Abstract Failure to set standards may succeed in postponing the day of reckoning, but not for long. Regulation of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission affecting corporate reports, no matter how wise may be the language in which they are couched, will cause the accountant many perturbations. The accountant will not be ready for them. The accountant will again consult his attorney. A committee of the American Institute of Accountants will protest mildly the Commission's unnecessarily harsh and untrustful attitude toward the profession. There will be a revival of talk to the effect that after all the old order was best, the securities act and the securities exchange act need drastic modification. But nobody will come forward with concrete suggestions as to the precise nature of the modification needed. And the failure to accept the public generally as a third party to every accounting engagement will continue for as long a time as possible. Lawyers and accountants will cry unrestrainedly on each other's shoulders. But regulations will be followed and thus a new era will dawn for the accountant, however weakly and fatuously he may resist its coming.
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