Phone Call: Harry G. of Texas & Bill W. (32 min)

This is Mr. Green at Fannin 3062. This call is to be charged to my home phone to Fannin 2718. I want number-to-number calls to Katona, K-A-T-O-N-A-H, that’s the prefix, 4-0-1-6-0, at Bedford Hills, New York. Bedford Hills. It’s Katona, 4-0-1-6-0. Hello? Hello. Is Mr. Wilson there? No, he’s not at the moment. May I take a message? Well, this is Mr. Green down in Fort Worth, Texas. Oh, yes. Well, he was expecting your call, and I can get him. In fact, I can get him in a very few minutes. Well, tell him to call me back, collect, then, at Fannin 3062 in Fort Worth. And what was his name again? Fannin, F-A-N-N-I-N. F-A-N-N-I-N? F-A-N-N-I-N. Fannin. F-A-N-N-I-N. Fannin. 3062. Fannin. Fannin. Fannin. Fannin. Fannin. Farmünde Farmyr Farmyr Farmyr Farmyr Farmyr Farmyr Farmyr Farmyr Farmyr Farmyr Farnym Fannin, 3062. F-A-N-N-I-N. I-N. 3062. 3-0-6-2. 3062 in Fort Worth, Texas. Just call. Just call. Number to number, and I’ll be at this number. Okay. I’ll tell him. Thank you. Thank you. Then he must be here right now, but he’ll call you. All right. All right. Hello, Farmyr 3062. Yes, ma’am? I have a collect call for Mr. Wilson in Patana. Will they stop the charge, please? Yes, ma’am. Hello? Hello, Mr. Wilson? Yes, sir. Uh, this is Harry Green down in Fort Worth. Why, hi, Harry. How are you? Fine. I’m sorry of the delay on the other call. I don’t know whether it’s the weather or what, but I tried to be prompt, but couldn’t quite make it. Yeah, that’s all right. The morning papers say you’ve got a terrific snowstorm up in your country. Well, it wasn’t snow, but we had a hundred-mile wind here yesterday. A hundred-mile wind? Yeah, a pile of damage done, I suppose, things are slow. Ah, we have, uh, we have very clear weather. It’s a very pleasant weather down here, but it’s been, uh, oh, near freezing for the last two or three days. Yeah. Mr. Wilson, I don’t suppose you would remember me. I met you at Al Badger’s in Dallas when you were down here some time back. Sure enough. But, uh, of course, you met a great many other people. I am talking from the home of a man you do know, Bill Rozier, our Harbor Club secretary here in Fort Worth. Yes, sir. Bill met you up at Cleveland. Yep. Bill, uh, it’s all right to call you Bill, I guess, isn’t it? Well, I hope so. I’ll tell you, I want to tell you a little bit about who I am so that you’ll understand why possibly I’m calling you on this matter. I’ve been in AA for 44 months, continuously drive. I’m quite active in the organization. That is, I travel extensively from coast to coast. And I’m acquainted in Washington to Los Angeles and Chicago to Houston. Yep. I like this very much. By profession, I am an independent investigator. That is, I’m not a detective or a snooper, but I handle, for instance, I represent Jerry Giesler in Los Angeles and the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company, the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company patent attorneys in Akron. Yeah, I know I used to do that kind of thing myself. I see. Well, then that’s sort of a background. I’m sort of an analyzer. Now, Bill, here’s a proposition. Of course, you know Horace Ford down here in Texas. Yeah, sure. Horace, of course, until recently, has been with this TCU thing. Yeah. And that is folded up and definitely abandoned. I see. And there’d be no further program of any kind conducted, as far as I know, or heard of in Texas along that line. Is Jelinek coming north? Well, Jelinek’s in Switzerland now. Yeah, I know he went there, but I wonder if that winds him up down there too. Well, as far as I know now, the TCU has offered him a place on the staff out there, just as a teacher. I see. But it wouldn’t be, it would just be simply a professorial seat. Yeah. And I talked to Doc just a couple of days before he left Fort Worth. I mean, it is the day before. I have to see him downtown. And he didn’t disclose to me any of his plans, of course, if he had any, or at least I didn’t ask him. Now that his wife died, I don’t know, that might change your mind. My God, I didn’t know that. She died in Switzerland. Well, perhaps, say, just recently. Just, uh, well, it’s been, I guess, three weeks ago. Why, what happened? Well, I don’t know. It wasn’t reached here in Fort Worth. Of course, she was well known here, and it was on her bulletin board at the club. But just a minute, do you know what Pat died of? Pneumonia. Oh. Say, just a minute, before I get into this, I’d like for you to say hello to Bill. Now, I’ve got all the time in the world. How are you fixed for time, Bill? Tip top. All right, just a minute. I’d like to say hello to Bill. Hello, Bill. How are you? Hey, my friend. How are you, sir? Well, just fine. Last time I saw you, we were in a taxi cab together. Sure enough. Pretty good show they had out there. All I should say was… Yeah? …this is the highlight of my experience, actually, Bill. Bill, this thing in here is going to talk to you about… Of course, you know, like we discussed, the Harbor Club, but you thought that we might have a different set up, a different situation down here, and we do here in Texas, for some reason or other. And this Harbor Club and the Bulwark Group proposition is working marvelous. Yeah. And that’s a little contrary to the experience that a number of the groups have had, I know. So I just wanted you to bear that little experience in mind when you talk to Harry on this other deal. And we’re very enthusiastic about this thing Harry’s going to talk to you about, but we would like to have your opinion on it, Bill. Oh. So I’ll let you talk to Harry again. Fine. Sing a little lullaby for us. I certainly shall. Okay. Getting back to Horace. Yeah? Now, Horace has nothing to do now. He has no connection. What kind of health is he in? Well, he’s been a little under the weather the last few days on account of cold out here. We’ve all got it. I’ve got one so bad I can hardly talk this morning. Yeah, well, he did have bad going there for a while, though. He was kind of uncertain, I know. Well, it’s been more of a mental proposition with him than anything else. He hasn’t drawn any salary out there since the 15th of March. And, of course, he’s advanced a little expansion there, but they’ve been broke out there. And a man who is unsecure economically, of course, can’t have too much peace of mind because we’ve all got to eat. Well, I know that. I’ve been through lots of it. Now, I’ve known Horace personally for a long time. And as much as a year ago, the groups independently, or leaders of the groups, well, I’ll say that, wheelhorses and groups, like Vic Hoffman at Waco. We’re talking to some boys up in Denver, Colorado. And I’ve talked to all over the state at various times with different people. A group up at Amarillo had the same idea. We’ve all been wondering and thinking that if the time comes, if there wasn’t some way that Texas AAs could utilize the services of Horace Ford on some sort of a basis that wouldn’t involve us in too much of a violation of traditions or professionalize the thing. And we’ve been floundering around. And, but nothing ever crystallized until this thing officially folded up out here. Now, we know that Horace, as a businessman, is the most impractical fellow in the world. He couldn’t, if you give him $10,000 today, he’d probably be broke in 60 days. Now, while AA doesn’t owe him a living any more than it owes me one, or you one, or anybody else one, we would like to help the man. But we’re not trying to create something to help him. And because there isn’t any other avenue open to him right now, now he is a school teacher. But it’s been some years since he was in the schools. He’s reached the age now where he can’t get back in. And as a matter of fact, he doesn’t have the required degree to get the kind of a job, but to which he should go into if he had. And as a businessman, he’s just out. Now, this thing, breaking it down in a nutshell, Albert Randall and Amarillo, and Beck Hoffman and Waco, Morris McFarland and Tyler, fellows like Ace Pearson and Denison, Maurice O’Perry and Austin, Bill Hall and San Angelo, Harry Denton out in the middle of the Odessa area, Ed Embree and El Paso, Jack Elliott in Wichita Falls, and others, I mention those names there because they’re people all with long periods of sobriety who were very active in their group, and I know them personally. And I have either visited those groups in the last two or three weeks, or I’ve had extended long-distance conversations with them. I’ve made more personal calls than I have otherwise. And we decided this, that we would like to raise a… fund of somewhere between $5,000 and $7,000, something like that, to employ Horace Ford. That is, to raise this fund among AA members individually, not as a member of the group, but as the last individual subscribed to this fund, so that Horace would have living wage and travel expenses and make him available to AA as a whole in the state of Texas. Now, down here, there’s lots of little groups that are having trouble. I’ve been repeatedly asked by down here in East Texas, for instance, and up in the Sherman-Denison area, can’t you come up two or three days and help us get straightened out and show us how to hold meetings or something of the kind? And I say, well, I can’t do that. And then there are new groups that try to organize. Now, they get along all right. We had one out west of Fort Worth, there were mineral wells, but it was closed, and Bill and myself and Charlie Cairn and Mack Boring and the old-timers, we got out there and pitched, and those boys got off to a good start and it’s a splendid group. But there are so many other little groups that have tried to organize. Gainesville is one. It’s farther away from any good established group, and we can’t get up there, and they flounder along for a year or two and don’t get off to a very good start. Where if a man like Horace could devote two or three or four days to them, it would be to the great benefit of AA as a whole to those members individually. Well, I think I catch your idea, and I don’t see anything the matter with it, provided that, you know, that it works. I mean, as far as the position is concerned, here’s what you can do. Now, is Horace gonna make his home in Fort Worth? Yes, Horace owns a home, or he’s got a slight interest in a home, here he and the bank. Well, look, here’s a curbside suggestion for you. All right. The only thing you gotta do to cover the professionalism angle is not to have it appear that Horace is just a professional missionary doing 12-step work. We don’t want him to do 12-step work as such. I mean to get out here and see the individuals. If you’re keeping it clear on that, and you give him a title, why don’t you make him Secretary of the Trump and send an announcement that he’s available to help groups who are having organization trouble? Could we do this? Now, since this is not strictly a Fort Worth idea, understand, and I’m speaking now, and I’m authorized to speak for all those names I mentioned and many others, not only in Fort Worth, but every place else. And knowing that we’ve got to have some kind of a policy committee or some kind of a control, we thought we might set up a little independent corporation here so this money would be tax-free. And have some policy committee designated, say one member from each of the larger groups that contribute or support this thing, and who’d be Board of Directors of that thing. And since Horace lives in Fort Worth, why, this group temporarily has offered the services of Bill Rosier here to kind of receive the calls and route Horace, because leave Horace to himself, he’ll make a commitment to talk in Amarillo today and one in Houston tomorrow. And you’ve got to kind of route him. Well, why don’t you, you see the status of the, this kind of question comes up all the while. Yeah. They’re in large metropolitan areas such as here and Chicago and those places. They have offices and they have paid secretaries. The point is, if the person is doing an organization or a secretarial job or whatnot, it doesn’t in any way make them a professional A.A. Now, if you forget the general content of the group, you call him a general secretary for Texas, let’s say. I’ve had mine state service officer. Well, that’s just as good. Anything that denotes a service status, see? A service status. And anything that was denoted from a statewide standpoint. And you can give them a little office, I think in the club there, if you’ve got room. Well, we could provide that. Just have a single on the hall and then say, Horace is available for this sort of service due to the generosity of individual members in the Texas group. We could even set him up with a little office downtown if other groups thought that Fort Worth was trying to hog it. No, you’d do better to do that and then you don’t get it mixed up with the club affairs. That’s right. It’s always better to separate, I mean, other groups’ offices often start in clubs but they always move out. That’s right. If that’s as well, I think that would be wise. Well, it occurs to me that it would be better if he had a little headquarter someplace away. Now, here is really basically what we had in mind. This plan here is an interim that’s being financed by, as I say, strictly individuals. There’ll be no contribution accepted from any member outside of AA. Now, we’re going to have our convention here, our state convention, in Mineral Wells in June. Mineral Wells is a wonderful convention town. It has the facilities that need it. Well, we can have everything under one roof and plenty of hotel space. And they have a very active group there. And there is a move afoot now to designate Mineral Wells as our permanent convention headquarters. And if we was anxious to try this Fort idea out and get the wrinkles out of it, so that at the convention it could be presented to the delegates there, then if they officially wanted to designate a state secretary or something like that and form a committee to see that the money, the salaries paid, by whatever means we decide, as long as it’s within AA, that we could open, and Mineral Wells will provide the space, open a little office out there and provide a secretary so that it would be entirely independent of any group. And then, or it would be free. That was the father of course, but you’ve got to have an interim thing to lead into it and try it on, see? That’s right. But there’s no reason in God’s green earth why the state of Texas can’t hire a secretary just as well as a foundation or an integral. I mean, there’s nothing from the traditional standpoint that makes that a professional deal at all. Bill, I’d like to make this remark here now. After having personally visited in the last week, I have visited in the Tyler Group, and of course that’s the center of East Texas. I have visited Dallas, I have visited Waco, Austin, San Antonio, Wichita Falls, and of course Fort Worth here, and the Gainesville-Denison area through there. And the plan has been overwhelmingly accepted by individuals with three exceptions. We have one member in our group that you would know. I don’t wish to call any names over the telephone. One member in Dallas who is the outstanding over there, and one in San Antonio who’s outstanding, and they’re just raising all manner of keen as individuals. They say we’re violating traditions in every respect, that we will be professionalizing the thing, and I spent quite a bit of time talking to the man in San Antonio, at his place of business. And- You see, there’s been for years a contention as to what is an AA professional. And the only thing that’s an AA professional is a guy who is paid for doing direct 12-step therapeutic work. Now if a club wants a cook, or a janitor, or a foundation, or another group wants a secretary to do special service work, there isn’t any of- I mean, as long as it’s clear that he’s doing something over and above 12-step work, and is getting paid for that, and not for the 12 steps, you’re in the clear on the tradition. In fact, I’m trying to, right now, separate psychologically in the minds of people the idea that the organization of services means the organization or professionalization of Alcoholics Anonymous. It doesn’t. We have to have a few services, ranging all the way from books, and offices, and secretaries, and somebody to look after public relations, and group problems, and all that sort of thing. We have all that kind of thing, you see? And it doesn’t mean a professionalism of AA, or an organization of it. I can’t see that it does, Isabel. To get into that whole phase of things, you very shortly will receive a pamphlet by which a plan is presented by Dr. Smith and Mays, which was a statute too, just before he died, happily. And that plan will show how states may produce representatives to come up here to look after this foundation. I can’t fight for it forever, and it’s your foundation. Well, what does the foundation do? It supplies services, very much like the ones you’re talking about. And there isn’t any reason, under God’s heavens, from the traditional standpoint. Now, from the political standpoint, or whether the groups in Texas want it, or whether they want ours, is entirely something to your judgment. That’s right. You can only speak on the principle of it. There is no objection to Horace personally. Everybody knows and loves Horace. Well, if you can go to the people who oppose it and say he has a job, which is well over and above 12 step work, I think you’re in the clear on the professionalism of it. Well, beyond that, I mean, that’s about the only opinion. I wouldn’t want you to go and say I favor Horace to do the job. Oh, no. I don’t want to go on that. that’s a local problem. I could possibly know. That’s something for you fellas to figure out. But if he has a legitimate job to facilitate the growth of AA in Texas over and above 12th Network, it doesn’t make him a professional any more than an intergroup secretary. In other words, what you’re talking about is a statewide secretary. That’s what I’m talking about, exactly. And a metropolitan secretary. That’s right. And we have metropolitan secretaries galore and people have long since forgot they’re professionals. What the hell they’re answering phone calls and straightening out group troubles and referring people to hospitals and making hospital arrangements and connections and all that kind of business, see? Which hasn’t anything to do it facilitates the 12th step, but it isn’t the 12th step. The peculiar thing about this, now when Horace was on this TCU staff and was receiving the expense out there, he was called upon just, he had more calls they could possibly answer for AA functions. And nobody objected at all to using him, man. And the group that called him from a distance didn’t have any objection to pay in the nominal travel expense for it. Another advantage that you people have got in the situation is that during this interim period, while the idea is being tried on to see how it works, it’s proposed to do it on an individual basis. That’s right. Now, what the hell, Horace’s income becomes the business of the people who contribute and your business. And so long as he isn’t paid to be just a plain everyday AA missionary running around doing 12 step work, if you can keep that label off him and he really has something to do over and above that that’s real, I don’t see why he should have any trouble. Here’s another thing, I’m looking to the future of this thing. Bill, all of you know that AA has grown considerably from the early days. And as any business grows, we have to have a little more people to look after it’s fair. That’s right. In other words, you can carry, you can keep AA so goddamn simple that it gets awful, an awful lot more complicated. That’s right. Now down in Austin at the present time, there is a non-alcoholic committee forming. Joe Carrington, the head of a big insurance company who is a non-alcoholic, but who has lots of alcoholics working for him. I believe he’s the chairman of this committee and the head of our state police, Homer Garrison, a very well-known man in Texas and other individuals of that type are getting together to try to induce the state to recognize alcoholism and possibly secure better and different treatments for alcoholics in mental hospitals and maybe set up a special farm or hospital for them. So those people can help you with hospitalization as long as you don’t take their money for direct AA purposes. I think you can welcome what they do. Well, what I was thinking is this, now that’s entirely independent of AA, but the time will come when there should be some sort of liaison maybe between the two and who would be better fitted than a state secretary. That’s one of the things that I had in mind because that is developing. Well, the practical opposition you make is that people will say, well, very well, he’s got a nominal job doing things, but his real job is being a missionary. I mean, that’s where they’ll probably stick. And that’s the part that you’ve got to fix up so that it appears that he has something really to do beyond being just a plain everyday paid missionary. Bill, I’m awfully happy to get your reaction on this. I felt in my own mind… Years and years and years of this kind of thing. In fact, my own status has been the same kind of a thing. Now, I’ve given full time to AA for a great many years. Well, how am I paid? Well, once upon a time I wrote a book called AA. And okay, that was a special service to write that book. That’s right. It was also a special service to create a publishing company and incorporate it, which now makes the AA Group $25,000 a year and the Foundation $25,000 a year. Well, that was way over and above any close debt business. Why, certainly. And consequently, I get paid as an author of a book who receives a royalty, just the same as Owen Outsider wrote the book. Well, that doesn’t make me a professional. I used to worry still about that. Now, therefore, the time that I give AA is nothing that AAs are paying for. They’re merely paying me for my past services as an author. They’re paying for me as a missionary. There, they get that free. Now, that’s the principle that I think we have to work on. We will have to have services as time goes on, and probably more of them. Never a lot are very expensive, but some more. And they’ve got to be quite a bit better organized than they are now or they won’t work. And we’ve got to draw a line between services and straight AA. And you can get hard to honor that category, particularly as some of you are personally taking the ramp of supporting it. The idea can be retried out, and by summer, you’ll know whether people want it or whether they don’t, and you can get an idea whether it’s a good idea. If it should develop, if there’s anything wrong with the idea, we can stop it. Why, sure. We have nothing but the best interest of AA at heart. You’re deliberately making an AA missionary of them. You’re in the clear as far as I can see. Well, we certainly won’t do that, and Horace… What I caution you about, though, is don’t quote me as being for this particular plan or for Horace or against Horace, you see. That’s right. In other words, don’t bring me into the practical end of the thing, because that’s a problem for you people on the spot, and I’ve long since learned to keep completely out of local affairs, to stand in judgment whether Texas needs a secretary or whether it should be Horace. I can only say that if he has a real service job to do, and you can find such a job for him, that that does not make him a professional, which is just what you want him on. That’s exactly what I want to know, is, and I’ll repeat that… Just make it clear that I’m not offering any opinion as to what Texas should do about this particular situation. You don’t know whether we need it or not, and if we do need it, you don’t know whether Horace… You’re not either recommending or condemning Horace Ford as an individual or anybody else. I can only say that if Texas wants a state secretary and there’s enough of a service character for the secretary to do, that that doesn’t make him a professional. In other words, such a secretary would have the same status as a metropolitan integral secretary or a foundation secretary. They’re paid for special service and not for straight A.A. work. I’ll tell you what I’d like to do, Bill, now that we’ve had this preliminary conversation. I have a two-page typewritten proposal that’s been submitted to the other groups that outlines generally what I have said. I’d like to send a copy of it up to you. Well, come and have it. All right. Now, I’m going to say this. I have taken some advantage of you, but I won’t use it. This conversation up to this point has been recorded, and that bill is here with me, and if you tell me not to use it outside of this room, I will not. Oh, well, it’s quite all right. If I haven’t said anything, I don’t mean. Well, I understand that, but Mack Boring and George McQueen, and I guess you remember Alan Connell down here. Alan is very active behind this, and incidentally, before we tried this out, before I mentioned it to any other soul outside of Fort Worth, I mean, I’ve talked to them. We set ourselves a total of $1,500 here to see if our own members would support it, and it was oversubscribed by a group of about 25 individuals just as fast as I could contact them. Well, sure. I mean, there are a number of you fellows awful well-heeled down there, and a couple of dozen of you could see this thing through with your eyes shut. Yes. If that’s what you want to do, and they try it on an individual basis, and then it’s… They want to divide it up between various groups. Now, Amarillo, the panhandle groups, are strong for it. They want to hit. Now, down here, all I’ve taken is pledges, but Amarillo has a bunch of money laying in the treasury up there for us. I mean, it’s contributed individually. We’ll try it on for six months, Al. You’re certainly not violating the tradition, as the guy has a job definitely outside of 12th and 7th floor. Well, that’s fine, Bill. The same category as what we already have in many other places. Bill, I certainly appreciate your talking to me, and I appreciate this opinion. I don’t want to go on record in favor of the particular proposal, because I can’t… That’s right. It’s only the principle of the thing that I was interested in. Of course, I had to give you the detail in the background, but I’m asking… I asked your opinion, of course, only on the principle of the thing, and not as to the details. Well, that’s not only my conclusion. In fact, the tradition provides… You’ll find a clause in the tradition to the effect that AA may hire special service workers. I have dwelled on that exclusively, extensively. A job makes him a special service worker, or does it make him a professional AA? And that’s the only thing you have to answer. That’s right. Well, thank you, Bill, and I sure appreciate talking to you. And the first time I get up East or any place where you’re around, I want to make the personal acquaintance a little bit more extensively than I was able to here in Dallas. Well, my friend, that’ll happen. Now, look, sometime between January and April, as you will soon see by this pamphlet coming out on the General Service Times, we’re going to want to have Texas stand up the first year of this conference, one representative, and the next year probably a couple more. And you’ll see a plan for it, and that plan… And I would like to go out and help in the choice of the delegates. You’ll see a plan for doing that. That’s always been the difference. I would love to be… I would love to be their delegate. Sometime between January and April, I would imagine the Dallas-Fort Worth area, being the largest, would probably produce the first delegate. And then there would be others scattered around the state for the following year. There would be a rotating conference of a couple of panels. That’s right. And you’ll see what the plan is. Tell the folks that I rather hope to see them sometime between January and April. You’ll get the idea when you see the pamphlet, which should be along in the mail, not a waiver code. Well, I look forward to it. You see, this foundation, which serves the whole world here, has got to be kept at the top and kept going. And it doesn’t involve much finance, but it takes some look and answer. And you don’t know these trustees from Adam. Once a year, representatives from the states should come in and sit down with these trustees and look the situation over and back them up if they’re right or correct them if they’re wrong. I think otherwise the thing will fall down, and the foundation indirectly is accountable for half of our size and unity. And here’s a movement which has literature, it has public relations, it has mediation services, it has a newspaper, it has money in the bank, and the people who look after it are not known to you. And Dr. Bob and I are asking that you people send representatives to come in and take the deal over and let us out. Of course, he is out, but I don’t want to wait until I am before it happens. Well, we’ve got to look to the future. And I hope it gets real support. Well, Bill, it’s been a great pleasure to talk to you. Well, it’s a pleasure to talk with you, sir. At any time, if you have anything that you want done down here in the Southwest, and want somebody that, as I say, I travel extensively and have a wide acquaintance, and if you call on me, I’ll try to do anything I can for you for the benefit of AA down in the Southwest. I suppose you’ve got a group directory, haven’t you? You’re a traveling man. Oh, yes, yes. I don’t need a directory. I know where they are. There are a few groups in the state of Texas in the Southwest. Your last name’s already slipped me, Harry. Have I? Your last name’s already slipped me. Green, G-R-E-E-N-E. All right. I’ll look for you at that point. All right, sir. I’ll send it to you, Bill. Give my best, Mr. Morris. I’m glad that he’s up to taking a job like this. When I was in Texas, it was three years ago. He was in very bad shape. Well, he’s in better shape than he was. Say, Bill, what address shall I mail this to you? I’ll send it up to the Foundation. The General Headquarters? Yep. All right. I’ll send it up today. Right on, my friend. Good luck. All right. Thank you, Bill. Bye.