least to lose by having anyone find out that they have supported the organization. However they have a rather high opinion of themselves and being thus self-centered they feel that the eyes of the world are on them. People in this group might gain more self-respect and self-esteem if they took greater interest in their fellow man and less interest in their own egos.

I think that these are enough cases in point to get my message across to you. And this is not to say that everyone falls into one or more of these categories. There are exceptions to this, thank God. We know a few of these exceptions. Otherwise there would be no Mattachine at all. But until more people come down out of their ivory towers, and more people "shape up or ship out" as the expression goes, Mattachine will continue to be just a small organization trying to do a gigantic task on that very thin shoestring. In fact if the additional support needed is not forthcoming shortly, there may be no Mattachine at all. These are the very hard, cold facts that must be faced squarely. The demands on Mattachine are increasing day by day. As it receives more publicity it also receives more pleas for help and assistance. But oddly enough it does not receive more support, in fact if anything it receives less support, because many think it has "arrived."

Now it is up to those of you who have read thus far as to whether or not Mattachine does stay in existence. Not that I expect all of you as individuals to be able to furnish the entire financial support that is needed, but I do hope that you will be able to help change some of the attitudes of those around you-your friends and associates and so on-who may fall into one of the categories I have described. Also, I hope that you will show this article to others and explain to them about the Mattachine movement and the great good that it has done and the even greater service that it can do in the future if it but has the confidence of more individuals as well as financial support.

I prefaced this account with the fact that for many years I have listened to many people who had problems and that two requirements for those seeking assistance are that they first must ask for help and then be willing to help themselves.

Now "the shoe is on the other foot" you might say. Mattachine has the problem. It is coming to you for help, it is asking you for help and it is willing to help itself. Are you willing to accept the responsibility this throws on your shoulders?

Let but the public mind once become thoroughly corrupt, and all attempts to secure property, liberty, or life, by mere force of laws written on parchment, will be as vain as to put up printed notices in an orchard to keep off canker-worms.

-HORACE MANN

mattachine REVIEW

HERB CAEN

(From the San Francisco Chronicle)

TO THE BARRICADES: Now what in heaven's name is all this bilious nonsense about banning Henry Miller's "Tropic of Cancer," or any other book, for that matter? Are we morons or children, that we need some elected official, half of whom are semi-illiterate anyway, to tell us what we may or may not read, what is or isn't "dirty," what will or will not contaminate us?

That these dark little minds, which will never be sullied by an original thought, should try to pass judgment on anything more complex than the wording of a traffic tag would be degrading if it weren't downright laughable. This is the stuff of which insane farce is made: men who don't know Baudelaire from Rimbaud or Henry James from Harry James, setting themselves up as literary arbiters,

I quote, probably not at all to his embarrassment, the police chief of Stockton, who has made a careful study of "Tropic of Cancer": "I only looked at one page, but this is the lowest order of profanity." This is the lowest order of inanity and these are the words of the dedicated book-burner, stalking self-righteously along the road back to the Dark Ages.

Henry Miller is a long way from being my favorite writer-although his "Colossus of Maroussi” is one of the best travel books I ever read-but I will defend him, or any other writer, from now till doomsday against the prurient prigs who pretend to "protect" us from him. Miller is a joyous, outgoing man, filled with a zest for living. The same most emphatically cannot be said of his tormentors.