GEORGE A. GONZALEZ - fieldi

NOTES 111government where each will utilize its political strength to try and get its way (Weinstein1968, chap. 1; Eakins 1969; 1972; Domhoff 1978a, chap. 3; 1990, 38–39; Barrow1993, chap. 1).CHAPTER THREETHE POLITICS OF AIR POLLUTION DURING THELATE NINETEENTH AND EARLY TWENTIETHCENTURIES: THE FAILURE OF TECHNOLOGY1. Louise Walker, in her 1941 dissertation on the Chicago Association of Commerce,notes that the Association “was formed in 1904, with ninety-three members” and“that its peak membership was about seven thousand [in 1924], and that its present sizeis about four thousand.” She adds that the CAC’s “members are drawn from the employingclass and represent conservative business interests” (1). Walker also explains thatworking under the assumption that any activity which improves businessconditions in Chicago is a legitimate concern of an Association of Commerce,the organization [the CAC] has given such matters as improvedpaving, endorsement of charities, crime control, educational surveys, andclean-up campaigns its continuous interest. It has caused special studies tobe made of the stockyard, smoke abatement, housing, and the accountingmethods of the Sanitary Commission. (2–3)2. Stradling (1999) estimates that the committee’s report only dedicated 17 pagesto discussing “smoke’s negative effects on human health, vegetation, and propertywithin the city, but it did not attempt to determine the costs of these effects toChicagoans” (128–129).3. Dewey (2000) and Stradling (1999) explain that urban air pollution throughoutthe late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was widely conceived as bothan aesthetic and health concern (also see Platt 1995).4. Here I am arguing that we need to analyze environmental legislation on twodifferent planes. The first plane is the one in which such legislation guides, influences,and/or restricts policymakers and the courts. Hence, analysis via this plane examineshow legislation effects or fails to effect the development of public policy. The secondplane focuses on how the passage of environmental legislation affects public opinion.Therefore, even if legislation has no impact on policy it can still affect public opinion.Moreover, a particular piece of environmental legislation can have substantively divergentimpacts on policy and on public opinion. The passage of a certain law, for example,may communicate to the public that a special interest is going to be effectively regulated,whereas the policy resulting from such legislation may actually strengthen theeconomic and/or political position of said special interest (Edelman 1964; 1988;McConnell, 1966; Stigler 1971; Kolko, 1977; Lowi, 1979; Gonzalez 2001a). At thispoint in my argument, I am focusing on the second plane of legislation.5. Another factor that contributed to the inability of the working class to politicallymobilize against air pollution during this period was the public argumentationoften made by the opponents of government mandated smoke abatement. Namely,that such government policies undermined job creation and created an incentive forcapital flight from an area (Stradling 1999; Dewey 2000).