However Good

The letter is well written and everything in it is true. It concerns something local — a facility closing, a service cut, a decision that will hurt people already in trouble. Other organizations have signed. A member brings it to the business meeting and says it would mean something if the group's name were on it too, and he is right, it would. That is precisely the difficulty. The signature is worth having because of what A.A. is. Nobody actually wants the group's opinion; they want the group's standing, and standing is the one asset this Tradition says A.A. may not spend. Bill W. drew that line in 1947 and left no softening in it (A.A. pamphlet P-17): "we can say quite emphatically that neither A.A. as a whole nor any A.A. group ought to enter any activity other than straight A.A. As groups, we cannot endorse, finance or form an alliance with any other cause, however good." However good. He put that clause in deliberately, because he knew every real case would be a good one. The letter goes out either way. The only question is whether A.A.'s name travels with it.