ence, the responsible individual zation has moved westward from

Conscience.

ONE TROUBLE that lovers of Aiterature have in opposing ignoble censorship is that the true reader dislikes collective action. He will leave that to Russia and all forms of totalitarian and authoritarian states.

But when book-haters (whether consciously or unconsciously so) start forming packs and pursuing the instruments of modern culture in herds, something, we suppose, has to be done.

One thing is to alert open minds to the fact that book burning and book banning often stem from unanalyzed motives and secret urges to power.

Wherever this is true, the distinction, the discernment, must be bugled, much as book lovers distrust the shouted word.

Right now in Dallas, we must be on our guard against all efforts to keep the mental life of our community on an infantile level. As communities grow and tolerate many different kinds of excellence, we have to be sure that in protecting the young we do not emasculate the mature. Otherwise we cripple youth into remaining "arrested sophomores" all their lives.

IF OUR CITY is going to ripen into a great metropolis, we can not imprison it in a straight jacket of home-grown morality that denies the creative spirit the opportunities it has found as civili-

Athens to Rome to Florence to Madrid to Paris to London to New York to -? Fort Worth, no doubt.

We must understand that it is not pornography really at stake. We are all committed to laws and due processes of law to take care of that. What is threatened is the traditional democratic right, the unassailable basis of democracy in fact, of "free inquiry."

The domain of "free inquiry" that Henry Miller's "Tropic of Cancer" dramatizes is that of sex.

Any community that fails to teach its youth the sacredness of sex as well as its sinfulness is headed for trouble and unwholesome morbidity. For too long a time this nation surrounded the God-given gift of sex with only restraints and restrictions and joyless ignorance, with negation instead of affirmation.

A REACTION to the other extreme was inevitable. How will sensible people establish the wisdom in this matter of the Aristotelian ideal of the golden mean?

First of all by recognizing the moral obligation to be intelligent. To be intelligent only is not to be moral. But to be moral only, without intelligence, is to be innocent instead of virtuous. Virtue comes from knowledge; knowledge comes from books.

If prudes and bigots try to claim a monopoly on moral virtue, let the partisans of free speech smoke them out.

(Continued on page 24) OTHER U.S. ORGANIZATIONS IN THE FIELD

ONE, Inc., 232 S. Hill St., and ONE INSTITUTE OF HOMOPHILE STUDIES, 233 S. Broadway, Los Angeles 12, California. DAUGHTERS OF BILITIS, Inc., 1232 Market Street, San Francisco 2, California.

mattachine REVIEW

TWO MERIT AWARDS FOR 1961

Two awards of merit were made at the Eighth Annual Awards Banquet of the Mattachine Society, Inc., at San Francisco on Sept. 2, 1961. They were made to Mr. John W. Reavis, Jr., of New York, independent television writerproducer, and to Dr. Walter C. Alvarez, of the Des Moines Register and Tribune Syndicate, widely published medical columnist. Here are the two cita-

tions:

For a modern-day public relations man who also specializes in television script writing and program producing on an independent basis, to look deeply enough into human expressions to dare to prepare a program which looks objectively, quietly and unemotionally at the manifestation of homosexuality, this program designed for a mass television audience, is a rare thing, indeed. But for John W. Reavis, Jr., of New York, this idea was a challenge which lastfall he had to put in motion. Thus with several months of intensive study, observation, interview and salesmanship to wary sponsors, Mr. Reavis did, in March, 1961, see through to completion his project of "The Rejected," an hour-long television documentary on homosexuality unlike anything ever before presented to the American public on this subject. For his work as writer of the program, an award of merit is presented to Mr. Reavis for this program which will have its premiere telecast in San Francisco on Sept. 11, 9:30 p.m., over KQED, Channel 9.

One of America's best known syndicated medical columnists is Dr. Walter Alvarez of the Des Moines Register and Tribune Syndicate. His daily column appears in some 125 or more larger newspapers in this country. And every so often, when the inquiries mount up and something has to be said, Dr. Alvarez comes out forthrightly and discusses that most taboo of all topics for a family newspaper to treat objectively: the condition of homosexuality, as discovered by a parent in a son, or by a fiancee about to marry someone she considers is not all man. Without exception, Dr. Alvarez' comments and discussion of this subject have been eminently informative and consistently truthful. So truthful, in fact, that sometimes a newspaper drops his column for a day when he does discuss homosexuality. But these reactions are slowing ' down as more and more adult thinking creeps in to break the "Conspiracy of Silence." For his significant contribution to the spread of accurate knowledge which shatters old myths and prejudices, an award of merit is hereby made to this distinguished medical writer, Dr. Walter Alvarez.