JWQ: John W. Queenan;

              By Arthur B. Foye ^^^^
Managing Partner, 1946-1956
The world of industry and finance al­lots
marks to a man for enterprise, for
activity and energy, for administrative
skill, for the power of oral and written
expression, and for professional merits.
This is especially true when the time is
propitious and the opportunity open,
and the man has the right background
of education. As to the latter, Nicholas
Murray Butler, the former president of
Columbia University, once said: "These
are the five characteristics I offer as
evidence of an education: correctness
and precision in the use of the mother
tongue, refined and gentle manners
which are the expression of fixed habits
of thought and action, the power and
habit of reflection, the power of growth
and efficiency of the power to do."
Similarly Bandolph Bourne, the so­cial
critic, said: "Interest and skill in
one's work, an acquaintance with the
contemporary world, an alert intelli­gence
which is always seeking to di­minish
the area of things human that
are alien to one—a man with this would
be truly educated."
John W. Queenan would have high
marks from the economic and profes­sional
worlds, and he has in very great
measure the characteristics described
by Nicholas Murray Butler and Ran­dolph
Bourne.
The times were propitious. During
his formative years until his coming to
Haskins & Sells in 1927, the United
States had changed from a debtor to a
creditor nation, and had emerged as a
great world power deeply involved in
world affairs—military, economic, so­cial
and political. The gross national
product in 1927 was beginning to grow
rapidly as were the great corporate en­tities.
The profession of accountancy
was ready for expansion of activities
and growth in numbers. It was still
divided between the American Society
of Certified Public Accountants and
the American Institute of Accountants.
The total number of certified public
accountants in 1927 was less than
10,000 (compared with more than
100,000 today).
The Firm itself was thirty years old
with a record of high professional and
ethical standards and a reputation for
fine work and service to clients. In it
new technical procedures were being
established under the direction of
John R. Wildman, who brought John
Queenan into the organization and who
helped guide and develop the aspiring
young accountant. The Firm had 29
partners and 37 offices with a gross of
only one fifteenth of that of 1969-1970.
Mr. Queenan came into this picture
with an excellent academic back­ground.
Born January 11, 1906 in
Aurora, Illinois, he earned his degree
in accountancy at the University of
Illinois. When he sat for the CPA ex­amination
in Illinois in 1931, he re­ceived
the Gold Medal Award of the
Illinois Society of Certified Public Ac­countants
for achieving the highest
grades. Recently it was announced that
he will be given the Illini Achievement
Award at the commencement exercises
at Urbana in June 1970.
He spent fifteen months in the Tech­nical
Procedures Department of the Ex­ecutive
Office assisting Mr. Wildman,
who, recognizing John Queenan's po­tentialities,
felt that he should have
some practice office experience and
asked him to go to the Newark Office
in October 1928. In 1930, because of
the serious illness of his widowed