hedrick@topaz.ARPA (Chuck Hedrick) (05/11/85)
One of my staff recently came back from a vacation in Florida. She brought back with her a document that is so vicious that it almost glows in the dark. Apparently it is circulating widely in the Florida. I would quote the document at length, but I hate to spread it even in this context. It accuses Procter and Gamble (makers of many well-known household products) of giving a large portion of its profits to the Church of Satan. It also alleges that Proctor and Gamble changed its trademark to be that of the Church of Satan. It claims that the President of the company admitted to all of this on the Phil Donahue show. It quotes an article in the N.F.D Journal, July/August 1984. (Does anyone know what this publication is?) The purpose of this note is twofold. First, I thought that people in this group would be interested in this sort of abberation. Second, since it appears that otherwise sane people are taking this seriously, I wanted you to be in a position to deny it should you hear it. As it happens, I have met a number of the top management of Procter and Gamble personally, and I am also reasonably familiar with their general management style and the way things are done in the company. I can guarantee you that the company does not serve the Church of Satan. Like every other major corporation, its top management are active in church (or synagogue) and community affairs. The company has sponsored at least two major TV miniseries based on the Bible or the early church. As a publically-held corporation, its stockholders would not permit it to give a large fraction of its income to any church, much less the Church of Satan. The following additional details come from my father, who is an executive with Procter and Gamble: This story turns up every few years. Normally it is spread among the fundamentalist Christian community, though this time it is also showing up in the Catholic community. The accusation normally claims that the number 666 shows up somewhere in the Procter and Gamble trademark. (The letter I have creates the digits by connecting the stars. There is no particular pattern there without the lines that were drawn in.) In fact, the trademark is over 100 years old. The first product of Procter and Gamble was Star candles. As the stevedores who handled the crates couldn't read, they were labelled with X's, representing the Star brand name. Some time later the trademark became formalized as 13 stars (for the 13 colonies) and the moon was added as decoration. The accusation normally mentioned Phil Donahue. The Donahue organization has denied it, but of course that has little effect. The last time this happened was 3 or 4 years ago, in the South. This time it is largely in Pennsylvania and the East. Last time they managed to locate some of the people who were instrumental is spreading the tale and took them to court. Interestingly enough, these people were largely Amway distributors. (Amway sell products, primarily cleaning products, that compete with Procter and Gamble's.) Note that Procter and Gamble is *NOT* claiming that Amway as a company is responsible for this. Indeed the distributors ended up apologizing, and the issue was settled out of court. As it happens, the President of Procter and Gamble is an Episcopalean. Of course, the current President is not responsible for the trademark. But the original Procter was also an Episcopalean, and Gamble was Methodist. They (who are of course no longer living) and their families have been major contributors to these churches. Recently, Procter and Gamble has started putting an 800 number on all of its products. This is intended for questions about the product, complaints, etc. That number is now getting several thousand calls a week about this subject. Because of all of the trouble, they have finally decided to begin a slow phaseout of the old trademark. It will continue to be used on letterhead, etc. But eventually it will disappear from product packages. A number of churches have become quite embarassed when they realized how they were being used in this matter. I found it amusing that as I was about to write this note, my first shipment of 4.2 manuals arrived from the Usenix reprinting. What should I find on the cover but a picture of a devil. As we all know, the infamous Usenix is the scientific branch of the Church of Satan... PS: the only thing in the leaflet that I saw that wasn't a lie is the list of products to boycott. They did get the product list right. Although it is by no means complete (a majority of the products listed being cleaning products), as far as I can see the products are all made by Procter and Gamble. ---------------------------------- Although portions of this message come from sources at Procter and Gamble, a lot of it is obviously my personal opinion. So the message does not represent anybody's official position.