Potion we BIOON. BU le Ty EyTioNn 13 
A Bi-Partisan Conservation Commission for Illinois 
By RAYMOND MOSTEK 
FOR THE FIRST TIME in many years, Illinois sportsmen and conservationists 
in scores of outdoor clubs have undertaken a vigorous campaign to estab- 
lish a Bi-Partisan Conservation Commission for Illinois. Only about eight 
states still have the old, politically-dominated conservation departments 
where heads roll with every new governor. Our neighboring states of Iowa, 
Missouri, Wisconsin, and Michigan have long had conservation commissions. 
Tourists have been impressed with the superiority of the state parks and 
streams of those states, compared to those of Illinois. 
As the Fairmount Chapter of the Izaak Walton League has pointed out: 
“The Conservation Department in Illinois is a big operation. It manages 
our state forests, state parks, wildlife refuges, and public hunting areas; 
it controls and licenses boating on all public waters. It makes and enforces 
hunting and fishing regulations, and sells over 800,000 fishing licenses and 
500,000 hunting licenses annually. It received over $360,000 in Pittman- 
Robertson funds in 1960. The budget is over 12 million dollars each year.” 
Would a Bi-Partisan Conservation Commission have allowed our state 
parks to become so run down? A visitor is greeted by some of the most 
miserable entrance roads to any state park in the middle west. When he 
visits the camping ground, if he can locate it, the visitor finds disgraceful 
accommodations. Where other parks in Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin 
provide excellent showers, toilets, and parking facilities, the Illinois visitor 
is likely to find a privy; perhaps one or two sinks for several hundred 
campers, and a shortage of picnic tables. 
After the visitor is settled, he may attempt to find the park naturalist so 
that he might take a nature walk. He is told there is no naturalist. Instead, 
he is directed to an old museum. This museum has been neglected for many 
years; its exhibits are covered with dust, the labels almost unreadable. Dis- 
gusted, he leaves and goes walking along the “nature trail.’”? Of course, he 
becomes lost several times because of the lack of trail signs, or because the 
old broken signs have not yet been replaced. 
If he is a Chicagoan, his closest park will be the Illinois Beach State 
Park near Waukegan. There he will find a lavish three million dollar lodge 
with high cost meals and lodging; poor camping grounds — possibly the 
worst in the state; no naturalist, and a neglected “nature area” that has 
been threatened by a road and by the big lodge. He will find a park far 
too small for the 30,000 persons that visit it each summer week-end; yet 
the state has failed to expand by purchasing land to the north. 
If he goes south to Shawneetown, he will find an old church and two 
minor buildings which the State of Illinois purchased as a ‘“‘museum”’ for 
$100,000 in 1959. The Legislature appropriated $150,000; the property was 
“valued” at $129,000 by the church’s self-appointed appraisers two months 
AFTER the money was voted, and later $100,000 was released by former 
Governor Stratton at the request of Conservation Director Glenn Palmer. 
Up to now, the church is still being used as a church and not one cent has 
been paid to the state in rent. Would a Bi-Partisan Conservation Commis- 
sion have allowed this to happen? 
Though some progress has been made in the Illinois Conservation De- 
partment, much remains to be done. Illinois needs a far better outdoor edu- 
cation program; other states publish excellent literature and a monthly 
