[net.religion] the protocols of the elders of Procter and Gamble

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.

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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.