GEORGE A. GONZALEZ - fieldi

THE FAILURE OF TECHNOLOGY 43The issue of cost was particularly paramount for the railroad industry. Inthe case of New York City, railroad firms electrified their lines because thesmoke emitted from coal burning locomotives proved to be a substantialsafety hazard within the tunnels in and around the city—with at least onemajor railroad accident within a tunnel attributed to locomotive-generatedsmoke. Also, the Pennsylvania Railroad ran many of its trains in Philadelphiaon electricity, beginning in the 1910s, because space in its crowded Philadelphiafacilities could be more efficiently used with electric locomotives(Stradling 1999, 112–114). While electric locomotives proved to be cleanand efficient, the railroad industry as a whole was heavily vested in steamlocomotives. One expert estimated that in the early part of the twentiethcentury the railroads owned approximately 70,000 steam locomotives, representinga total investment of $1.4 billion (Crawford 1913). Thus, in electrifyingtheir lines nationally, railroads would not only have to absorb the considerablecosts of doing so but these firms would have to effectively abandontheir significant investment in steam locomotives. In light of these factors, itis not surprising that the railroads consistently opposed any attempts toforcibly electrify their industry (Stradling 1999, chap. 6). Given this strongopposition, those economic elites in Chicago interested in cleaning the city’sair through the mandated electrification of those locomotives runningthrough the area backed down. This backpedaling is reflected in the secondreport put out by the Chicago Association of Commerce.THE LIMITS OF TECHNOLOGY IN AIR POLLUTION CONTROLWith regard to air pollution from factories, not only was there considerablecosts associated with the installation, maintenance, and usage of pollutionabatement technologies but the existing technological approaches to air pollutionabatement were in many cases unreliable. Moreover, the costs anduncertainties associated with air pollution abatement technology gave rise tofree rider problems. The difficulties of controlling coal-generated smokethrough the usage of technology becomes most apparent in light of an effortto control such smoke in anticipation of the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893.Leading members of Chicago’s business community in January 1892formed the Society for the Prevention of Smoke. As historian ChristineRosen (1995, 358) points out, “The founders of the Society were prominentlocal businessmen, ... and all but one of whom was also a Director” of thefair, otherwise known as the Colombian Exposition. Founders of the Societyincluded Bryan L. Lathrop, the organization’s president, and a real estatedeveloper and investment banker. Also on the Society’s board of directorswere Samuel W. Allerton, a banker and cattle rancher, who helped foundChicago’s Union Stockyard Company and was a director of a local street railwaycompany, and James W. Scott, publisher of the Chicago Herald. When