a few weeks production dropped and we fell the farthest behind schedule ever known in our small-time publishing experience. Bills unpaid mounted upon us also so that drastic action had to be taken.

Thus in May an appeal was made. We needed, a letter to our members and friends stated, a little over $2.000 immediately to turn the wheels of our own machinery again. Within a month a fair response was forthcoming--we recived about $1500 in special contributions, and some of the most delinquent accounts--rent and taxes--were paid. But there are still unpaid accounts which hammer pressure upon us, and the income which we hoped would make possible the addition of a staff member has not come forth. The daily work (which is accomplished by a 60-hour per week office schedule) has continued, but the writing, editing and publishing of Mattachine REVIEW has been advanced at only a creeping pace. Here it is July, and magazines for AprilMay-June and the current month have not gone to press, although the material for them is here ready to be worked.

When LIFE magazine hit newsstands on June 22 with its 9-page article of essays and photographs on "Homosexuality in America," Mattachine was scarcely able to cope with the flood of phone calls and letters it generated. But oddly enough, even though LIFE correctly stated that insufficient funds was one of the great problems of the organized homophile groups, response to alleviate that plight has been almost nil. Why? We have asked ourselves and others this question. No answer seems possible, unless we lean upon the tired old analysis of the problem we have struggled against for years--fear among those who do not understand themselves, and outright selfish apathy on the part of those who have it to give, but just don't care a hoot.

Four weeks after the LIFE article, we can say at Mattachine that not more than three paid memberships and as politics, and anthropology. As those who were present viewed the press coverage, and later as thousands saw reprints of the articles, a significant feeling of progress and accomplishment was felt. Sociological pioneers who were determined to strive against the ancient ignorance, prejudice, and taboo of human sex behavior were being heard although by no means yet approved.

mattachine REVIEW

many subscriptions have come in as a result.

But there was criticism galore of the article. Many felt that "exposure" of the bars and cruising haunts of the furtive homosexual was a bad thing, and that the "danger" faced by the homosexual adult would be greater. But do these same people believe for an instant that their own daily living conditions can be improved by keeping these things out of the limelight? To hope so is farcical, because the fact that gay bars exist, and the fact that homosexuals do seek. friendships in a number of places and in a number of ways is no secret. By no means did LIFE expose anything in its article; it simply showed positive and negative sides of a lot of conditions which must be understood by a larger audience than in the past. For that, and for what we consid er on the whole to be a knowledgeable and eminently fair treatment of the subject, we are indeed grateful. This is not to say that Mattachine agrees with every statement LIFE made; but we hope that others, mature and understanding in their approach to the problems of the homosexual, can agree that here was a presentation unlike anything ever done on the subject in modern mass media, and further, whether we like it or not, that homosexuals ARE human beings and must be understoood and treated as such.

2. "The Rejected" and Trial in the Press

Bringing factual information about the homosexual to the attention of the American public is no easy task, no event which takes place overnight, as we have seen.

•

But the process is at work and progress is being made. The nation's predominantly homosexual minority (variously estimated to include 15 to 20 million adults in a total popu lation rapidly approaching 200 million) is getting attention in this early last half of the 20th century unlike never be fore. By no means is the treatment uniform. It consists of ranting opinion, direct threats of decadence, emotional rav... ings of immorality and license, cancer-like disease, and disastrous fiendishness on the one hand. On the other, there is some scientific truth, Christ-like love and compassion, cool pleading for understanding reality, and an effort to pierce ancient myth and legend in a sex-frustrated society