[2] Since the 1910s Sterrett was involved in public serves for the Federal Government, started with his participation in the Commission on Economy and Efficiency in 1911 and in the Excess profits tax during World War I. Merino (2014) summarized that "his work after World War I would bring him international recognition.

In 1924 he was called back to Europe, where he spent two years as the American member of the Transfer Committee that managed reparation payments under the Dawes Plan.

Prior to that time, however, definite rules of professional conduct had been formulated by the accounting societies of England for their members.

This bill made mention specifically of certain actions on the part of accountants which were to be regarded as unprofessional, and the practice of which should render them liable to fine, suspension or expulsion.

[4] Moxey (1922) further told, that at the Convention of the American Association of Public Accountants (now American Institute of Certified Public Accountants) held at St. Paul, Minnesota, in October, 1907, Sterrett presented a paper on "Professional Ethics" which became the standard treatise in the decades to come.

Sterrett called attention to the fact that the older professions of law and medicine had even at that time (1907) made considerable progress in the development of systems of professional ethics, and called attention also to the work being accomplished along that line by the American Institute of Electrical Engineers.