P                                THE WU.DLIE SO8 LfT 
                              N.Y.S. Conservation Department 
          otri.  ~ iAlbany, N. Y, 
Office of the Chairman. 
   Meabership Omiittee 
 
                                                           August 6, 1958

 
       Dr. &vlolf Bennitt 
       106 Wildlife Conservation Building 
       Columbia, Missouri 
 
       Dear Radolf a 
 
                Belatedly acknowledging your letter of Xuly 7 - 
 
                No thought other than that the full responsibility for the
establish- 
      ment of Membership standards would rest with the Comittee on Standards,
had ee- 
      urred to ne previous to your letter. The set of suggested standards
drawn up 
      by the Membership Comittee and presented in their report at Baltimore
was inten- 
      ded primarily to indicate to the Society the qualifications in general
utilized 
      by the Membership Committee (in the absence of more definite indications
of 
      Society intent,) in recommending the classification of applicants as
of Active 
      or Associate grade to the Council. As indicated in our report, it was
alse hoped 
      that these reoomendations would stimulate olarifying discussion. X
believe that 
      the appointment of a Oommittee on Standards was one direct outgrowth
of this pro- 
      cedure. 
 
                I certainly trust that no one, either on your Committee or
elsewhere in 
      the Society, holds for a minute any idea that the Membership Committee
is anxious 
      to have its fingers in the setting up of Membership standards. Personally,
I 
      believe that our responsibility should begin and end with the applying
of standards 
      as set up to the applications for mebership, as forwarded to us by
the Secretary 
      of the Society, to the end that the Council nay place them in the proper
Active 
      or Assoeiate grade. That we have over the past year gone further than
this in 
      getting up temporary qualifications for these grades has been purely
a responsi- 
      bility borne of necessity, which will, I assume, end as soon as your
Stendardiza- 
      tion Committee's report is accepted by the Society. 
 
                I cannot, of oourse, speak for the entire Committee in this
respect, 
      and I am accordingly referring to them by today's nail both your letter
and my 
      reply, with the request that any who do not concur will drop me a line
covering 
      their analysis of the situation. I an then integrate these and refer
them to 
      you as representative of the cocensus of opinion of our Membership
Committee. 
 
                Incidentally, though I have drawn a sharp line with reard
to the re- 
      spective fields of these two committees as I see them, you of ourse
understand 
      that all of us are more than willing to assist your Committee on Standards
in any 
      way possible in the carrying out of your delicate task. It is quite
probable 
      that our experience over the past year in analyzing membership applications
May 
      prove of real value to you, either in modifying the original qualifications
tem- 
      porarily set up by our own Committee, or in starting out from scratch
to build 
 
 
V