May 24 in A.A. History

In 1893, the Anti-Saloon League was founded in Oberlin, Ohio, by a group primarily consisting of ministers and professors who aimed to promote temperance and influence state government. It was a key component of the Progressive Era, enjoying strong support in the South and rural North, particularly from Protestant ministers and their congregations, especially Methodists, Baptists, Disciples, and Congregationalists. The League focused on legislation and was concerned with how legislators voted, rather than whether they drank. Its motto was “The saloon must go” [left: an Anti-Saloon League poster].
    Initially established as a state society in Ohio, the League’s influence spread rapidly, and it became a national organization in 1895. It quickly emerged as the most powerful prohibition lobby in the United States, overshadowing the older Woman’s Christian Temperance Union and the Prohibition Party. Its ultimate success came with the nationwide prohibition enshrined in the Constitution through the passage of the 18th Amendment in 1919.

In 1949, the American Psychiatric Association held its 105th annual meeting at the Windsor Hotel [right] in Montreal, Quebec, May 23–27. On Tuesday, the second day of the event, Bill W. delivered a talk titled “The Society of Alcoholics Anonymous.” During his presentation, he referenced an original six-step program, marking the earliest known mention of such a program. It had been 10½ years since he drafted the Twelve Steps for the Big Book, Alcoholics Anonymous, in December 1938. He stated categorically that these six steps had not evolved over time, but had been explicitly given to him by Ebby T. in November 1934:

My former schoolmate [Ebby] did, however, ascribe his new sobriety to certain ideas that this alcoholic [Rowland Hazard] and other Oxford people had given him. The particular practices my friend had selected for himself were simple:

• He admitted he was powerless to solve his own problem.
• He got honest with himself as never before; made an examination of conscience.
• He made a rigorous confession of his personal defects.
• He surveyed his distorted relations with people, visiting them to make restitution.
• He resolved to devote himself to helping others in need, without the usual demand for personal prestige or material gain.
• By meditation he sought God’s direction for his life and help to practice these principles at all times.

In 1950, James “Jim” S. [far left], 63, chief librarian of the Akron Beacon Journal, died at his home in Akron, Ohio [near left: obituary]. He was the first Australian to achieve sobriety in Alcoholics Anonymous, doing so in Akron in June 1937. Scott solicited, edited, and sometimes wrote several stories from Akron members that were included in the first edition of the Big Book, Alcoholics Anonymous. His own story appeared in that edition as “Traveler, Editor, Scholar” and in the second and third editions as “The News Hawk.”