Making of the Big Book

Page 2

    What? 35 or 40 drunks sober up? They have sobered them up before now, you know. And besides, Mr. Wilson, don’t you think it’s kind of sweeping up the shavings? I mean, wouldn’t this be something for the Red Cross be better?

    In other words, with all of my ardent solicitations, I got one hell of a freeze from the gentlemen of wealth. Well, I began to get blue and when I begin to get blue my stomach kicks up as well as other things.

    I was laying in the bed one night with an imaginary ulcer attack (this used to happen all the time - I had one the time the 12 steps were written) and I said, "My God, we’re starving to death here on Clinton Street." By this time the house was full of drunks. They were eating us out of house and home. In those days we never believed in charging anybody anything - so Lois was earning the money, I was being the missionary and the drunks were eating the meals. "This can’t go on. We’ve got to have those drunk tanks, we’ve got to have those missionaries, and we’ve got to have a book. That’s for sure."

    The next morning I crawled into my clothes and I called on my brother-in-law. He’s a doctor and he is about the last person who followed my trip way down. The only one, save of course, the Lord. "Well," I said, "I’ll go up and see Leonard."

    So I went up to see my brother-in-law Leonard and he pried out a little time between patients coming in there. I started my awful bellyache about these rich guys who wouldn’t give us any dough for this great and glorious enterprise. It seemed to me he knew a girl and I think she had an uncle that somehow tied up with the Rockefeller offices. I asked him to call and see if there was such a man and if there was, would he see us. On what slender threads our destiny sometimes hangs.

    So, the call was made. Instantly there came onto the other end of the wire the voice of dear Willard Richardson - one of the loveliest Christian gentlemen I have ever known. And the moment he recognized my brother-in—law he said, "Why Leonard, where have you been all these years? "Well, my brother-in-law, unlike me, is a man of very few words, so he quickly said to dear old Uncle Willard, he had a brother-in-law who had apparently some success sobering up drunks and could the two of us come over there and see him. "Why certainly," said dear Willard. "Come right over."

    So we go over to Rockefeller Plaza. We go up that elevator - 54 flights or 56 I guess it was, and we walk promptly into Mr. Rockefeller’s personal offices, and ask to see Mr. Richardson

    Here sits this lovely, benign old gentleman, who nevertheless had a kind of shrewd twinkle in his eye. So I sat down and told him about our exciting discovery, this terrific cure for alcoholics that had just hit the world, how it worked and what we have done for them. And, boy, this was the first receptive man with money or access to money — remember we were in Mr. Rockefeller’s personal offices at this point — and by now, we had learned that this was Mr. Rockefeller’s closest personal friend.

    So he said, "I’m very interested. Would you like to have lunch with me, Mr. Wilson?" Well, now you know, for a rising promoter, that sounded pretty good - going to have lunch with the best friends of John D. Things were looking up. My ulcer attack disappeared. So I had lunch with the old gentleman and we went over this thing again and again and, boy, he’s so warm and kindly and friendly.

Right at the close of the lunch he said, "Well now Mr. Wilson or Bill, if I can call you that, wouldn’t you like to have a luncheon meeting with some of my friends? There’s Frank Amos, he’s in the advertising business but he was on a committee that recommended that Mr. Rockefeller drop the prohibition business. And there’s LeRoy Chipman, he looks after Mr. Rockefeller's real estate. And there’s Mr. Scotty, Chairman of the Board of the Riverside Church and a number of other people like that. I believe they’d like to hear this story."

    So a meeting was arranged and it fell upon a winter’s night in 1937. And the meeting was held at 30 Rockefeller Plaza. We called in, posthaste, a couple of drunks from Akron - Smithy included, of course - heading the procession. I came in with the New York contingent of four or five. And to our astonishment we were ushered into Mr., Rockefeller’s personal boardroom right next to his office. I thought to myself "Well, now this is really getting hot." And indeed I felt very much warmed when I was told by Mr. Richardson that I was sitting in a chair just vacated by Mr. Rockefeller. I said "Well, now, we really are getting close to the bankroll."

    Old Doc Silkworth was there that night too, and he testified what he had seen happen to these new friends of ours, and each drunk, thinking of nothing better to say, told their stories of drinking and recovering and these folk listened.

    They seemed very definitely impressed. I could see that the moment for the big touch was coming. So, I gingerly brought up the subject of the drunk tanks, the subsidized missionaries, and the big question of a book or literature.

    Well, God moves in mysterious ways, his wonders to perform. It didn’t look like a wonder to me when Mr. Scott, head of a large engineering firm and Chairman of the Riverside Church, looked at us and said "Gentlemen, up to this point, this has been the work of goodwill only. No plan, no property, no paid people, just one carrying the good news to the next. Isn’t that true? And may it not be that that is where the great power of this society lies? Now, if we subsidize it, might it not alter its’ whole character? We want to do all we can, we’re gathered for that, but would it be wise?" Well then, the salesmen all gave Mr. Scott the rush and we said, "Why, Mr. Scott, there’re only 40 of us. It’s taken 3 years. Why millions, Mr. Scott, will rot before this thing ever gets to ‘em unless we have money and lots of it."

And we made our case at last with these gentlemen for the missionaries, the drunk tanks and the book. So one of them volunteered to investigate us very carefully, and since poor old Dr. Bob was harder up than I was, and since the first group and the reciprocal community was in Akron, we directed their attention out there. Frank Amos, still a trustee in the Foundation, at his own expense, got on a train, went out to Akron and made all sorts of preliminary inquiries around town about Dr. Bob. All the reports were good except that he was a drunk that recently got sober. He visited the little meeting out there. He went to the Smith house and he came back with what he thought was a very modest proposal.