we are very deeply indebted for the advice and assistance afforded us both by the Mattachine Society, Inc., and ONE, Inc., but we are an organization distinct from both of them.

Your donation of $1.00 (Sorry, this went up to $2.50 in June of 1957 progress, you know. Ed.), which entitles you to receive THE LADDER for one year, means just that. It indicates your interest in a problem which is receiving more and more nationwide attention every month it does not "label" you. Your name on our mailing list is as inviolate as the provisions of the Constitution of the United States can make it.

Our Constitution guarantees Freedom of the Press, which includes the right of all citizens to buy the books, magazines, newspapers and other publications they wish so long as these do not advocate overthow of our government and certain other basic illegalities.

In 1953, in the case of the U.S. vs. Rumely (345 U.S. 41, 56-57) the Supreme Court of the United States upheld the right of a citizen to refuse to reveal the names of purchasers of reading material to a Congressional investigating committee.

In a brilliant majority opinion, Justice William 0. Douglas said "We have here a publisher who, through books and pamphlets, seeks to reach the minds and hearts of the American people ... Like the publishers of newspapers, magazines, or books, this publisher bids for the minds of men in the market-place of ideas

"The command that 'Congress shall make no law

abridg-

ing the freedom of speech or of the press' has behind it a long history. It expresses the confidence that the safety of society depends on the tolerance of Government for hostile as well as friendly criticism, that in a community where men's minds are free, there must be room for the unorthodox as well as the orthodox views.

"Once the Government can demand of a publisher the names of the purchasers of his publications, the free press as we know it disappears. Then the specter of a Government