The Best Protective Gadget

A noted radio commentator broke his anonymity on the air and in the press, to an audience estimated at twelve million. Bill wrote about it to Jack Alexander — the Saturday Evening Post journalist, a friend of A.A. and not a member — and the letter is the clearest thing he ever put down about why this Tradition is not squeamishness (Pass It On). "Of course, this looks like wonderful publicity to folks outside A.A." Then the turn: "it is a danger signal." Not because the man was cynical. "He really thinks he is doing us a favor; he hasn't the slightest idea that he is busting the best protective gadget our Fellowship will ever have." A gadget. Bill did not reach for a spiritual word there, he reached for a mechanical one, because he was describing a device that does a job. Then he named the force it has to hold against, and noted that the force only grows: "As the value of the A.A. name for money raising and publicity purposes increases, so will the temptation." And finally why one man on the radio was worth a letter at all. "Most of us deeply realize that enough repetition of such blasts could alter the whole character of our Society."