We all know that, like the rest of us, you are confronted with the necessity
of making a living and that there are certain obligations in that respect
which you have to face. We feel that we owe a debt to you which can be
measured only in terms of life itself, and therefore, perhaps, it is hardly
appropriate that we should ask that you continue to make the sacrifices
which you have in the past for the benefit of ourselves and others yet
unknown. Yet we ask you, if you can find it possible to do so, to continue
for a time with the work of Alcoholics Anonymous.
We feel that the loss of your guidance at this most critical period in the
development of the movement would be nothing less than a major catastrophe.
On our own part, we pledge ourselves to do whatever we can in every way to
help you carry the load.
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1940: The Alcoholic Foundation office mailed the first issue of the A.A. Bulletin to groups to keep them informed of important events. Bulletin #1 included a list of cities categorized by the type of pins (or “stars”) used to mark them on a large office wall map [left: published lists]. Twenty-two cities classified as White Star (indicating well-established groups), five as Red Star (indicating several members who were just beginning), and just beginning), and sixteen as Green Star (indicating isolated members). Less than 5½ years after its founding, Alcoholics Anonymous had expanded to 43 cities and 1,400 members in the United States. |
1943: At an open meeting at
Veterans’ Theater* [left, 1940] at 1130 Wilshire Boulevard in Brentwood, a suburb of Los Angeles, California,
Bill W. told 600 attendees—the theater seated 1,526—how A.A. had enabled
10,000 alcoholics to recover. The Los Angeles Times reported
[right] on the event the next day.
1945: Bill W. wrote to Rev. Sam
D. [left], co-founder of Alcoholics
Anonymous in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1941. At that time, Sam was living in Rome,
Georgia, and Bill sought his assistance in stopping Carl K. from
misrepresenting A.A. and creating significant controversy. Carl was the editor
of his own magazine, The Empty Jug
[right: issues from late 1945—September (Vol. 2, No. 1), September (Vol. 2, No. 1½), and November (Vol.
2, No. 3), respectively] at which Sam had been designated Associate Editor and to which he contributed
a column titled “Sam Talks Sense.” Bill praised Sam’s column but noted that it
was “completely surrounded by a whole page of hate,” adding that Carl had
engaged in a “50 round bout with the demons of the liquor industry.” Bill
emphasized the importance of avoiding topics related to “politics, religion,
and reform.”In the June 1945 issue of The Empty Jug, a section titled “The Editor’s Personal Column” had featured an article by Carl called “Let’s Get Untangled,” which read, in part:
[T]he liquor interests are guilty of misrepresentation in advertising and… they are not putting up a fair fight.…
Through the power of suggestion in attractive settings, the liquor interests are influencing the subconscious minds of children into forming opinions that are disastrously incomplete—in this instance a malicious ulterior and purposeful practice no less contemptible than Japan’s stab in the back at Pearl Harbor.
Carl had republished this same article in October 1945, which apparently caught Bill’s attention shortly afterward.
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