The Politics of the Lakefill

In a sign of political goodwill--recognition of Northwestern's staunch efforts during World War II --the University's proposal for the new lakefill campus sailed over every political obstacle it encountered. The Evanston City Council approved the plan in one meeting. Members voiced concern for the city's newly renovated Clark Street Beach, though that issue was overshadowed by a more serious worry: Evanstonians were frantic that the state might extend Chicago's Lake Shore Drive as far north as Wilmette. The lakefill, they hoped, would prevent a new highway on the suburb's pleasant shoreline.

There were some dissenters to the lakefill plan, but not many. "One encroachment on the lake area can easily be used as justification for others," wrote Northwestern alumnus and Evanston resident W. J. Bruns '26. He added that the University's rationale that reclaimed land was cheaper than existing property "does not justify the taking of public assets by unilateral private action°" Bruns added that the lakefill would place many Evanston homes considerably farther from the shore than they were at present. "Should the University seek to compensate for such loss of property values, it is quite likely that the cost of a lakefill campus would exceed that of acquiring adjacent property on an equitable basis," he said. But Bruns's argument got nowhere.

Good feelings between Northwestern and state government were categorical; in Springfield, both houses of the legislature approved the sale of 152 acres of Lake Michigan for $100 per acre without a single dissenting vote. University business manager William Kerr had spent considerable time in Springfield lobbying for the measure, and with Governor Otto Kerner and Speaker of the House William Redmond, both graduates of the law school in 1934, Northwestern had powerful friends in the state capital.

On the federal side, any alteration of waterways required the approval of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which quickly issued a permit with a report that the lakefill was "sufficiently removed from established lake shipping routes°" A single unpleasant glitch came up, however, just as the $5.2 million project was to begin. Because sand for the lakefill was to come from the dredging of a controversial harbor in the Indiana Dunes, Senator Paul Douglas of Illinois, an ardent conservationist, accused the University of being complicit in an act of environmental vandalism.

Before long, Douglas's protest was overcome; Indiana got its harbor, and Northwestern got the fill. But in retrospect, the controversy foreshadowed what was obvious later--that the growing environmental movement would make any further lakefill projects politically difficult if not impossible.

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