2 TH: Ee (ASU D2U) BOON: (Be UP bei a tae 
duced at the next session. Hun- 
dreds of pages of hearings have 
been filed. The Sub-Committee 
hearing this bill has met in many 
parts of the country, at great 
expense to the taxpayer and to 
individuals and organizations. 
Volunteer organizations and con- 
servationists can ill afford these 
expenses once again, but the 
mining, grazing, and timber in- 
terests have unlimited resources 
at their command. 
An appeal was made in the 
February 1.A.S. Newsletter for 
Illinois conservationists to sup- 
port this bill and to file state- 
ments with Congressman Wayne 
Aspinall, Chairman of the House 
Interior Committee. Similar ap- 
peals went out to clubs in I[llin- 
ois from national groups in 
Washington, D.C. Perusalof 
the hearings on the Wilderness 
Whooo’s Against the Wilderness Bill? Bill which were held by the Sub- 
Committee on Public Lands of 
the House Interior Committee 
from May 7th to May 11, 1962, indicates that less than a half-dozen affili- 
ates of the Illinois Audubon Society took advantage of this opportunity. (We 
have 29 groups as affiliates). Not a single chapter of the Izaak Walton 
League in Illinois, not a single Illinois Garden Club, and only one lone 
sportsmen’s club in our state filed a statement with that committee. Fortun- 
ately, hundreds of other groups across the land and thousands of individuals 
rallied to the cause, so that the House Interior Committee was duly im- 
pressed. Whether it remains impressed enough is the $64 question. 
However, it is time for conservationists in Illinois to ask themselves: 
“Are we playing games, or are we serious about saving the wild, primeval 
lands of America?” We should know by now that Congress is hardly the 
most democratic of political bodies: because of mal-apportionment of con- 
gressional districts, or lack of re-apportionment in many states, huge sec- 
tions of America are not adequately represented. Much of the work of Con- 
gress is done or not done in committees. Though a bill may be favored by 
the vast majority of one house of congress, it must pass at least two major 
hurdles, the committee which holds hearings on the bill, and in the case of 
the House, the Rules Committee, which has become the cemetery for many 
bills in the past. 
