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THE OXFORD GROUP
CONNECTION
This article is an effort
to put together in sequence the
various events that took place in the
years from 1908 to 1935 which made
possible the meeting in Akron, Ohio
between the AA founders, Dr. Bob
Smith and Bill Wilson, and which
resulted in the subsequent birth of
Alcoholics Anonymous. It is an
assemblage of facts gleaned from the
following publications:
- Alcoholics Anonymous
- AA Comes of Age
- Pass It On
- Dr. Bob and the Good
Old Timers
- Not God (by Ernest
Kurtz)
- For Sinners Only (by
A.J. Russell)
- On the Tail of a Comet
(by Garth Lean)
- Akron Genesis of
Alcoholics Anonymous (by Dick B.)
- The Oxford Group &
Alcoholics Anonymous (by Dick B.)
Do you know any of
these names? Frank Buchman--Sam
Shoemaker--Rowland Hazard--Jim
Newton--Eleanor Forde--Ebby
Thacher--Shepard
Cornell--Henrietta Seiberling--Rev.
Walter Tunks--Norman
Shepherd--Russell Firestone--T.
Henry & Clarace Williams? All
of these people were instrumental
in a scenario that contributed to
making possible that historic
meeting at the Gate House of the
Seiberling Estate in Akron that
became the birthplace of Alcoholics
Anonymous. If it were not for these
people, that meeting could never
have taken place, and the
fellowship to which we all owe our
lives today might never have been
born.
Where did the steps
originate? In AA Comes of Age,
(p.39), Bill wrote:
"Early AA got
it's ideas of self-examination,
acknowledgement of character
defects, restitution for harm
done, and working with others
straight from the Oxford Groups
and directly from Sam Shoemaker,
their former leader in America,
and nowhere else."
We prepare to start
this history with the story of
Frank Buchman, the founder of the
Oxford Group. You will see as we
trace the paths of Dr. Bob and Bill
Wilson in the years before they
met, that the Oxford Group and the
aforementioned cast of characters
played a part in every twist and
turn of the path that led Bill
Wilson to Akron.
FRANK BUCHMAN AND THE
OXFORD GROUP
Who
were the Oxford Group? In 1908, a
YMCA secretary named Frank Buchman
had a spiritual transformation that
changed his life. Upon graduating
in June of that year, he started a
street side church in Philadelphia
(Church of the Good Shepherd) with
a donation of seventeen dollars.
The church flourished, and he
started a hospice for young men
which spread to other cities, and
then he started a settlement house
project. Frank had a violent
argument with the trustee
committee because they cut the
budget and the food allotment.
He
resigned and went to Europe, ending
up at a large religious convention
in Keswick, England. The spiritual
transformation occurred when he
heard a woman speaker talk simply
about the cross of Christ. He felt
the chasm separating him from
Christ, and a feeling of a will to
surrender. He went back to his
house and wrote these words to each
of his six trustees in
Philadelphia: "My dear friend.
I have nursed ill feelings against
you. I am sorry. Will you forgive
me? Sincerely, Frank." Feeling
an urge to share this experience,
he went to nearby Oxford University
and formed an evangelical group
there among the student leaders and
athletes.
Later the movement
spread, and groups formed over the
next twenty years in England,
Scotland, Holland, India, South
Africa, China, Egypt, Switzerland,
and North and South America. Many
of the basic things they did have
carried over directly into our
program. They practiced absolute
surrender, guidance by the Holy
Spirit, sharing bringing about true
fellowship, life changing, faith
and prayer. They aimed for absolute
standards of Love, Purity, Honesty,
and Unselfishness, which were an
integral part o f the first AA
programs in Akron and Cleveland and
New York. Above all the group was a
fellowship: "A First Century
Christian Fellowship." They
carried the message aggressively to
others. They met in churches,
universities, and homes.
The Oxford Group and
their principles were carried to
the United States so that in both
New York City and Akron, Ohio an
Oxford Group was in place and
functioning when Bill Wilson and
Dr. Bob Smith hit their respective
bottoms. These two groups would
befriend and teach their principles
to our co-founders before they ever
met, and then go on to host the
fledgling groups of newly dry and
nameless drunks as they came
together.
Here is how the Oxford
Group came to the United States.
One early member at Oxford, Ken
Twitchell, had attended Princeton
University and had a brother in New
York City who was a mainstay in the
Calvary Episcopal Church. This
becomes one of several amazing
coincidences. In 1918 during his
travels, Frank Buchman met a young
YMCA worker, Sam Shoemaker, in
China and converted him to the
Oxford Group principles. Years
later, Sam became the minister of
that Calvary Church in New York,
and that same church became the
titular headquarters for the Oxford
Group in the United States. (The
name was changed in 1928 from
"A First Century Christian
Fellowship" to the
"Oxford Group.")
The groups' popularity
peaked during this period. There
were 10,000 people at one meeting
at Stockbridge in the Berkshire
Mountains. Business teams began to
have their "house
parties" in various cities.
In 1931 in England, a
London newspaper editor, A. J.
Russell, attended an Oxford Group
meeting with the intention of
exposing the group. But he wrote,
"I came as an observer and
became a convert!" (Russell
later edited "God
Calling", which may have found
it's way into material used by the
early AAs.) Some 9 years later, in
1940, Richmond Walker of the
Quincy, Mass. group wrote the
24-hour book still used by us
today. This was modeled after
Russell's "God Calling"
but was slanted away from all
spiritual to more of a 24-hour not
drinking theme. Russell's book,
"For Sinners Only",
described his journey from prodigal
son to the Oxford Group and became
a best seller in the early 1930s in
England and the United States, and
was printed in eight languages.
One chapter of the book
was devoted to Calvary Episcopal
Church in New York City and it's
rector, Sam Shoemaker. Calvary
Church became the virtual American
headquarters for the Oxford Group
during the 1930s. And it was here,
(in the church's mission) , that
Bill Wilson's sponsor, Ebby
Thacher, was living at the time of
Bill's last drunk.
HOW THE MESSAGE CAME TO
BILL
In 1932
and 1933, a man named Rowland
Hazard, son of wealthy Rhode Island
mill owners and a State Senator,
had become a hopeless alcoholic,
and in his quest for help had
sought out the world famous
psychiatrist, Carl Jung. Jung told
him there was no hope for him
there, and to go home and possibly
find a conversion through some
religious group. He did this in the
Oxford Group in the United States
and became sober. They taught him
certain principles that he applied
to his life. This story is document
ed in our Big Book.
In 1934, Ebby Thacher,
childhood friend of Bill Wilson's,
was about to be locked up as a
chronic drunk in Bennington,
Vermont. He was visited by three
men from an Oxford Group; Shep
Cornell, Rowland Hazard, and Cebra
Graves. (A precursor to our Twelve
Step work!) They later sent Rowland
Hazard back alone to see Ebby. He
acted as a sort of sponsor and told
his story. He taught Ebby the
precepts he had learned from the
Oxford Group. Later, as we know, in
December of that year, Ebby had his
chance t o relay these precepts to
Bill Wilson. Here they are,
transcribed from a tape of one of
Bill's AA talks:
- We admitted we were
licked.
- We got honest with
ourselves.
- We talked it over
with another person.
- We made amends to
those we had harmed.
- We tried to carry
this message to others with no
thought of reward.
- We prayed to
whatever God we thought there
was.
(We also have Bill's
handwritten copy of the above.)
Now we begin to see
the emerging pattern of events in
Akron and in the New York area in
the ten year period before the
start of AA. We see how, through
the machinery of the Oxford Group
and its key leaders, Frank
Buchman and Sam Shoemaker, events
conspired to make possible this
meeting between Bob and Bill in
Akron in 1935. Shep, Cebra, and
Rowland were all three Oxford
Group members. They were part of
the business teams which were
working around the country in
various cities. In November of
1934, Ebby surrendered his life
to God at the Calvary Episcopal
Church mission run by Sam
Shoemaker. (Sam had met Frank
Buchman in China in 1918, and by
1934 was regarded as a major
leader of the Oxford Group
movement in the United States and
was hosting their headquarters.)
Ebby is staying at his mission.
Bill W. shows up there drunk
looking for Ebby, can't find him,
and goes to Towns Hospital.
Bill Duval recalls in
a letter, "Bill W. told us
at the mission that he had heard
that Ebby, on the previous Sunday
at the Calvary Church, had
witnessed that with the help of
God he had been sober a number of
months." Bill said that if
Ebby could get help here, then he
(Bill) needed help, and he could
get it at the mission, also. Bill
looked prosperous compared to our
usual mission customers,
(actually, he was wearing a
Brooks Brother's suit purchased
at a rummage sale for $5.00!), so
we agreed that he go to Towns
Hospital where Ebby and others of
the group could talk to him.
After his spiritual
experience at Towns, Bill
immediately made a decision to
become very active in Oxford
Group work, and to try to bring
other alcoholics from Towns to
the group. He visited the mission
Oxford Group meetings and the
hospital daily for four or five
months, right up to the time of
the Akron trip. No one stayed
sober.
Ebby Thacher
New Albany Cemetery in New Albany, New York
BILL W. AND THE
OXFORD GROUP WORK
(Jim Newton enters
the scene)
Rowland Hazard, who
rescued Ebby in August 1934, had
a thorough indoctrination in
Oxford Group teachings and he
passed many of these along to
Ebby and Bill W. Soon after his
release from Towns Hospital at
the end of 1934, Bill and the
rest of the alcoholic contingent
of the Oxford Group began
gathering at Stewart's Cafeteria
in New York following their
regular meeting. Shep Cornell,
then a member of the Oxford Group
business team that included
Rowland, Sam Shoemaker, and
Hanford Twitchell, was also a
recovering alkie. Lois Wilson
talked of regular attendance at
the Oxford Group meetings with
Bill, Shep, and Ebby. James
Houck, a nonalcoholic Oxford
Group member in Frederick,
Maryland, stated that Bill W.
went to many Oxford Group
meetings at the Franc is Scott
Key Hotel in Frederick and always
centered on alcohol. He was
obsessed with the idea of
carrying the message. The
conclusion is that Bill had a
wide acquaintance in Oxford Group
circles, not just confined to Sam
and Calvary House. Bill told
Houck that he worked on 50 drunks
in the first 6 months with no
success. Calvary House was Sam's
residence and contained an Oxford
Group bookstore. Calvary Mission
was at another location in the
"gas house" district.
Thousands of people passed
through the mission where they
offered lodging, free meals, and
Oxford Group meetings every
night. Tex Francisco was its
superintendent in 1934 when Bill
showed up there.
Now enters the man
most certainly responsible for
the fateful Akron meetings
between Bill and Dr. Bob. Jim
Newton was surely the sole
catalyst that ordained the Oxford
Group would be in place in Akron,
Ohio when Bill showed up there in
1935. This amazing string of
circumstances plays out as
follows:
Jim, at age 20, was a
luggage salesman in New York who
had come upon an Oxford Group
meeting by accident (actually, he
was looking for fun and games
that night!) in Massachusetts in
1923 when he was 18 years old. He
was converted at the party, got
on his knees and gave the
direction of his life to God at
that time. He met a lady named
Eleanor Forde who greatly
influenced his thinking about the
movement. (He and Eleanor were to
meet and marry 20 years later in
1943.)
Several twists and
turns of fate placed Jim Newton
in Akron, Ohio and installed our
next cast of characters. These
were both Oxford Group members
and regular attendees at Oxford
Group meetings. We will be
talking about the intertwined
relations of Henrietta
Seiberling, Dr. Walter Tunks,
Harvey and Russell Firestone, Sam
Shoemaker, Frank Buchman, T.
Henry and Clarace Williams, and
Anne and Dr. Bob Smith.
Jim Newton went to
Ft. Myers, Florida in 1926, at
age 21, to visit his father, and
they bought a 35 acre tract of
land across the road from the
Thomas Edison estate. Jim Newton
became as an adopted son to Mr.
and Mrs. Edison, and often acted
as host and toastmaster at
Edison's famous birthday parties
which were attended by Henry
Ford, Harvey Firestone, and many
world renowned business leaders
and public figures.
Here begins another
key circumstance to set the stage
in Akron, Ohio. Harvey Firestone,
Sr., offered Jim a job as
secretary to the Firestone Tire
and Rubber Company in 1926, and
moved him to Akron, Ohio putting
him in residence at the Portage
Country Club adjacent to the
Firestone Estate. Jim worked for
Firestone eleven years and was
being groomed as president of the
company when he resigned and went
full time with the Oxford Groups.
Firestone's clergyman was Rev.
Walter Tunks. Jim joined Tunks'
church and became active in
raising funds for their birthday
committee.
Jim had been in New
York for the Jack Dempsey vs.
Gene Tunney fight. While there he
confessed to Frank Buchman that
his life was in turmoil and he
was about to take a
"geographical cure".
Buchman sent him to meet Sam
Shoemaker at the Calvary Church
an d he made an Oxford Group
confession to Sam and was led to
join one of the Oxford Group
business teams.
These were groups of
important men who made attempts
to convert others to the Oxford
Group method of spirituality. Jim
frequently met with the
aforementioned Shep Cornell and
Rowland Hazard. He met T. Henry
and Clarace Williams, husband and
wife Oxford Group members from
Akron and members of Walter
Tunks' church. The business team
put on house parties in various
cities at the finest hotels and
clubs. In January of 1933, Frank
Buchman, leading a team of thirty
men and women, descended on Akron
for t he first time to give
testimonials at the Mayflower
Hotel and in Akron churches, and
initiate the townspeople in the
experiences of the Oxford Group.
Here we can clearly see input
from Jim Newton's parties with
Firestone and Tunks' Episcopal
Church group to influence the
choice of Akron as the site of
this endeavor, rather than some
other city. Had Jim not already
been a business team member and
in place in Akron, it is very
unlikely that Buchman would ever
have chosen this small, rather
unknown city as a place to pursue
his evangelistic efforts. Jim was
the spokesman who introduced
Buchman at all the affairs that
week in Akron.
Now our cast of
characters is nearly complete and
in place. Still to appear on the
scene, however, are Henrietta
Seiberling, Anne and Bob Smith,
and T. Henry and Clarace
Williams.
When Jim first
arrived in Akron he had been
welcomed into the Firestone
family, and had become fast
friends with a son, Russell (Bud)
Firestone. Bud had a very bad
drinking problem and had already
been sent to several hospitals to
no avail. Jim went with Bud to
still another drying-out place,
on the Hudson River in New York,
and stayed through the entire 30
day program. Then he took Bud to
an Episcopal Conference in Denver
to which the Oxford Group people
had been invited. On the train
East again after the party, he
was able to introduce Bud to his
old Oxford Group minister, Sam
Shoemaker. Alone with Sam, Bud
surrendered his life to God in a
private car on the train. His
life changed, and his family
situation and marriage were
saved.
"Now Akron was
the place where AA was to be
founded. Jim Newton had helped
bring to the city the Oxford
Group message of his alcoholic
friend, Bud Firestone. The
message led to Bud's
"miraculous" recovery
which lasted for a time. The
message and the recovery were
broadcast to an interested
community by a grateful father,
Harvey Firestone, Sr., and by
widespread press accounts."
Clarace Williams was
there, and joined the Oxford
Group along with T. Henry
Williams, and began regularly
attending the meetings. About the
same time, a lady named Henrietta
Seiberling, the wife of John
Seiberling of the Seiberling Tire
and Rubber Company, found herself
with personal and marital
problems, and separated from her
husband. She turned to the Oxford
Group and attended the first
meetings at the Mayflower Hotel.
She went with a woman named Anne
Smith, the wife of a well-known
Akron surgeon who was in deep
trouble with his drinking.
The progenitors now
assume their roles. A kindly and
missionary-oriented couple, the
Williams, had been impressed with
the Oxford Group message, and had
a home to offer for a meeting
place. A gifted and compassionate
lady named Henrietta Seiberling,
who had mastered some of the
Oxford group principles, had her
eye on using the biblical
principles to help her good
friend, Dr. Bob Smith, with his
drinking problem. Add to this mix
the efforts of his wife Anne, who
assembled books and spiritual
readings and principles from the
Bible, the Oxford Group, and
various other Christian writings,
all the while praying for a
solution to her husband's
seemingly hopeless drinking
problem. The talented and very
alcoholic surgeon became the
focus of all these efforts. He
did a lot of spiritual reading,
attended a lot of meetings, but
remained drunk.
Now all the earlier
seeming coincidences converge,
and this story merges into the
facts we all know from our AA
literature.
Onto this scene
landed the "rum hound"
from New York, moved by what both
Bill Wilson and Henrietta
Seiberling felt was the guidance
of God. Bill had recovered from
his disease, and was determined
to stay sober by seeking out and
helping another drunk. The
"rum hound from New
York", (Bill's
self-description when he made the
fateful phone call to Henrietta),
"just happened" to
bring to Akron some solutions
heretofore never assembled in one
place and delivered by just one
person.
- Some important
knowledge about the disease of
alcoholism accumulated through
the work of Dr. Silkworth at
Towns Hospital in New York.
- An important
spiritual solution to the
problem that had been passed
from Dr. Carl Jung to Rowland
Hazard and then on to Bill by
Ebby Thacher.
- A validation of
this spiritual solution by the
scholarly studies of Professor
William James.
- A linkage between
the problem of alcoholism, and
this solution that God could
and would solve the problem if
a relationship were sought
with Him by using the Oxford
Group's practical program of
action, which was already
proven by the results
experienced by Rowland and
Ebby when they followed the
Oxford Group program.
In Akron, T. Henry
and Clarace Williams and
Henrietta Seiberling were
attending Oxford Group meetings
at the Mayflower Hotel and
elsewhere. Dr. Bob Smith also
attended with his wife, Anne.
He shied away from talking
about his problem publicly, and
continued drinking. In her
concern for Bob, Henrietta
suggested to T. Henry that if
they could set up a smaller,
more private meeting perhaps
Bob might feel more at ease and
be able to make a confession in
the Oxford Group fashion, and a
commitment to sobriety. T.
Henry's home was chosen for
this special meeting and these
meetings started on a Wednesday
in April of 1935--just one
month before Bill Wilson came
to Akron. These meetings were
usually led by T. Henry,
Henrietta, or Florence Main,
and at one of these Dr. Bob was
able to confess that he was a
secret drinker and needed help
as he could not stop. This was
the very place that was to
become the home to the
"about to begin"
Alcoholic Contingent of the
Oxford Group.
We can now see how
all these characters
contributed to putting Dr. Bob
and Bill at a meeting in
Henrietta Seiberling's home in
the Gate House of the Firestone
Estate, and make possible the
founding of Alcoholics
Anonymous.
AKRON - MAY 11,
1935
We
can find no references anywhere
to indicate that Bill Wilson
considered or made any
conscious effort to locate an
Oxford Group member when he
made his desperation phone call
in the Mayflower Hotel in
Akron. Henrietta Seiberling
wrote as follows:
"Bill looked
into the cocktail room and was
tempted and thought, 'Well,
I'll just go in there and get
drunk and forget it all and
that will be the end of it!'
"
Instead, having
been sober five months in the
Oxford Group, he said a prayer.
He received guidance to look at
a ministers' directory board
and a strange thing happened.
He put his finger on one
name--Tunks. The Rev. Walter
Tunks was Harvey Firestone 's
minister, and Firestone had
brought Buchman and thirty
Oxford Group members to Akron
for ten days in gratitude for
their help for his son,
Russell, a drunkard.
Out of the act of
gratitude of this one father,
this whole chain started.
I Stand By The Door
An Apologia for my Life
By Sam Shoemaker (from the Oxford Group)
I stand by the door.
I neither go to far in, nor stay to far out.
The door is the most important door in the world -
It is the door through which men walk when they find God.
There is no use my going way inside and staying there,
When so many are still outside and they, as much as I,
Crave to know where the door is.
And all that so many ever find
Is only the wall where the door ought to be.
They creep along the wall like blind men,
With outstretched, groping hands,
Feeling for a door, knowing there must be a door,
Yet they never find it.
So I stand by the door.
The most tremendous thing in the world
Is for men to find that door - the door to God.
The most important thing that any man can do
Is to take hold of one of those blind, groping hands
And put it on the latch - the latch that only clicks
And opens to the man's own touch.
Men die outside the door, as starving beggars die
On cold nights in cruel cities in the dead of winter.
Die for want of what is within their grasp.
They live on the other side of it - live because they have not found it.
Nothing else matters compared to helping them find it,
And open it, and walk in, and find Him.
So I stand by the door.
Go in great saints; go all the way in -
Go way down into the cavernous cellars,
And way up into the spacious attics.
It is a vast, roomy house, this house where God is.
Go into the deepest of hidden casements,
Of withdrawal, of silence, of sainthood.
Some must inhabit those inner rooms
And know the depths and heights of God,
And call outside to the rest of us how wonderful it is.
Sometimes I take a deeper look in.
Sometimes venture in a little farther,
But my place seems closer to the opening.
So I stand by the door.
There is another reason why I stand there.
Some people get part way in and become afraid
Lest God and the zeal of His house devour them;
For God is so very great and asks all of us.
And these people feel a cosmic claustrophobia
And want to get out. 'Let me out!' they cry.
And the people way inside only terrify them more.
Somebody must be by the door to tell them that they are spoiled.
For the old life, they have seen too much:
One taste of God and nothing but God will do any more.
Somebody must be watching for the frightened
Who seek to sneak out just where they came in,
To tell them how much better it is inside.
The people too far in do not see how near these are
To leaving - preoccupied with the wonder of it all.
Somebody must watch for those who have entered the door
But would like to run away. So for them too,
I stand by the door.
I admire the people who go way in.
But I wish they would not forget how it was
Before they got in. Then they would be able to help
The people who have not yet even found the door.
Or the people who want to run away again from God.
You can go in too deeply and stay in too long
And forget the people outside the door.
As for me, I shall take my old accustomed place,
Near enough to God to hear Him and know He is there,
But not so far from men as not to hear them,
And remember they are there too.
Where? Outside the door -
Thousands of them. Millions of them.
But - more important for me -
One of them, two of them, ten of them.
Whose hands I am intended to put on the latch.
So I shall stand by the door and wait
For those who seek it.
'I had rather be a door-keeper
So I stand by the door.
The first few
groups which were formed,
were still part of the Oxford
Group.
They were called 'The Drunk
Squads'.
Now, the Oxford Group had something
called
The Four Absolutes.
(1) Absolute
Love
(2) Absolute
Honesty
(3) Absolute
Purity
(4) Absolute
Unselfishness
The Drunk Squad of the Oxford Group
was having
enough trouble being absolute
anything,
except drunks !!
Bill Wilson knew this dogma was to
rigid for
an alcoholic to adhere
to.
This wariness of absolutes led AA's
earliest
members to leave the Oxford
Group.
It is perhaps the greatest
contribution that the
Oxford Group made to AA.
One of the main things we learned from
the
Oxford Group was what would
not work
for drunks !!
Alcoholics Anonymous has always
understood
it's own limitations.
We have no monopoly on
God.
As an association of Alcoholics, we
have been
and always will be
human,
not God.
Alcoholics Anonymous contains no
dogma,
no commandments,
no absolutes,
and no requirements
beyond
'the desire to stop
drinking.'
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