Ryan says, "not at all sir, I just got out of Great Stone Asylum." Well, that intrigued the bankers and they were all warming up. Unfortunately, Mr. Rockefeller couldn’t get to the dinner. He was quite sick that night so he sent his son, a wonderful gent, Nelson Rockefeller, in his place instead.
After the show was over and everyone was in fine form, we were all ready again for the big touch. Nelson Rockefeller got up and speaking for his father said, "My father sends word that he is so sorry that he cannot be here tonight, but is so glad that so many of his friends can see the beginnings of this great and wonderful thing. Something that affected his life more than almost anything that had crossed his path."
A stupendous plug that was! Then Nelson said, "Gentlemen, this is a work that proceeds on good will. It requires no money." Whereupon, the 2 billion dollars got up and walked out. That was a terrific letdown, but we weren’t let down for too long.
Again, the hand of Providence had intervened. Right after dinner, Mr. Rockefeller asked that the talks and pamphlets be published.
He approached the rather defunct Works Publishing Company and said he would like to buy 400 books to send to all of the bankers who had come to the dinner and to those who had not.
Seeing that this was for a good purpose, we let him have the books cheap. He bought them cheaper than anybody has since. We sold 400 books to John D. Rockefeller Jr. for one buck apiece to send to his banker friends. He sent out the books and pamphlets and with it, he wrote a personal letter and signed every dog gone one of them.
In this letter he stated how glad he was that his friends had been able to see the great beginning of what he thought would be a wonderful thing, how deeply it had affected him and then he added (unfortunately) "gentlemen, this is a work of goodwill. It needs little, if any, money. I am giving these good people $1,000." So, the bankers all received Mr. Rockefeller’s letter and counted it up on the cuff. Well, if John D. is giving $1,000, me with only a few million should send these boys about $10! One who had an alcoholic relative in tow sent us $300. So, with Mr. Rockefeller’s $1,000 plus the solicitation of all the rest of these bankers, we got together the princely sum of $3,000 which was the first outside contribution of the Alcoholic Foundation.
The $3,000 was divided equally between Smithy and me so that we could keep going somehow. We solicited that dinner list for 5 years and got about $3,000 a year for 5 years.
At the end of that time, we were able to say to Mr. Rockefeller, "We don’t need any more money. The book income is helping to support our office, the groups are contributing to fill in and the royalties are taking care of Dr. Bob and Bill Wilson."
Now you see Mr. Rockefeller’s decision not to give us money was a blessing. He gave of himself. He gave of himself when he was under public ridicule for his views about alcohol. He said to the whole world "this is good." The story went out on the wires all over the world. People ran into the bookstores to get the new book and boy, we really began to get some book orders. An awful lot of inquiries came into the little office at Vessy Street. The book money began to pay Ruth.
We hired one more to help. There was Ruthie, another gal and me. And then came Jack Alexander with his terrific article in the Saturday Evening Post. Then an immense lot of inquiries... .6,000 or 7,000 of them. Alcoholics Anonymous had become a national institution.
Such is the story of the preparation of the book Alcoholics Anonymous and of its subsequent effect, you all have some notion. The proceeds of that book have repeatedly saved the office in New York. But, it isn’t the money that has come out of it that matters, it is the message that it carried. That transcended the mountains and the sea and is even at this moment, is lighting candles in dark caverns and on distant beaches.
