August 25 in A.A. History

In 1926, Bill W., “in high glee, all dressed up in his neatly pressed old suit,” went “to interview the president of the American Writing Paper Co.” [right: American Writing Paper Co. cylinder machine in Holyoke, Massachusetts, 1936-7] . 

     He and Frank Shaw, the only Wall Street friend still interested in financing Bill’s valuation services, had developed a strong interest in the company, which was then in receivership. The day before, Bill and Lois had ridden their motorcycle [left: Lois on the Harley, 1925] to Holyoke, where the company’s headquarters and 13 of its 23 original rag paper mills were located. They set up camp and had Bill’s suit pressed. In a note added to her Diary of Two Motorcycle Hobos in 1973, Lois wrote:

     Upon our return from Holyoke, Frank was so pleased with Bill’s report on the American Writing Paper Co. That [sic] he gave Bill a regular weekly salary of $50 [~$890 in 2024], as well as options on stock. This permitted us to feel secure enough financially to buy a second-hand car, in which it would be much easier to make the extended trips for Bill’s work. So in early October we left Brooklyn for Vermont and parts north, in our new-to-us 1924 Dodge [right: 1924 Dodge touring car], for which we paid $250 [~$4,440 in 2024]

	In 1934, Edwin “Ebby” T. [left] appeared in court for shooting pigeons with a shotgun [right], believing the birds would ruin the new paint job on his house [below left: Dunean House, 110 Taconic Rd, Manchester, Vermont]. Judge Collins Millard Graves [below right] sent him home for the weekend, ordering him to return to court on Monday, and warning him to arrive sober.
		Back at home, Ebby had 3 or 4 bottles of his favorite beer, Ballantine’s Ale, waiting for him in a cool cellar. Something unexpected happened when he got there:

    So down I went [into the cellar], and I reached for a bottle of ale, and I couldn’t take it. I had said I would be there sober, and this wouldn’t exactly be sobriety. I went upstairs and this voice said, “Oh, don’t be silly. Go down and get that ale. My God, you’re shaking. Go on down and get it.” Well, I couldn’t do it. It wasn,t playing the game square, the way I looked at it. And when I finally made the decision not to touch it and took it over to a friend of mine, three or four houses away, I felt right then a great release from the whole thing. And that lasted for me for over two years. That was the start of the whole release from the problem for the time being.

    This marked the beginning of Ebby’s first sustained period of sobriety, which lasted long enough for him to introduce Bill W. to certain new ideas about getting and staying sober.

	Around the same time, during a visit to Rowland Hazard [left, 1921] in Bennington, Vermont, Cebra Graves [right], son of Judge Graves, learned that Ebby was facing criminal charges and the possibility of commitment to the Brattleboro Retreat (formerly the Vermont Asylum for the Insane) [below right] due to his drinking problem.
Cebra and Rowland decided to take on Ebby as a “a project.” They attended Ebby’s trial and persuaded Judge Graves to release Ebby into their custody. That fall, despite having just met him, Rowland took Ebby to New York City, where he had sobered up with the help of the Oxford Group at Calvary Mission.

In 1936, upon returning from the Olympic Games in Germany, where he had met with Himmler, Frank Buchman [left, Jan 1936], founder of the Oxford Group (OG), held a press conference at Calvary House.

    While nearly all the journalists sent out routine stories, William A. H. Birnie, a reporter for the afternoon paper New York World-Telegram [right: front page, 5 Aug 1936], arrived late and requested a special interview. In the presence of several colleagues, in the room, Buchman answered the reporter’s questions.

      At the time, it seemed inconsequential, but this encounter would soon lead to a public relations disaster for the OG.