippin of San Quentin Prison discussed the situation of counseling homosexuals in state prisons, with his (Continued on inside back cover)

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AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION ACTS TO APPEAL CALIFORNIA'S LEWD VAGRANCY LAW AFTER CONVICTIONS RESULTING FROM MASS RAIDS AND ARRESTS

For its active and significant interest in what it called "headline hunting vagrancy raids" in San Mateo County, Calif., Mattachine this month proudly salutes and endorses the action of the American Civil Liberties Union, San Francisco chapter. Reprinted below is an editorial from ACLU News, in which the trials are described, and which concludes with the statement that ACLU Staff Counsel Lawrence Speiser will institute appeal of the convictions on constitutional grounds.

The editorial was written by Executive Secretary Ernest Besig, who also edits ACLU News at San Francisco.

Two men were found guilty of vagrancy and another was acquitted of the same charge in a South San Francisco jury trial resulting from a February 19th round-up of alleged sex deviates at a Sharp Park tavern. All three were represented by ACLU Staff Counsel Lawrence Speiser. The raid was headed by San Mateo County Sheriff Earl Whitmore with great fanfare and was a joint ef ́fort of sheriff's deputies, Army Military Police, alcoholic beverage control agents and highway patrolmen.

Eighty-Seven Arrested

Some 200 persons were forced to go through a police gauntlet which resulted in some 87 being arrested on charges of violating the vagrancy law in being lewd and dissolute persons and committing acts outraging public decency. Bail for all was set at $50.00. Suggestions to all of those arrested were made by law enforcement officers as well as bail bondsmen, that if they would forfeit bail, all. : further proceedings would be dropped.

On March 1st, all of the defendants were scheduled for arraignment. Only 57 of the 87 appeared and the court ordered bail forfeited for the rest. Deputy District Attorney Brian Rowson said

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