Reviews the book "The Big Business Executive--The Factors That Made Him--1900-1950," by Mabel Newcomer.

Reviews the book "Government and Business," by Vernon A. Mund.

In the preparation of accounting statements there are, broadly speaking, two phases of the work: the compiling and assembling of the underlying facts and data and, second, the form and method of presentation. One reason why many accounting statements are not easily produced or satisfactory when completed is that the underlying accounts and records are not designed with an eye to the final statement. There are naturally many purposes for which records are used besides the preparation of statements and exhibits, and full weight must be given to these purposes. It is generally possible, however, to arrange underlying records so that both purposes may be served. The prime purpose of a record of sales is to provide a medium for recording the day's transactions as they occur and to make certain that each customer is correctly charged with what is sold to him. Many other purposes may be served by such a record, none of which may be directly connected with its primary purpose, but which, on the other hand, will not obscure or hinder it. It is likely that the sales manager will need a distribution, say by products and by geographical divisions.

The cleavage between a government and business idea of a cost is far deeper and greater than the mere exclusion or admission of particular items of cost. The idea that there can be an expenditure which is not a cost is, to a manufacturing executive, disturbing, if not revolutionary. Its implications are basic and far reaching. They imply supervision and control over the producer by the customer or consumer carried to the furthest limit. They make the producer the mere agent of the customer or consumer because the producer is responsible not alone for the quality and price of his product but by using the nature rather than the amount of the costs which are chargeable to it as the criterion of allow-ability, the customer is really made the judge of the operation of the plant as well as of the product. Total cost, rather than the propriety of individual items of costs, is the commercial criterion and a grossly excessive, but legitimate cost was held to be more discreditable than a lower cost which included some items of a possibly doubtful nature or which were not susceptible to exact verification.

The rules of ethics of the American Institutes of Accountants are clear and reasonable statements of principle, as are the various resolutions which amplify them. Their actual application, however, is not always equally clear, as this generally demands close and careful analysis of a complicated situation to which the Committee on Ethics and the Council of the Institute must apply their mature and impartial judgment. The article presents a brief explanation of the rules of professional conduct of the American Institutes of Accountants. This explanation is necessarily incomplete and is only intended as an indication of the sort of cases which fall under the different rules. For mostly, rigid rules of professional conduct are not really necessary, but there are always unfortunate brothers who either lack a keen perception of what a professional man's attitude should be or are interested only in sailing close to the wind as possible. It is against these that the rules must be enforced and they must be enforced by the men for whom they are not necessary.

Reviews the book "Significant Accounting Essays," edited by Maurice Moonitz and A.C. Littleton.

Reviews the book "Shirtsleeve Economics, a Common Sense Survey," by William A. Paton.

Six of the nation's outstanding accounting authorities have been invited to prepare papers expressing the views for and against the proposition that depreciation need not be restricted to the amortization of historical cost. While accountants have long realized that their basic standard of measurement, the dollar, is a varying one, they have, with one conspicuous exception, declined to recognize, as generally accepted accounting procedures, departures from cost because of changes in the purchasing power of money. In the list obstacles to good accounting is the misconception, often entertained, and blindly fostered by many accountants, that an income statement should reflect earning power or be confined to current operating performance. By moving depreciation expense up or down, according to predictions of the moment, a more accurate earning power or operating performance is said to be reflected in the net result. A good deal of mumbo-jumbo necessarily attaches to the process, for to them earning power or operating performance is a nebulous thing, visible only to initiates such as forceful corporate managements and accountants of discernment.