Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jkksz Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T22:32:23.289Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Scientists, Entrepreneurs, and the Policy Process: A Study of the Post–1945 California Sardine Depletion

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 March 2009

Arthur F. McEvoy  and
Harry N. Scheiber
Arthur F. McEvoy
Affiliation:
Assistant Professor, Department of History and Research Faculty, Center for Urban Affairs and Policy Research, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, 60201
Harry N. Scheiber
Affiliation:
Assistant Professor, Department of History and Research Faculty, Center for Urban Affairs and Policy Research, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, 60201
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The California Marine Research Committee was established by the state legislature in 1947 in response to the catastrophic failure of the Pacific Coast sardine fishery. Scientists, state and federal resource-managment officials, and industry leaders put aside long–standing differences of viewpoint to launch a uniquely comprehensive, multidisciplinary research effort. This paper, based on newly opened archival materials, analyzes the founding and early work of the agency. How a stalemate occurred that delayed a consensus on policy recommendations and had the practical effect of continuing virtually unregulated sardine fishing is explained. The article illustrates the institutional development of post–war “Big Science” as a major actor in the policy process and analyzes the mobilization of public agencies to cope with complex environmental issues in resource–extractive industries.

Type
Papers Presented at the Forty-Third Annual Meeting of the Economic History Association
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 44 , Issue 2 , June 1984 , pp. 393 - 406
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1984

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Radovich, John, “The Collapse of the California Sardine Fishery,” in Resource Management and Environmental Uncertainty, eds., Glantz, Michael H. and Thompson, J. Dana (New York, 1981), pp. 107–36;Google ScholarMurphy, Garth I., “Population Biology of the Pacific Sardine,” California Academy of Sciences, Proceedings, 34 (1966), 1–84.Google Scholar

2 Wilson, James Q., ed., The Politics of Regulation (New York, 1980);Google ScholarHays, Samuel P., “Political Choice in Regulatory Administration,” in Regulation in Perspective: Historical Essays, ed., McCraw, Thomas K. (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1981), pp. 124–54;Google Scholar and Hurst, J. Willard, Law and Social Order in the United States (Ithaca, New York, 1977), p. 157et passim all treat scientists and the policy process.Google Scholar

3 Exemplary of the new oceanographic research is Carefoot, Thomas, Pacific Seashores: A Guide to Intertidal Ecology (Vancouver, 1977).Google Scholar

4 How it can take a major catastrophe to overcome institutional and political obstacles to study and action is well analyzed in Krier, James E. and Ursin, Edmund, Pollution and Policy: A Case Essay on California and Federal Experience with Motor Vehicle Pollution, 1940–75 (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1977).Google Scholar

5 McEvoy, Arthur F., “Law, Public Policy, and Industrialization in the California Fisheries, 1900–25,” Business History Review, 57 (Winter 1983), 494–521;CrossRefGoogle ScholarSchaefer, Milner B. et al. , “Growth of the Pacific Coast Pilchard Fishery to 1942,” U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Research Reports, 29 (Wasington, D.C., 1951).Google Scholar

6 Radovich, “California Sardine,” pp. 114–15;Google Scholar on fisheries problems generally, see Christy, Francis T. Jr, and Scott, Anthony, The Common Wealth in Ocean Fisheries (Baltimore, 1965).Google Scholar See also Higgs, Robert, “Legally-Induced Technical Regress in the Washington Salmon Fishery,” Research in Economic History, 7 (1982).Google Scholar

7 Murphy, “Population Biology of the Pacific Sardine,” passim;Google ScholarSmith, Paul E., “Biological Effects of Ocean Variability: Time and Space Scales of Biological Response,” Rapports et ProcesVerbaux des Reunions, Conseil International pour l'Exploration de la Mer, 173 (1978), 117–27.Google Scholar

8 Ahlstrom, Elbert H. and Radovich, John, “Management of the Pacific Sardine,” in A Century of Fisheries in North America, ed., Benson, Norman G., American Fisheries Society Special Publication, 7 (Washington, D.C., 1970), 183–93.Google Scholar

9 SeePeople v. Monterey Fish Products Co., 195 Cal. 548, 234 P 398 (1925).Google Scholar

10 Monterey (Calif.) Peninsula Herald, Jan. 10, 1938, Feb. 8, 1938; Radovich, “California Sardine,” pp. 115–16;Google ScholarNash, Gerald D., State Government and Economic Development … in California, 1849–1933 (Berkeley, 1964), pp. 299–302.Google Scholar

11 Frances Clark to Carl Hubbs, June 1, 1950, Carl Leavitt Hubbs Papers, Scripps Institution of Oceanography Archives, SIO Library, La Jolla, California (hereinafter cited as SIO Archives);Google ScholarThompson, W. F., “The Fisheries of California and their Care,” California Fish and Game, 8 (1922), 170–75;Google Scholar Frances N. Clark, “Can the Supply of Sardines Be Maintained in California Waters?” Ibid., 25 (1939), 172–76. See also conflicting testimony in the hearings Sardine Fisheries, 74 Cong., 2 Sess., March 10–11, 1936 (Washington, D.C.).Google Scholar

12 R. H. Fiedler, testimony in Ibid., at p. 97.

13 See note 11 above, and also Larkin, P. A., “An Epitaph for the Concept of Maximum Sustained Yield,” American Fisheries Society, Transactions, 106 (1977), 1–11;Google Scholar and on forestry, Raup, Hugh M., “Some Problems in Ecological Theory and Their Relation to Conservation,” Journal of Ecology, 52 (Suppl., 1964), 19–28.Google Scholar

14 California Fish and Game Commission, Biennial Report (1928–1930), p. 108; see Sardine Fisheries, passim.Google Scholar

15 U.S. Department of the Interior, Office of the Coordinator of Fisheries, Explanation of the Coordinated Pilchard Production Plan (San Francisco, 1943);Google ScholarPacific Fisherman (Seattle, August 1945), p. 45.Google Scholar

16 Documentation for the analysis of MRC here comes mainly from manuscript sources as follows: Wilbert M. Chapman papers, University of Washington Library, Seattle; Ms. Minutes of MRC, 1948–1978, SIO Archives; Carl Leavitt Hubbs Papers, SIO Archives; SIO Subject Files, SIO Archives. Also consulted were published and mimeographed annual reports of the Sardine Conference, held jointly by agencies participating in the project, in SIO Library.Google Scholar

17 “Proceedings of the Pacific Fisheries Conference, Los Angeles, Jan. 11, 1946,” Pacific Fisherman (February 1946), 33–40; Chapman, “Fishery Conservation and the Dept. of State” (MS., Dec. 20, 1948), Chapman Papers.Google Scholar

18 Chapman to Nick Bez, December 2, 1946, Hubbs Papers. On competition, see Chapman to M. Phister, Dec. 26, 1946, SIO Subject Files; Chapman to Jackson, March 25, 1957, Chapman Papers. All outgoing Chapman correspondence in this latter collection is in the form of copies.Google Scholar

19 Notes ofHubbs, Carl, June 9–11, 1948 Sardine Conference, Hubbs Papers.Google Scholar

20 Smith, “Biological Effects of Ocean Variability,” passim;Google ScholarLenarz, W. H., “Modeling the Resource Base,” CalCOFI Reports, 15 (1971), 28–32.Google Scholar

21 Chapman, “High Seas Fishery Research in the Eastern Pacific” (Ms., 1947 or 1948), Chapman Papers.Google Scholar

22 McEvoy, “Law, Public Policy, and Industrialization,” passim.Google Scholar

23 Chapman wrote that the industry was “uniformly consistent in refusing to look ahead to the future of their supply of raw material,” supporting research efforts only when faced with disaster. (“High Seas,” supra, note 21).Google Scholar

24 Chapman to Vern Knudsen, October 22, 1947, Chapman Papers.Google Scholar

25 An extensive public airing of fisheries scientists' differences occurred in California in 1948 as a debate took place on a constitutional ammendment (defeated) to limit purse-seine fishing.Google Scholar

26 Chapman to Phister, September 19, 1947; Phister to Chapman, March 25, 1947; Chapman, “High Seas,” all in Chapman Papers.Google Scholar

27 This and other constitutional referenda on California resource issues will be treated in a forthcoming monograph by Scheiber and Schweinberger.Google Scholar

28 Since the research program would be financed by a tax on fish landings, the industry representatives were (correctly) confident that the legislature would support the recommendations of the coalition proposing research.Google Scholar

29 Phister to Chapman, December 20, 1946 and January 17, 1947, Chapman Papers; Chapman to Phister, December 7, 1946, SIO Subject Files; Chapmen to D. Saxby, March 18, 1947, SIO Subject Files; Hubbs, “Notes on Meeting in San Francisco on January 24, 1947,” Hubbs Papers, SIO Archives.Google Scholar

30 Correspondence, March, 1947, between Sverdrup and President Sproul, SIO Subject Files.Google Scholar

31 California Statutes, 1947, chap. 1276; Chapman to Hubbs, August 13, 1947, SIO Subject Files.Google Scholar

32 Ibid.

33 Chapman to Phister, n.d. but 1947, draft, Chapman Papers.Google Scholar

34 “You might try to wise the boys up on where the money comes from,” wrote Chapman with regard to SIO scientists' bent for physical oceanography (Chapman to Hubbs, October 29, 1947, Chapman Papers).Google Scholar See also Chapman to Phister, May 2, 1947 and October 19, 1947, Ibid.; and to Hubbs, August 13, 1947, SIO Subject Files.

35 Chapman to Hubbs, October 29, 1947, Chapman Papers; MS. Annual Report of the SIO Marine Life Research Committee, January 1, 1949, SIO Subject Files.Google Scholar

36 Phister to Chapman, December 29, 1950, Chapman Papers.Google Scholar

37 MRC minutes, December 1, 1959, SIO Archives. See also “Part I: The Marine Research Committee, 1947–1955,” CalCOFI, Progress Report (1 July 1953 to 31 March 1955), 7–9.Google Scholar

38 Controversy on the value of the expensive SIO research on ocean currents is evident in correspondence of October 1949, SIO Subject Files. On the ecological approach, see note 3, supra. Roger Revelle to D. Wikes, December 16, 1950, SIO Subject Files, indicates how broadly conceived SIO research was from the outset.Google Scholar

39 Garth Murphy, “Organization of CalCOFI,” Ms., in MRC minutes, April 11, 1963, SIO Archives; also MRC minutes, October 4, 1960, Exhibit I, Ibid.

40 Chapman to Knudsen, October 22, 1947, Chapman Papers.Google Scholar

41 Other stimuli to the growth of large-scale research at SIO were U.S. Navy contracts, the Mohole Project, nuclear research in the South Pacific, and (later) establishment of a general University of California campus at La Jolla.Google Scholar

42 “Part I: Marine Research Committee,” supra, note 37. Hubbs to R. Miller, April 7, 1947, SIO Subject Files, documents the move of SIO toward a large role in the sardine project generally; the state scientists' response was by no means enthusiastic (Clark to Hubbs, April 6, 1948, and Hubbs to Clark, June 1, 1950, Ibid.).

43 Radovich to J. S. Marr, October 25, 1955, SIO Subject Files; Radovich, “California Sardine,” pp. 118–19.Google ScholarClark, and Marr, , “Population Dynamics of the Pacific Sardine,” CalCOFI, Progress Report, 4 (1953–1955), 11–48.Google Scholar

44 MRC minutes, July 15, 1955, p. 4, SIO Archives.Google Scholar

45 Quota by restrictions not acceptable, because they are effective in limiting the fishery,” noted Hubbs in his notes to the 1949 Sardine Conference, either expressing the general consensus or expressing the view of industry representatives. (Hubbs Papers, SIO Archives.)Google Scholar

46 Phister to Chapman, April 26, 1949, Chapman Papers; see also Chapman to Hubbs, October 29, 1947, and to Phister, September 19, 1947, Ibid.

47 MRC minutes, December 18, 1962, SIO Archives; Richard Croker, personal interview, September 3, 1982, transcript on file.Google Scholar

48 Murphy, “Population Biology of the Pacific Sardine,” p. 69; Memorandum, Alan Longhurst to Marston Sargent, “Sardines: Status of the Stocks,” May 24, 1971 (copy on file, courtesty of Paul E. Smith). See also MRC minutes, February 8, 1972, May 8, 1972, SIO Archives.Google Scholar

49 Murphy, Garth, “Organization of CalCOFI” (Ms. appended to MRC Minutes, April 11, 1963, SIO Archives).Google Scholar

50 For example, Radovich, “Collapse of the California Sardine.”Google Scholar

51 Murphy, “Population Biology of the Pacific Sardine,” is considered to be definitive in most respects. See Smith, “Biological Effects of Ocean Variability,” supra, note 7.Google Scholar

52 See Cicin-Sain, Biliana, “Managing the Ocean Commons: US Marine Programs in the Seventies and Eighties,” Marine Technology Society Journal, 16 (1982), 6–18. The achievement of consensus as to the dynamics of the sardine failure and the emergence of new fisheries management policies in the 1960s and 1970s are the subject of a monograph by Scheiber and McEvoy, forthcoming.Google Scholar