- 2 - 
"His work here has been entirely for the study 
of mollusks, with a good strong background of bio¬ 
logical subjects. He has studied under Yvheeler, 
Crozier, a-nd Rand in Zoology and has taken allied 
subjects in the Department of Geology, Botany, etc. 
He has been on one field trip with me, to Navassa, 
and has served as ray assistant in the department on 
part time for more than two years, and during the 
summers has aided Mr. Johnson in the Boston Society 
of Natural History. 
"Thank you very kindly for your courtesy in 
writing to me about this matter." 
Dr. Bartsch in turn replied as follows: 
"I want to thank you for your letter in answer 
to mine, and for all that you say about Mr. Rehder. 
Your candidate appeals to me. Of course you-will 
be at the meeting of the American Society of Mala- 
cologists in Philadelphia at the end of the month, 
and I hope that your young men will be with you. I 
will then have an opportunity to talk the whole 
matter over with you definitely and specifically. 
"X hope that you had a pleasant trip in Florida 
and brought back a lot of plunder." 
Dr. Bartsch was sufficiently non-committal so that we 
are not tied up in any way. I had a talk with Dr. Bartsch, and 
he explained that he was very anxious to fill this job tempora¬ 
rily at least with an SP-6, and then let the man work up to a 
higher position later on. I told him that this procedure might 
be a dangerous one, since we had money available for a P-3 posi¬ 
tion, and we were naturally supposed to fill the place with that 
type of man within a reasonable time. Up to the present, we 
have had a good alibi in that no one could qualify, but I as¬ 
sured Dr. Bartsch that any unoccupied position after being va¬ 
cant for a certain period might be a target for the Budget 
Bureau to shoot at, and that they might simply tell us that we 
could keep the money but that we could use it for some other 
position for which we were requesting funds. He saw the force 
of this argument, but I must admit that it is not quite clear 
to me as to how we should proceed. If Mr. Rehder would take 
the SP-6 examination, which is being given for Richards, we 
might appoint Mr. Rehder in an SP-6 position for a short time 
on the P-3 funds with the understanding that an examination 
would be given as soon as possible, and at the time the P—3 
position was filled, the SP-6 job would be dropped. 
