July 30 in A.A. History

In 1863, the military unit of Gardner Fayette Griffith [right], Vermont’s Company B, 14th Regiment, was mustered out in Brattleboro, Vermont, just a few weeks after its pivotal role in the Union’s decisive victory over Robert E. Lee’s Confederate army at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania [left: a Vermont soldier c. 1863]. Griffith would later become the grandfather of Bill W.

In 1945, Silas B., 63, died in a Stamford, Connecticut hospital after a year of illness [near right: obituary, The Brooklyn (NY) Daily Eagle, 1 Aug 1945, p. 11]. He had been A.A. #3 (or 4) in New York City and, in January 1939, had written the first newspaper article ever published about Alcoholics Anonymous, but he had returned to drinking less than a year later [far right: gravestone].

In 1950, attendees at A.A.’s 1st International Convention at the Cleveland Public Auditorium in Cleveland, Ohio, adopted the Twelve Traditions with near-unanimous acclamation.

In 1950, Dr. Bob S. [left] made a brief appearance at A.A.’s 1st International Convention in Cleveland, Ohio, to deliver his final public remarks. His now-famous talk included the following:

There are two or three things that flashed into my mind on which it would be fitting to lay a little emphasis. One is the simplicity of our program. Let’s not louse it all up with Freudian complexes and things that are interesting to the scientific mind but have very little to do with our actual AA work. Our Twelve Steps, when simmered down to the last, resolve themselves into the words love and service.