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I.A.S. Honors Dr. R. M. Strong 
ON OcToBER 18, 1959, in a ceremony preceding the Screen Tour Lecture at 
Chicago Natural History Museum, the Illinois Audubon Society paid a 
signal tribute to its Honorary President, Dr. R. M. Strong, by presenting 
him with a crystallite plaque in recognition of his 70 years of achievement 
in the conservation field. The testimonial address preceding the Special 
Conservation Award was delivered by your Editor. The text of the address 
follows: 
Many men are fortunate enough to have the spirit and energy to devote a lifetime 
of service to the causes in which they believe. But only rarely is a man so favored by 
God and by nature, and so imbued with foresight and conviction, that he is able to 
devote virtually two lifetimes of service to an ideal. It is our pleasure and privilege to 
honor such a man today. 
Many men were responsible for originating and promoting the idea of conservation 
of the wildlife and natural resources of our country during the past 75 years. The roll- 
call of these men is an illustrious one; it includes such names as Jay Sterling Morton, 
the founder of Arbor Day; Theodore Roosevelt; Gifford Pinchot; John Muir; Stephen 
Mather, and many others. But only one of this group of conservation pioneers — Dr. 
R. M. Strong — has lived to see the fruits of so much of his labor. 
Dr. Strong's conservation work began in 1888, when he, with a group of other young 
men and boys, helped to found the Wilson Ornithological Society. He served as its 
first treasurer, and he was president of that Society from 1894 to 1901, and again in 
1923-24. He is now the sole surviving founder of that group. He is also a Fellow of 
the American Ornithologists’ Union. 
In 1907 Dr. Strong, Professor Cowles of the University of Chicago, and several other 
distinguished naturalists and statesmen had the foresight to propose that a large por- 
tion of the Indiana Dunes shoreline be set aside as a National Park. At that time the 
area was a wilderness of sand, and very few people then believed that it might be 
anything else but a wilderness. 
In 1916 Dr. Strong was active in a group of many notable conservationists (including 
Professor Chamberlain, also of the University of Chicago; Stephen Mather, first Direc- 
tor of the National Park Service; Professor Cowles; Julius Rosenwald, and others) who 
launched a movement to create an Indiana Dunes National Park. The proposal was lost 
when the United States entered World War |, but ten years later the work bore fruit 
in the creation of Indiana Dunes State Park. Dr. Strong is still actively engaged in the 
present fight to establish an Indiana Dunes National Monument. 
Although natural history has been largely a sideline or avocation for Dr. Strong, he 
is recognized as one of our outstanding ornithologists. He has had many scientific 
papers published on bird plumage, behavior, anatomy, and life history. He has just 
completed a monumental Bibliography and Index of World Ornithological Literature. 
| should mention briefly that Dr. Strong's life work has been in the medical field, 
where he has fulfilled a career that is fully as long and illustrious as his lifetime of 
conservation activity. He was graduated from Oberlin College in 1897 and received a 
degree of Ph.D. in Zoology at Harvard. Subsequent graduate research work in zoology 
was carried out at the Universities of Frankfurt and of Naples. 
