Dedicated "to the interests of the entire profession";

              In Elmer Beamer's view, the underly­ing
reason why so many Haskins & Sells
partners have received the American
Institute's Gold Medal Award for dis­tinguished
service to public accounting
is the commitment of the Firm to pro­fessional
excellence. This commitment
has permitted a number of H&S men to
devote their efforts to projects of bene­fit
to the entire profession, with the
encouragement and support of their
partners.
Mr. Beamer, partner in charge of the
H&S office in Cleveland, and the late
Weldon Powell are the seventh and
eighth partners of H&S to receive the
AICPA Gold Medal. The awards were
made at the Institute's annual meeting
in New York last September.
"Weldon Powell and I concentrated
on different fields of interest in our ef­forts
to broaden and perfect the prac­tice
of accounting," Mr. Beamer said
recently. "But the main thing we had in
common was the support of the other
partners in the Firm. They encouraged
us to take part in activities aimed at ad­vancing
the profession as a whole,
rather than ones limited to more tradi­tional,
narrowly defined services.
"As an organization, H&S is dedi­cated
to the interests of the entire pro­fession.
Without this orientation it
would be difficult to commit the time
required to complete the basic studies
that have been undertaken on behalf
of the Institute," he said.
Mr. Powell was cited posthumously
for his efforts in laying the groundwork
for the formation of the Accounting
DEDICATED
"to the interests of the entire profession"
Principles Board, and for his service as
the Board's first chairman who guided
it through its first three years of activity.
The concept of the Board grew from a
suggestion by AICPA President Alvin
R. Jennings at the 1958 meeting. Mr.
Powell headed a committee which was
entrusted with conducting a study of
the matter on the Institute's behalf. He
worked for more than a year formulat­ing
suggestions that led to the creation
of the Board.
This effort was followed by a period,
during Weldon Powell's term as Board
chairman, in which he dedicated him­self
to the essential task of amassing
research and compiling studies upon
which the Accounting Principles Board
could base its opinions.
This commitment consumed vast
amounts of Mr. Powell's time in assem­bling
information in fields where no
prior research work had been con­ducted.
He carried it on in addition to
his work in the development and im­provement
of the Firm's auditing pro­cedures.
John Queenan, managing partner of
H&S from 1956 to 1970, retains warm
memories of Mr. Powell, whom he first
met as his undergraduate accounting
instructor at the University of Illinois.
Mr. Powell provided the inspiration for
Mr. Queenan's career in public account­ing
back in the 1920s, and encouraged
him to join H&S.
According to Mr. Queenan, Weldon
Powell was regarded by leaders of the
accounting profession as "probably the
outstanding accounting theoretician and
thinker on accounting principles and
policies." His invaluable intellectual
contributions bridged several decades-only
to be stopped by an automobile
accident which took his life in 1965.
"By 1956, Weldon was already rec­ognized
by the profession as one of the
deepest thinkers in the area of account­ing
and auditing theory," Mr. Queenan
said. "He had the unusual characteristic
that he could translate theory into actu­al
practice, and he did this as well as
anyone I have ever known. He was
always oriented to the practical appli­cation
of accounting thinking. "
While Mr. Powell devoted his life to
the technical aspects of auditing pro­cedures
and the formulation of account­ing
principles, Elmer Beamer has con­centrated
his efforts in areas beyond the
immediate discipline of the profession
in order to broaden the horizon of ac­counting
professionals. The AICPA's
citation for his award singled out his
efforts on behalf of "numerous research,
education and development commit­tees,
culminating with his chairmanship
of the Commission to Study the Com­mon
Body of Knowledge for CPAs."
This study suggested that the "be­ginning
CPA must have a conceptual
grasp of accounting, its interdisciplin­ary
aspects, the environment in which
it functions, and of those bodies of
knowledge which are ancillary to its
central purpose."
Therefore, in order to grow and ma­ture
in the practice of accounting, a
professional must begin with a broad
understanding of the concepts of ac-
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