Executive Committee member E. Fay Campbell wrote to General Secretary Robert Wilder in 1925 expressing the fear that the Student Volunteer Movement was tending to become a conservative general Christian movement, a rival to YMCA and YWCA on the conservative end of the spectrum. Wilder replied: "I may be wrong, but I believe that there is more danger of our Movement's losing conservative Volunteers than-liberal Volunteers. In two conservative institutions the Volunteers voted separation from the SVM on the ground that we are too liberal theologically." Wilder's concluding plea that theological controversy be avoided in Movement work reflected the failure of the SVM leadership to comprehend the inevitability of liberal /conservative conflict in the changing religious scene.