Bill W. – How The Big Book Was Written – Texas 1954

(0:11) Now that we’re assembled here in full strength and in all the joy of this superb occasion, (0:23) I first want to renew my thanks to all who have made it possible, to Jack and his committee, (0:34) to each one of you, to the untold miles of travel that you’ve all made, (0:43) to be present, to inspire me, to fill me with the warmth of your hospitality, (0:56) to be with each other. I am grateful to the governor of this state, the mayor of this town, (1:07) for their recognition that we are again not only AA members but citizens of the world. (1:16) We once more belong, so these friends have said.
I’m deeply grateful to this hotel (1:28) and the owners of it who have housed us, especially me, so superbly. (1:36) Could you see that apartment I’m in? You’d wonder how the hell anybody could stay sober in it. It (1:41) has a bar.
As for me, I came here in great gratitude not only for the many tokens of your (2:00) generosity and affection that I have received in the past, but for what you are making possible (2:08) for my sponsor, Evie, just as much the founder of AA as I or any of the store without whom (2:17) this thing couldn’t have been. So again, I record my deep gratitude and I can find (2:31) no better words to say it in. I think I’m on the bill for tonight’s show, (2:39) with a talk on the tradition, the 12 traditions of AA.
But you know, drunks like women (2:52) have the prerogative, or at least seize the prerogative, of changing their minds, (2:57) so I ain’t going to make any such damn talk. (3:08) Since this is a banquet, something very festive, I think the traditions 1 to 12 (3:18) would be a little too grim. Might bore you a little.
As a matter of fact, speaking of traditions, (3:27) when they were first written back there in 1945 or 6 as a sort of a tentative guide, (3:34) to help us to hang together and function, nobody paid any attention (3:41) except a few ginners who wrote me what the hell mail about them. (3:46) Nobody paid the slightest attention. But little by little, as these traditions (3:54) got around, and we had our clubhouse squabbles, our group riffs, (4:04) this difficulty and that, it was found that the traditions indeed did reflect experience (4:11) and were guiding principles.
So they took a little more, and a little more, and a little more, (4:17) so that today the average AA coming in the door learns at once what they’re about, (4:23) what kind of an outfit he really has landed in, by what principles his group and AA as a whole (4:33) are governing. But as I say, the dickens with all that. I’d just like to spin some yarn, (4:44) and there will be a series of yarns which cluster around the preparation of the good old book, (4:53) Alcoholics Now.
Some people reading the book now, they say, well, this is the AA Bible, and (5:03) when I hear that, it always makes me shudder, because the guys who put it together weren’t the (5:11) damn best biblical. I think sometimes, you know, the drunks have an idea that these old-timers (5:19) went around with the almost visible halos and long gowns, and they were full of sweetness and light, (5:28) oh boy, how inspired they were. Oh, yes.
But wait till I tell you. I suppose the book yarn really (5:38) started in the living room of Doc and Annie Smith. As you know, I landed there in the summer of 35, (5:52) a little group caught hold.
I helped Smithy briefly with it, (5:57) and he went on to found the first AA group in the world. And as with all new groups, (6:06) it was nearly all failure. But now and then, somebody saw the light, and there was progress.
(6:16) Pampered, I got back to New York, a little more experienced. The group started there, (6:23) and by the time we got around to 1937, the thing had leaked a little over into Cleveland, (6:29) and it began to move south to New York. But it was still, we thought in those years (6:38) of flying blind, a flickering candle indeed that might at any moment be snuffed out.
(6:49) So on this late fall afternoon in 1937, Smithy and I were talking together in his living room, (6:59) and sitting there by the gas plug, and we began to count notes. How many people had stayed dry, (7:10) inactive, in New York? Maybe a few in Cleveland. How many had stayed dry, and for how long? (7:22) And when we added up that score, true, it was a handful.
I don’t know, 35, 40 maybe. (7:33) But enough time had elapsed on enough really fatal cases of alcoholism, so that when we (7:45) grasped the importance of these small statistics, Bob and I saw for the first time (7:58) that this thing was going to succeed, that God in his providence and mercy (8:07) had thrown a new light into the dark caves where we and our kind had been and were still (8:18) by the millions dwelt. I never can forget the elation and ecstasy that seized us both.
(8:33) And then we fell happily talking and reflecting. We reflected that, well, a couple of score of them, (8:49) but this has taken three long years. There had been an immense amount of failure, but a long (8:57) time had been taken just to sober up this handful.
How could this handful, a furious message, (9:07) to all those who still didn’t know? Not all the drunks in the world could come to Akron (9:16) or to New York. How could we transmit our message to them? By what means? (9:24) Maybe we thought we should go to the old timers in each group, which then meant nearly everybody, (9:33) find the sum of money, somebody else’s money, of course, (9:37) and say to them, well, now take a sabbatical year off your job, if you have any, (9:43) and you go to Keokuk and to Omaha and to Chicago and to San Francisco and to Los Angeles (9:49) wherever it may be, and you give this thing a year and get a group started. It had already (9:57) got evidence by then, for we were just about to be moved out of the city hospital in Akron to (10:03) make room for people with broken legs and ailing livers, that the hospitals were not too happy with (10:11) us.
We tried to run their business perhaps too much, and besides, drunks were apt to be noisy (10:19) in the night, and there were other inconveniences, which we’re all familiar with. So it was obvious (10:26) that drunks being such lovely creatures, we would have to have a great chain of hospitals. (10:35) And as that dream burst upon me, it sounded good, because you see, I have been down in Wall Street (10:41) in the promotion business, and I remember the great sums of money that were made as soon as (10:48) people got this chain idea, you know, the chain drug stores, the chain grocery store, the chain (10:55) dry goods store.
Why not chain drunk tanks and let us make the dough? So we needed some missionaries, (11:06) some guys. We needed a chain of drunk tanks. That got very clear, awful clear to me.
Bob is a (11:16) conservative type of Yankee. I don’t think he was quite so fast for those items, but I was very (11:23) insistent. It would take a pile of dough to finance all this, but after all, with this brand new light (11:32) shining in our dark world, we just squirted in the eyes of rich guys and laid up with the dough.
(11:40) Besides, we reflected we’d have to get some kind of literature. Up to this moment, not a syllable (11:50) of this program, so far as I know, was in writing. It was a kind of a word-of-mouth (11:58) deal with variations according to each man or woman’s fancy.
Well, in a general way, we said, (12:08) well, the booze has got you down, boys, and you got an allergy and an obsession, and you’re hopeless (12:15) if you are. You better get honest with yourself and take stock. You ought to talk this out with (12:25) somebody, kind of a confession, you know, and you ought to make restitution for the harm you did.
(12:33) You ought to make amends and all that kind of business, and while you’re afraid, as best you (12:39) could according to your life’s advantage. And that was the sum of the word-of-mouth program up to (12:44) that time. But as I say, variations on that were already appearing.
How could we unify this thing? (12:53) Could we, out of our experience, get certain principles, describe certain methods that had (13:03) done the trick for us? Yes, obviously, if this movement was to propagate, it had to have a (13:10) literature so its message could not be garbled, either by the drunks or by the general public. (13:18) So Bob and I reflected that late afternoon in 1937. Missionaries, chain of drunk tanks, (13:29) and a book.
Well, even by then, he and I had begun to learn that we were not the government (13:39) of alcoholics and non-alcoholics. He, I guess more than I, already realized that (13:47) the conscience of the group, the opinion of the group, when it was an informed opinion and in (13:55) the group’s interest, could be better than our own. We’d better consult both.
Well, there was (14:01) dear old non-alcoholic, his wife, T. Henry Williams, there in Akron, and they’d let us (14:09) meet in their house. After it got out of the Smiths’ parlor, it got into theirs, (14:15) and he was a great friend of ours. So we called a meeting of the Akron group, that is to say, (14:25) those who had been sober any great length of time.
I think for this particular meeting, (14:31) we scraped up about 18. And that evening, Bob and I told them that we were within sight of success. (14:48) That we thought this thing might go on and on and on.
That a new light, indeed, (14:55) was shining in our dark world. But how could this light be reflected and transmitted (15:03) without being distorted and dark? And at this point, they turned the meeting over to me. (15:12) And being a salesman, I set right the work on them drunk tanks and subsidies for the missionaries.
(15:19) I was pretty poor then. And we touched on the book. And the group conscience consisted of 18 (15:32) men, good and true.
And the good and true men, you could see right away, were damn skeptical about it (15:41) all. Almost with one voice, they chorused, let’s keep it simple. This is going to bring money into (15:53) this thing.
This is going to create a professional flag. We’ll all be ruined. Well, I countered, (16:03) that’s a very good argument.
Lots of what you say. But even within gunshot at this very house, (16:11) alcoholics are dying like flies. And if this thing doesn’t move any faster than it has (16:18) in the next, in the last three years, it may be another 10 before it gets to the outskirts of (16:24) Akron.
How in God’s name are we going to carry this message to others? (16:30) Well, we’ve got to take some kind of chances. We can’t keep it so simple it becomes an anarchy (16:38) and get complicated. We can’t keep it so simple it won’t propagate itself.
And we gotta have a (16:47) lot of money to do these things. So exerting myself to the utmost, which was considerable (16:55) in those days, we finally got a vote in that little meeting, and it was a mighty close vote. (17:05) By just a majority of maybe two or three, the meeting said with some reluctance, (17:12) well, Bill, if we need a lot of dough, you better go back to New York where there’s plenty of it, (17:19) and you raise it.
Well, boy, that was the word I’d been waiting for. So I scrammed back to the (17:29) great city, and I began to approach some people of means and describe this tremendous thing that (17:39) had happened. And it didn’t seem so tremendous as the people of means at all.
They said, (17:47) what, 35 or 40 drunks? Sobered up? They have sobered them up before now, you know. (17:57) And besides, Mr. Wilson, don’t you think it’s kind of sweeping up the shavings? I mean, (18:04) wouldn’t something for the Red Cross be better? (18:10) In other words, with all of my most ardent solicitation, I got one hell of a freeze from (18:17) the gentleman over there. Well, I began to get blue.
And when I began to get blue, (18:25) my stomach kicked up as well as other things. And I was laying in bed one night with an imaginary (18:33) ulcer attack. Used to have them all the time.
I had one to time the 12 steps for it. And I said, (18:43) my God, we’re starving to death here at Clinton Street. By this time, the house was full of (18:49) drunks.
They were eating us out of house and home. In those days, we never believed in charging (18:54) anything for, anybody for anything. So Lois was earning the money.
I was being a missionary, (18:59) and the drunks were eating the meals. This can’t go on. We got to have them drunk tanks.
We got (19:06) to have them missionaries. And how we got to have them missionaries? And we got to have a boat. (19:11) That’s for sure.
Well, the next morning, I crawled into my clothes and I saw my brother-in-law. (19:19) He’s a doctor, and he is about the last person who stuck to me when the chips were way, way down. (19:28) The only one, save, of course, dear Lois.
Well, I said, I’ll go up and see Leonard. (19:36) So I went up to see my brother-in-law Leonard. He pried out a little time between the patients (19:43) coming in up there.
And I started my awful bellyache about these rich guys who wouldn’t (19:51) give us any dough for his great and glorious enterprise. So well on its way to success. (19:57) Think of it.
Forty hopeless cases sober for two, three years. Well, he’d heard this story before. (20:07) He resigned himself to hearing it again.
But at length, he scratched his head and he said, (20:14) well, well, when I went to high school, I used to know a girl. (20:25) And she had an uncle by the name of Richard. He was then a pretty old man.
(20:32) And it seems to me that somehow he was tied up with the Rockefeller family and their character. (20:40) And if you want to, we’ll call up the Rockefeller offices and see if there is such a man. And if (20:45) there is, is he alive? And will he see it? Would you like me to do that? (20:52) Well, I hadn’t tried the Rockefeller office, so I said, well, sure, give them a ring.
(21:01) On what slender threads our destiny sometimes hangs. Remember, my brother-in-law said, I knew (21:11) a girl and I think she had an uncle. So the call was made.
(21:21) Instantly there came on to the other end of the wire the voice of dear Willard Richard. (21:29) One of the loveliest Christian gentlemen that I have ever known. And the moment he recognized my (21:38) brother-in-law, he said, why, Leonard, he said, where have you been all these years? (21:46) Well, my brother-in-law, unlike me, is a man of very few words, so he quickly said to dear old (21:53) Uncle Willard that he had a brother-in-law who was apparently having some success sobering up drunks.
(22:02) Could the two of us come over there and see him? Why, certainly, said dear Willard, come right over. (22:10) So we go over to Rockefeller Plaza, we go up that elevator, 54 flights, 56, I guess it is, (22:20) and we walk plump into Mr. Rockefeller’s personal office and ask to see Mr. Richardson. And here (22:29) sits this lovely, benign old gentleman, who nevertheless had a kind of a shrewd twinkle (22:42) in his eye.
So I sat down and told him about our exciting discovery, this horrific cure for (22:50) alcoholics that had just hit the world. How it worked, what we had done, and boy, this was the (23:00) first receptive man with money or access to money. Remember, we were in Mr. Rockefeller’s personal (23:08) office at this point, and by now, too, we had learned that this was Mr. Rockefeller’s closest (23:16) personal friend, perhaps.
So he said, why, yes, he said, I’m much interested. (23:30) Wouldn’t you like to have lunch with me, Mr. Wilson? Well, now, you know, for a rising promoter, (23:36) that sounded pretty good. I was going to have lunch with best friend John Dee, (23:41) but things were looking up.
My ultra attack disappeared. (23:50) So I had lunch with the old gentleman, and we drove his thing again, and boy, he’s so warm (23:55) and kind and friendly. Right at the close of lunch, he said, well, now, Mr. Wilson, or Bill, (24:02) if I can call you that, said, wouldn’t you like to have a larger meeting with some of my friends? (24:10) There’s Frank Amos.
He’s in the advertising business, but he was on a committee that (24:17) recommended Mr. Rockefeller drop the probation business. And there’s Leroy Chipman. He looks (24:24) at Mr. Rockefeller’s real estate, and there’s Mr. Scott, he’s chairman of the board up at the (24:30) Riverside Church, and he said a number of people like that.
I believe they’d like to hear this (24:35) talk. So a meeting was arranged, and it fell upon a winter’s night, late 1937. (24:47) And the meeting was at 30th Rockefeller Plaza.
We called in post haste a couple of drunks, (24:57) macarons, smithy included, of course, adding the protection. I came in with the New York contingent, (25:06) four or five. And to our astonishment, we were ushered into Mr. Rockefeller’s personal board (25:14) room right next to our office, right next to his office.
And I thought to myself, well, (25:21) now this is really getting hot. And indeed, I felt very much warm when I was told by Mr. (25:28) Richardson that I was sitting in a chair just vacated by Mr. Rockefeller. And I said, well, (25:34) now we really are getting close to the bankroll.
Old Doc Silkworth was there that night, too. (25:42) And he testified what he had seen happen to these new friends of ours. And each drunk, (25:51) thinking of nothing better to say, well, each of us told our stories of drinking and of recovery.
(26:02) And these folks listened. They seemed very definitely impressed. So I could see that (26:10) the moment for the big touch was coming.
So I gingerly brought up the subject of the (26:20) drunk tank, the subsidized missionary, and this question of a book or a lyric book. (26:30) Well, God moves in a mysterious way, his wonders to perform. (26:36) But it didn’t look like a wonder to me when Mr. Scott, head of a large engineering firm and (26:45) chairman of the Riverside Church, looked at us and said, but gentlemen, he said, up to this point, (26:53) this has been the work of goodwill only.
No plants, no property, no paid people, (27:02) just one carrying the good news to the next. Isn’t that true? And may it not be that that is (27:11) where the great power of this society lies. Now, if we subsidize it, might it not already (27:22) hold character? We want to do all we can.
We’re gathered for that. But would it be one? (27:34) Well, then the salesmen all gave Mr. Scott the rock. And we said, why, Mr. Scott? (27:45) There are only 40 of us.
It’s taken three years. Why, millions, Mr. Scott, will rot before this (27:53) thing ever gets to them unless we have money and lots of it. And we made out our case, (28:01) at last, with these gentlemen, for the missionaries, the drunk tank, the book.
(28:06) So one of them volunteered to investigate us very carefully. And since poor old Dr. Bob was (28:17) harder up than I was, and since the first group and the typical community situation was in Akron, (28:24) we directed their attention out there. And Frank Amos, still a trustee in the foundation, (28:31) at his own expense, got on a train, went out to Akron, made all sorts of preliminary inquiries (28:38) around town about Dr. Bob.
All the reports were good, except that he was a drunk, (28:47) had recently got over. He visited the little meeting out there. He went to the Smith’s house.
(28:55) And he came back with what he thought was a very modest project. (29:00) And he recommended to these friends of ours that, well, we could have at least just a (29:07) total amount of money at first, say $50,000, something like that. That would clear off the (29:13) mortgage on the Smith’s place.
It would get us a little rehabilitation place. We could put Dr. (29:19) Smith in charge. We could subsidize a few of these people briefly until we got some more money.
(29:26) We could, you know, it would start the chain of hospitals, and we’d have a few missionaries, (29:32) and we could get busy on the book, all for a mere $50,000. Well, considering the kind of money we (29:40) were backed up against, that did sound a little small, but, you know, one thing leads to another, (29:45) and it sounded real good. We were real glad.
Mr. Willard Richardson, our original contact, (29:53) then took that report into John Diggs, Jr., as everybody called him, and I’ve since heard what (30:05) went on in there. Mr. Rockefeller read the report, called Willard Richardson back, (30:15) and he said, somehow I am strangely stirred by all this. This interests me immensely.
(30:28) And then looking at his friend Willard, he said, but isn’t money going to spoil this? (30:36) I’m terribly afraid that it would, and yet I’m so strangely stirred by it. Then came another (30:48) turning point in our destiny, when that man whose business is giving away money said to Willard (30:57) Richardson, no, he said, I’m going to be the one to spoil this one with money. You say these two (31:05) men who are heading it are a little strapped.
I’ll put $5,000 in the Riverside Church Treasury. (31:16) You folks can form yourselves into a committee and draw on it as you like. (31:21) But please don’t ask me for any more.
But I want to hear what goes on. (31:27) Well, the $50,000 had then shrunk to five. We raised the mortgage on Smithy’s House (31:34) for about $3,000.
That left two, and Smithy and I commenced drawing on that two. (31:41) Well, that was a long way from a string of drunk tanks and books. (31:48) What in thunder would we do? Well, we had more meetings with our newfound friends, (31:56) Amos, Richardson, Scott, Chipman, and those fellows who stuck with us to this day, (32:06) some of them now being gone.
And in spite of Mr. Rockefeller’s advice, we again convinced these (32:15) folks that this thing needed a lot of money. What could you do without it? So, (32:27) one of them proposed, well, why don’t we form a foundation, something like the Rockefeller (32:32) Foundation? Well, I said, I hope it’ll be like that with respect to money. And then one of them (32:43) got a free lawyer from Eli Hill Roth’s firm who was interested in the thing.
And we asked him to (32:51) draw up an agreement of trust, a charter, for something to be called the Alcoholic Foundation. (33:02) Why we picked that one, I don’t know. I don’t know whether the foundation was alcoholic.
(33:07) It was the Alcoholic Foundation, not the Alcoholic Foundation, no. And the lawyer was very much (33:15) confused because in the meeting in which we formed the foundation, we made it very plain that (33:22) we drunks did not wish to be in the majority. We felt that there should be non-alcoholics on the (33:30) board and they ought to be in a majority of one.
Well, indeed, said the lawyer, what is the (33:38) difference between an alcoholic and a non-alcoholic? And one of our smart drunks said, (33:44) well, that’s the same. A non-alcoholic is a guy who can drink and an alcoholic is a guy who can’t (33:53) drink. Well, said the lawyer, how do we say that legally? I wouldn’t know.
So at length, we had a (34:03) foundation and a board, which I think then was of about seven, consisting of four of these new (34:10) friends, including my brother-in-law, Mr. Richards and Chiplyn Amos, and some of us drunks. I think (34:17) Smithy went on the board, but I kind of coyly stayed off it thinking, well, it would be more (34:23) convenient later on. So we had this wonderful new foundation.
These friends, unlike Mr. Rockefeller, (34:32) were told that we needed a lot of dough. And so our salesmen around New York started to solicit (34:39) the money, again from the very rich. And we had a list of them, and we had credentials and letters (34:48) from friends of Mr. John B. Rockefeller.
How could you miss, I asked you, sir? (34:56) The foundation had been formed in the spring of 1938, and all summer we solicited the rich. (35:04) Well, they were either in Florida, or they preferred the Red Cross, or some of them thought (35:11) the drunks were disgusting. And we didn’t get one damn cent in the whole summer of 1938, praise God.
(35:27) Well, meantime, we began to hold trustee meetings, and they were commiseration sessions on getting (35:33) no dough. What was the mortgage, and what was Smithy and me eating away at it? The five grand (35:40) had about gone up the slew, and we were all stony broke again. Smithy couldn’t get his practice back (35:47) either, because he was a surgeon, and nobody liked to be carved up by an alcoholic surgeon, (35:53) even if he was three years sober.
So things were tough all around, no fooling. Well, what would we (36:02) do? So one day, probably in August 1938, I produced at a foundation meeting a couple of (36:14) chapters of a proposed book in rough and in mimeograph. As a matter of fact, we’d been using (36:19) chapters of this proposed book, along with some recommendations of a couple doctors down at John (36:26) Hopkins to try to put the bite on the rich.
And we still had these two book chapters kicking around, (36:31) and so Frank Amos said, well, now I know the religious editor down there at Hopkins. (36:39) Old friend of mine, Gene Axman, said, why don’t you take these two book chapters, (36:46) your story and the introduction to the book, down there and show them to Gene and see what (36:52) he thinks about it. So I took the chapters down.
To my great surprise, Gene, who has since become (37:04) a great friend of ours, looked at the chapters and said, why? He said, Mr. Wellesley, could you (37:10) write a whole book like this? Oh, I said, sure, sure. Well, there was more talk about it. I guess (37:21) he went in and showed it to Mr. Canfield, the big boss.
Now the meeting was handed. (37:28) The upshot was that Harper’s intimated that they would pay me as the budding author (37:34) $1,500 in advance royalties, bringing enough money in to enable me to finish the book. (37:45) Well, I felt awful good about that.
It made me feel like I was an author or a comer, maybe. (37:52) I felt real good about it. But after a while, not so good.
Because I began to reason, (38:00) and so did the other boys. Well, if this guy Wilson eats up the 1,500 bucks while he’s doing (38:07) this book, after the book gets out, it’ll take a long time to catch up. And if this thing gets (38:14) some publicity, what are we going to do with the inquiries? And after all, what’s a lousy 10% (38:20) royalty anyway? Well, the 1,500 still look pretty big to me.
Then we thought, too, now here’s a (38:29) fine publisher like Harper’s, but if this book, if and when done, should prove to be the main (38:36) textbook for AA, why would we want our main means of propagation in the hands of somebody else? (38:43) Shouldn’t we control this thing? Well, at that point, the book project really began to get hot. (38:50) It began to take off. Why? We said what we ought to do is to form a book company, (38:57) a publishing company, a corporation.
We could call it, let it stay, (39:03) Works Publishing Company, this being the first of a great many works, you see. (39:09) And we could sell stock certificates to all the drunks, get the money coming in, (39:16) support the author and the guy who collected the money and the gal who would help me on the book (39:22) while this was going on. Well, we took this idea to the next trustees meeting, and (39:27) they all shook their heads, and they went out and made some more inquiries, and we had another (39:33) trustees meeting.
They’d gone to some publisher friends, and the publisher says, well, these (39:38) authors, they all got the crazy idea that they can publish their own books, but it ain’t so. (39:44) We don’t believe in it. Well, then we had kind of an alcoholic rebellion.
We said to our friends, (39:50) well, after all, you didn’t produce any dough. We think we’ll try this on separate foundations. (39:58) So I had a guy helping me on this thing who had red hair and ten times my energy, and (40:05) some promoter he was.
He said, Bill, this is simple. Come on with me. We walk into a stationary (40:12) store.
We buy a pad of blank stock certificates. We write across the top of them, Works Publishing (40:19) Company, par value, $25. So we take a pad of these stock certificates.
Of course, we didn’t (40:27) bother to incorporate it. That didn’t happen for several years. We took this pad of stock certificates (40:36) to the next AA meeting.
Boy, you shouldn’t mix money with spirituality, you know. (40:42) And we said to the drunk, well, look, this thing is going to be a thing. (40:48) Parker, he’ll take a third of this thing for services rendered.
I, the author, I’ll take a (40:55) third for services rendered. And you can have a third of these stock certificates, par 25, (41:02) if you’ll just start paying up on your stock. If you only want one share, it’s only $5 a month for (41:08) each.
And the drunk all gave us a stony look. They said, what the hell? You mean to say you’re (41:21) asking us to buy stock in a book that you ain’t written yet? Why, sure, we said, if Harper’s will (41:36) put money in this thing, why shouldn’t you? Harper said it’s going to be a good book. But the drunk (41:43) still gave us a stony stare.
No assault. Well, we had to think up some more arguments. (41:51) So we said, well, we’ve been looking about the printing costs of the books, boys.
We get a book (42:03) here, you know, 400, 450 pages, it ought to sell for about $350. Now, back in those days, we found (42:11) on inquiries and printers that that $350 book could be printed for $0.35, making a thousand (42:19) percent profit. Of course, we didn’t mention the other expenses, just the printing costs.
(42:24) So boys, just think of it. When these books move out in carload lots, (42:30) we’re printing them for $0.35 and we’re selling them direct mail. $350, how can you lose? (42:39) The drunk still gave us a stony stare.
No assault. Well, we figured we had to have (42:49) a better argument than that. Harper said it was a good book.
We could print them for $0.35 and (42:56) sell them for $350. But how are we going to convince the drunk that we could move carload (43:01) lots of these? Millions of dollars worth. So we get the idea, we’ll go up to the Reader’s Digest.
(43:10) And we got an appointment with Mr. Kenneth Payne, the managing editor up there. Gee, (43:17) I’ll never forget the day we got off the train up to Pleasantville and went over to his office, (43:21) Oxford Inn. We excitedly told him the story of this wonderful budding society.
We dwelled upon (43:29) the friendship of Mr. Rockefeller and Harry Emerson Sposik. You know, we were traveling in (43:34) good company, Mr. Payne. And the society, by the way, was about to publish this textbook, (43:42) then in protest of being written.
And we were wondering, Mr. Payne, (43:49) if this wouldn’t be a matter of tremendous interest to the Reader’s Digest, having in mind, (43:55) of course, that the Reader’s Digest had a circulation of 12 million readers. And if we (44:06) really would move some, you see. Well, Mr. Payne said, this sounds extremely interesting.
He said, (44:13) I like this idea. Why, I think it will be an absolutely ideal piece for the Digest. (44:24) Well, how soon do you think this new book will be out, Mr. Wilson? Well, I said, we got a couple (44:28) chapters written and said if we can get right at it, Mr. Payne, you know, probably this being, (44:38) let us say, October, we ought to get this out by next April, next May.
Why, Mr. Payne said, (44:45) I’m sure the Digest would like something like this, Mr. Wilson. He said, I’ll take it up to (44:51) the editorial board. And he said, when the time is right and you get all ready to shoot, (45:00) come on up and we’ll put a special feature writer on this thing and we’ll tell all about your son.
(45:06) And then my promoter’s friend said, but Mr. Payne, will you mention the new book in the piece? Oh, (45:11) yes, yes, Mr. Payne mentioned the new book. That’s all we needed. Then we went back to (45:17) Now, look, boys, there are positively millions in there.
How can you miss? Harper says it’s going (45:24) to be a good book. We buy them for 35 cents from the printer. We sell them for 350.
The Reader’s (45:32) Digest is going to give us a free ad in a piece, and boys, they’ll move out by the carload. How can (45:39) you miss? And after all, we only need four or five thousand bucks. So then we began to sell (45:47) the shares that were publishing, not yet incorporated, par value, $25.
Five dollars a (45:53) month to poor people. Some people could buy as many as one guy bought ten shares. We sold a few (46:01) shares to non-alcoholics.
And my promoter friend, who was to get a third interest, was a very (46:07) important man in this transaction because he went out and kept collecting the money from the drunk (46:12) so that little Ruthie Hawk and I could keep working on the book, and so Lois would have (46:18) some groceries, although she was still working in that department store. So the preparation (46:25) started, and some more chapters were done, and we went into AA meetings in New York with these (46:33) chapters in the rough. Well, it wasn’t like chicken in the rough.
The boys didn’t eat those chapters up (46:41) at all. I suddenly discovered that I was in a terrific whirlpool of arguments. (46:49) I was just the umpire, and finally had to stipulate, well, boys, over here you got the (46:56) holy rollers who say we need all the good old-fashioned stuff in the book, and over here (47:01) you tell me we got to have a psychological book, and that never cured anybody, and they didn’t do (47:07) much with drunks in the missions, so I guess you’ll have to leave me just to be the umpire.
(47:12) I’ll scribble out some roughs here and show them to you, and let’s get the comments in. (47:17) So we fought, bled, and died our way through one chapter after another. We sent them out to Akron, (47:25) and they were peddled around, and there were terrific hassles about what to do in this book (47:30) and whatnot.
Meanwhile, we sent drunks writing their stories, or having newspaper people that (47:37) we had write stories for them to go in the back of the book. We had an idea we’d have a text, (47:43) you know, and then we’d have stories all about the drunks who were staying sober in the back. (47:48) Prove it up.
So then came that night when we were up around that chapter five. As you know, (47:57) I’d gone all on about myself, which was natural after all, and then we had a little introductory (48:04) chapter, and we dealt with the agnostic, and we described alcoholism, but boy, (48:10) we finally got up to the point where we really had to say what the book was all about and how (48:15) this deal worked. Well, as I told you, this was a six-step program then.
On this particular evening, (48:24) I was lying in bed on Clinton Street wondering what the deuce this next chapter would be about, (48:29) and the idea came to me, well, we need a definite statement, a concrete principle that (48:35) these drunks can’t wiggle out from. Can’t be any wiggling out of this deal at all. (48:41) And this six-step program has two big gaps in between.
They’ll be wiggling out. (48:48) Moreover, if this book goes out to distant readers, they have got to have an absolute (48:53) explicit program by which to go. Well, while I was thinking these thoughts, and while my imaginary (49:02) ulcer was tainting me, and while I was mad as hell as these drunks because the money was coming in (49:08) slow, some had to stop and weren’t paying up, a couple of guys come in and they gave me a big (49:15) argument, and we yelled and shouted.
And I finally went down and laid on the bed with my ulcer, (49:22) and I said, poor me. Well, there was a pad of paper under the bed, and I reached for that, (49:28) and I said, well, now you’ve got to break this program up into small pieces so they can’t wiggle (49:34) out. So I started writing, trying to bust it up into little pieces.
And when I got the pieces set (49:45) down on that piece of yellow paper, I put numbers on them, and was rather agreeably surprised when (49:52) it came out as twelve. I said, well, that’s a good, significant figure in Christianity and (49:56) mystic lore. Then I noticed that instead of leaving the God idea to the last, I’d got it (50:05) up front, but I didn’t pay much attention to that.
It looked pretty good. Well, next meeting comes (50:13) along. I’d gone on beyond the steps, trying to amplify them and write that chapter, and I took (50:20) that chapter with the steps in the meeting, and boy, pandemonium broke loose.
What do you mean by (50:25) changing the program? What about this? What about that? This thing is overloaded with God. We don’t (50:31) like this. You’ve got these guys on their knees.
Stand them up. This thing, a lot of these drunks (50:40) are scared to death of being God, but let’s take God out of it entirely. Such were the arguments we (50:45) had.
Well, out of that terrific hassle about the twelve steps, there did come a ten-strike. (50:56) That argument caused the introduction of a phrase which has been a lifesaver by thousands. It was (51:03) certainly not a my fault.
I was on the pious side then, you see, still suffering from this big hot (51:10) flash of mine. The idea of God as you understand him came out of that perfectly ferocious argument, (51:21) and we put that into the steps. Well, little by little, the thing ground down, and little by (51:28) little, the drunks put in the money, and we kept an office open over in Newark, which was the office (51:35) of a defunct business that I’d tried to establish my friend in.
The money ran low at time zone. (51:42) Little Ruthie Hock worked for no pay. We gave her plenty of stock in the works publishing, (51:47) of course.
All you had to do was tear it off the page, part 25, have a week’s salary there. (51:58) So we got around to about January 1939, and somebody said, well, hadn’t we better test this (52:06) thing out? Hadn’t we better kind of make a pre-publication copy, a monolithic or a mimeograph (52:12) copy of this text and a few of these stories that had come in, and try it out, you know, (52:18) on the preacher, on the doctor, Catholic Committee on Publications, psychiatrists, policemen, (52:23) fishwives, housewives, drunks, everybody, just to see if we got anything that goes against the grain (52:29) anyplace, and also to find out if we can’t get some better ideas on heaven right here on this (52:39) good old earth. So said the priest, why don’t you go back to Mr. Wilson and ask him to change heaven (52:47) to utopia, because we’re in the business of promising people something much better later on.
(53:03) Well, so the book had passed monthly, and the stories came in, somehow we got them edited, (53:12) somehow we got the galley together, we got up to the printing contract. Well, (53:19) meanwhile, the drunks had been kind of slow on those subscription payments, (53:24) the thing a little further on, I was able to go up to Charlie’s Town, where old Doc (53:30) Silkworth held course, and Charlie believed in us mindedly, and so we had put the slug on Charlie (53:38) for $2,500. Charlie didn’t want any stock, he wanted a promissory note on the book not yet (53:46) written.
So we tapped Charlie for $2,500, which we routed around through the Alcoholic Foundation (53:54) so it could be tax exempt, you understand. So all told, we had blown in, supporting three of us (54:02) in an office to do this job, in these nine months, upwards of $6,000, and the money, (54:10) the till was getting very low. Well, we still had to get it printed.
So we go up to Cornwall Press, (54:19) the largest printer in the world, where we’ve made previous inquiry, and we asked about printing, (54:26) and, oh yes, they’d be very glad to do it, and how many books would we like? Well, we said, (54:34) that’s very hard to estimate. Of course, our membership is very small at the present time, (54:39) we won’t tell many of the membership, but after all, the Reader’s Digest is going to print (54:45) a plug about it to 12 million readers, this book should go out in Carlos, Mr. Printer. (54:52) And Mr. Printer was none other than dear old Mr. Blackwell, one of our great friends.
(55:01) And Mr. Blackwell said, well, boys, how much of a down payment do you want to make? (55:09) How many books would you like printed? Well, we said, we’ll be conservative, let’s print 5,000 (55:15) of them just to start. And Mr. Blackwell said, well, what are you going to use for money? Well, (55:21) we said, well, we won’t need much, I imagine a few hundred dollars on account would be all right (55:26) with you, Mr. Blackwell, because after all, we’re traveling in very good company, you know, (55:30) we’re friends with the Rockefellers and all that. So Blackwell started printing the 5,000 books.
(55:37) Plates were made, then the galleys were read. Gee, all of a sudden, we thought of the Reader’s (55:48) Digest. We walk in on Mr. Kenneth Payne, and we said, Mr. Payne, we’re all ready to shoot.
(55:56) And Mr. Payne said, shoot what? Oh, yes, he said, I remember you, Mr. Parker and Mr. Wilson. (56:07) You were the gentleman up here last fall. He said, I told you that I thought the Reader’s (56:13) Digest would be interested in this new work and in this book.
But he said, right after you were (56:21) here, I consulted our editorial board, and to my great surprise, they didn’t like the idea at all, (56:26) and I forgot to tell you. Boy, we had the drunks with 4,500 bucks in it, Charlie Townes hooked for (56:38) 2,500 bucks on the cuff with the printer, maybe $500 left in the bank. What in the deuce would we (56:51) do? Well, this fellow, Morgan Ryan, the good-looking Irishman that has taken the book (56:59) over to the Catholic Committee on Publications, had been, in earlier time, a good ad man.
He said, (57:06) I know Gabriel Heater, and Gabriel Heater is putting on these three-minute hot-plug (57:14) programs on the radio. He said, I’ll get an interview with Gabriel Heater. (57:21) Maybe he’ll interview me on the radio about all this.
So our spirits rose once again, (57:30) and then all of a sudden, we had a big chill. We thought, well, supposing this Irishman got (57:40) drunk before Heater interviewed him. So he went over to see Heater, and lo and behold, (57:49) Heater would interview him.
And then we got still more scared. So we rented a room in the (57:56) downtown athletic club, and we put Ryan in there with a day and night guard for 10 days. (58:18) Meanwhile, boy, our spirits rose again.
We could see those books just going out in carloads. (58:24) Then my promoter friend said, well, look, there should be, you know, a follow-up on a big thing (58:30) like this Heater interview. He said, it’ll be heard all over the country, national network.
(58:38) Now he said, I think, folks, that the big market for this book are the doctors, the physicians. (58:48) And he said, I suggest that we pitch the last $500 we got in the treasury on a postal card show, (58:56) going to every physician east of the Rocky Mountains. And on the postal card, we will say, (59:05) hear all about Alcoholics Anonymous on Gabriel Heater’s program.
(59:12) Send $350 for the book Alcoholics Anonymous. Sure, sure, for alcoholism. (59:18) So we spent the last $500.
The postal card shower went out. (59:25) They managed to keep Ryan sober, although he since hasn’t made it. (59:31) All the drunks had their ears glued to the radio.
The group market in Alcoholics Anonymous (59:40) was already saturated, because you see, we had 49 stockholders, and they had all got a book free. (59:46) And then we had 28 guys with stories, and they all got a free book. So we’d run out the AA market.
(59:54) But we could see it moving out in carloads to these doctors and their patients. Sure enough, (1:00:01) Ryan is interviewed. Heater pulls out the old tremolo stop, and we could see them book orders (1:00:09) coming back in carloads.
Well, we just couldn’t wait to go down to old post office box 658 (1:00:19) Church Street, Ann Arbor. The address printed in the back was the old book. (1:00:27) We hung to it for about three days, and then my friend Hank and little Ruthie Haas, that some (1:00:33) of you remember, and I went over.
And we looked in box 658. It wasn’t a locked box. You just looked (1:00:44) through the glass.
And we could see in there a few of these postal cards. I had a terrible thinking (1:00:52) sensation. But my friend, the promoter, he said, boy, Bill, he said, they can’t put all that stuff (1:01:00) in the box.
He said, they got mailbags full of it out there. So we go to the clerk, (1:01:13) and he brings us out 12 lousy postal cards, 10 of them completely illegible, written by (1:01:21) Dr. Drunkard Monkey. And we had exactly two orders for the book, Alcoholics Anonymous.
(1:01:30) And we were absolutely and utterly stony broke. The sheriff then moved in on the office. (1:01:39) Poor old Mr. Blackwood wondered what to do for money and felt like taking the book over.
(1:01:46) And at that very opportune moment, the house in which Lois and I lived was foreclosed, (1:01:54) and we and our furniture were set out in the street. (1:01:58) And that was the state of the book Alcoholics Anonymous in the summer of 1939 (1:02:06) and the state of great Sister Wilson’s work. Moreover, a great cry went up from the drunks, (1:02:13) what about our $4,500? And Charlie, who was pretty well off, was even a little uneasy about that note (1:02:22) for $2,500.
What would we do? What would we do? Well, we put our goods into storage on the cuff, (1:02:34) couldn’t even pay the drayman. An AA landed us a summer camp, another AA landed us a car. (1:02:45) The folks around New York began to pass a hat for groceries for the Wilsons, (1:02:50) for which they supplied us $50 a month.
So we had a lot of discontented stockholders, (1:02:57) 50 bucks a month, a summer camp, and an automobile with which to revise the falling fortunes of the (1:03:05) book Alcoholics Anonymous. We began to shop around from one magazine to another. What did they give (1:03:13) us in publicity? Nobody bit, and it looked like the whole dump was going to be foreclosed, (1:03:22) book, office, Wilsons, everything.
When one of the boys in New York, who happened to be a little (1:03:28) bit prosperous at the time and who had a fashionable clothing business on Fifth Avenue, which we (1:03:34) learned was mostly on mortgage, having drunk nearly all of it up, one of those guys, Burt Taylor, (1:03:42) saved it. I went to Burt one day and I said, Burt, there is a promise of an article in Liberty (1:03:50) Magazine. I just got it today, but it won’t come out until next September.
It’s going to be called (1:03:58) Alcoholics and Jobs. It’ll be printed by Liberty Magazine’s Fulton editor, Fulton Osler, the then (1:04:07) editor. And Burt, when that piece is printed, why, these books will go out in carload lots.
We (1:04:15) need a thousand dollars real bad to get us through the summer. Well, Burt says, you’re sure that (1:04:22) article’s going to be printed, aren’t you? Oh, yes, that’s positive. Well, he said, okay.
He says, (1:04:30) I haven’t got the dough, but he said this man down in Baltimore, Mr. Cochran, he’s connected (1:04:34) with the wet-and-dry forces. Well, I said, Burt, this wet-and-dry, Burt said, you ain’t going to be (1:04:41) fuzzy where you get this stuff. He’s a customer of mine.
He buys his pants in here. Let me call him (1:04:49) up. So Burt gets on long-distance phone with Mr. Cochran in Baltimore, a very wealthy man, and he (1:04:54) said, Mr. Cochran, time to time, did I mention this Alcoholics Fellowship to which I belong? (1:05:01) Mr. Cochran said, yes, yes, Mr. Taylor.
Well, Burt said, Mr. Cochran, our fellowship has just (1:05:08) come out with a magnificent new textbook, Sure Cure for Alcoholism. Mr. Cochran, it’s something (1:05:15) that we think that every public library in America should have. And Mr. Cochran, the retail price (1:05:21) of the book is $250, but Mr. Cochran, if you just buy a couple of thousand of those books and put (1:05:28) them in the large libraries, of course, we would sell for that purpose at a considerable discount.
(1:05:36) Well, Mr. Cochran said he didn’t think he’d care to do that. And then Burt said, well, Mr. Cochran, (1:05:47) some publicity has come out about, will come out next fall about this new book, (1:05:53) Alcoholics Anonymous, but in the meantime, the books are moving rather slowly and we need to (1:06:01) say a thousand dollars to tide us over. And would you loan the Works Publishing Company (1:06:10) a thousand dollars? Well, said Mr. Cochran, what does his balance sheet look like, this Works (1:06:17) Publishing Company? And after he learned what the Works Publishing looked like, Mr. Cochran said, (1:06:24) no thanks.
So then Burt said, well, now Mr. Cochran, you know me, would you loan the money (1:06:32) to me on the credit of my business? Why, certainly, Mr. Cochran said, send down your note, Mr. Taylor. (1:06:38) So Burt hopped a business that a year or two later was to go broke anyway. He saved the book (1:06:45) Alcoholics Anonymous, turned the thousand dollars over to us.
We lasted until the Liberty article (1:06:52) came in. A thousand inquiries, 800 inquiries came in as a result of that. We moved a few books.
(1:07:01) We barely squeaked through the year 1929. But in all this period, we’d heard nothing from John D. (1:07:08) Rockefeller. Meanwhile, there’d been foundation meeting after foundation meeting.
Too bad we (1:07:13) were having such a hard time, but no doubt. When all of a sudden, in my about February 1940, (1:07:23) Mr. Richardson came to a trustees meeting and he said, I have great news. Mr. Rockefeller, (1:07:29) who we hadn’t heard from since 1937, we were told had been watching all the time with immense (1:07:36) interest.
Moreover, Mr. Rockefeller would like to give this fellowship a dinner, (1:07:43) to which he would invite his friends to see the beginnings of this new and promising style. (1:07:51) Then Mr. Richardson produced the invitation list. And oh, here was the president of the Chase Bank (1:07:57) and Wendell Wilkie and all kinds of very prominent people, many of them extremely rich.
(1:08:04) I mean, a quick look at the list, I figured would add up to a couple of billion dollars. (1:08:10) So we felt maybe, you know, at last, you know, there would be some money inside. (1:08:16) So the dinner came.
And we got Harry Emerson Fossey, who’d reviewed the AA books down there. (1:08:25) He gave us a wonderful plug. Foster Kennedy came and spoke on the medical attitude.
He’d seen a (1:08:33) very hopeless gal, Marty Mann, recover one of his patients. I got up and talked about (1:08:38) life among the anonymized. And the bankers assembled, 75 strong and in great wealth, (1:08:46) sat at the table with the alcoholics.
Well, the bankers had come probably as a sort of a (1:08:53) command performance, and they were a little suspicious that perhaps it was another prohibition (1:08:58) deal. But they warmed up under the influence of the alcoholics. Mr. Ryan, the hero of the (1:09:05) episode, still sober, for example, at his table was asked by a distinguished banker, (1:09:13) why, Mr. Ryan, we presume that you are in the banking business.
(1:09:17) Mr. Ryan said, not at all, sir. I’m just out of Greystone asylum. (1:09:25) Well, that intrigued the bankers, and they were all warming up fine.
But unfortunately, (1:09:34) Mr. Rockefeller couldn’t get to the dinner. He was sick, actually quite sick that night. (1:09:40) And he sent his son, a wonderful gent, Nelson Rockefeller, in his place instead.
(1:09:46) And after the show was over, everybody was in fine form, and we were all ready again for the (1:09:55) big touch. Nelson Rockefeller got up and speaking for his father, said, my father sends word that (1:10:04) he is so sorry he cannot be here tonight, but so glad that so many of his friends can see the (1:10:15) beginning of this great and wonderful thing. Something, Nelson Rockefeller said, that had (1:10:21) affected his life more than almost anything that had crossed.
Hey, soup tenders, flogged that (1:10:34) Then said Nelson, but fortunately, gentlemen, this is a work that proceeds on goodwill. (1:10:45) It requires no money. Whereupon, the two million dollars got up and walked out.
(1:10:55) Well, that was a terrific letdown, but we weren’t let down very long. (1:11:01) Again, the hand of providence had intervened. Right after the dinner, Mr. Rockefeller asked (1:11:12) that the talk be published in a pamphlet.
He approached the rather defunct work publishing (1:11:21) company and said he would like to buy 400 books to send to all of the bankers who had come to the (1:11:28) dinner and all who had not. Well, seeing that this was for a good purpose, we let him have the (1:11:34) books cheap. He bought them cheaper than anybody has since.
We sold 400 books to John D. Rockefeller (1:11:41) Jr. for one buck a piece to send his banker friends. So, he sent out the book, the pamphlet, (1:11:51) and with it, he wrote a personal letter and signed every dog gone wrong. And in this letter, (1:11:59) he again recited how glad he was that his friends had been able to see this great beginning (1:12:05) of what he thought would be a wonderful thing, how deeply it had affected him.
(1:12:13) And then he said, but fortunately, gentlemen, this is a work of goodwill. (1:12:18) It leaves little, if any, money, perhaps a slight amount of temporary help. I, (1:12:26) said John D. Rockefeller, am giving these good people $1,000.
So, the bankers all received (1:12:36) Mr. Rockefeller’s letter and they all totted it up on the cuff. Well, if John D. is giving $1,000, (1:12:41) me, with only a few millions, I should send these boys about 10 bucks. (1:12:47) One, who had an alcoholic relative in tow, sent us in as high as $300.
(1:12:54) So, with Mr. Rockefeller’s $1,000 plus the solicitation of all the rest of these bankers, (1:13:01) we got together the princely sum of $3,000, which was the first outside contribution to (1:13:08) the alcoholic foundation. And that $3,000 was divided equally between Smithy and me, (1:13:15) so that we could keep going somehow. And we solicited that dinner list for five years (1:13:23) and got about $3,000 a year out of it for five years.
And at the end of that time, (1:13:30) we were able to say to Mr. Rockefeller, we don’t need any more money. (1:13:39) The book income is helping to support our office. The groups are contributing to fill in.
(1:13:47) The royalties are taking care of Dr. Bob and Bill Wilson. We don’t need any more money. (1:13:59) Now, you see, Mr. Rockefeller’s decision not to give us money saved his society.
(1:14:06) He gave of himself. He gave of himself at a time when he was under public ridicule for his views (1:14:13) about alcohol. He said to the whole world, this is good.
The story went out on the wire all over (1:14:21) the world. People ran into the bookstores to get the no book, and boy, we really began to get some (1:14:27) book orders. An awful lot of inquiries came into the little office there at VG Street.
The book (1:14:34) money began to pay to answer them. We hired one more house. It was Ruthie, another gal, and me.
(1:14:40) And then comes Jack Alexander with his terrific article in the Saturday Post. (1:14:48) Then came an immense flood of inquiries, six or seven thousand of them, and Alcoholics Anonymous (1:14:57) had become a national institution. Such is the story of the preparation of the book (1:15:08) Alcoholics Anonymous, and of its subsequent effects.
You all have some notion. The proceeds (1:15:19) of that book have repeatedly saved the office in New York, but it isn’t the money that has (1:15:27) come out of it that has mattered. It is the message that it carries in it that has transcended (1:15:39) the mountains and the sea, and is even at this moment lighting candles in dark taverns and on distant (1:15:54) feet.
(1:16:06) We hope you’ve enjoyed the recording of Bill W. speaking at the Texas State Convention (1:16:13) in June 1954. The recording has been made available through recoveryspeakers.org. (1:16:21) Recoveryspeakers.org is the world’s largest historical recovery audio archive. The archive (1:16:30) contains more than 3,000 vintage reel-to-reel recordings of AA and Al-Anon conferences, (1:16:38) plus rare never-before-heard educational sessions from various schools on alcoholism, (1:16:45) including Yale, Texas, and Salt Lake City.
These recordings date back as far as 1946. (1:16:56) The mission of recoveryspeakers.org is to preserve and digitize, as well as make available (1:17:03) all of these rare recordings for future generations needing recovery. As of June 2010, (1:17:12) only 10% of this massive library has been converted, and many of those recordings are now (1:17:19) available at recoveryspeakers.org. This project needs your support.
If you would like to help (1:17:27) with this mission, please visit recoveryspeakers.org and pass this information on. Thank you.