The Yakima herald. [volume] (North Yakima, W.T. [Wash.]) 1889-1914, 1899-02-09
TOMORROW IN MANILA.
Paradox of Time Leads to All Sorts
of Queer Consequences.

The war with Spain has been full of
surprises, but perhaps its oldest out
come is that Uncle Sam now has all
his holidays-not to mention other days
in duplicate. For this we have to
thank Admiral Dewey. Territorial ex-
pansion has involved us in time expan-
sion also. 1t is a curiously literal full
fillment of the Spaniard's dream of
'manana." To-day is always to-mor-
row in the Philippines. This paradox
of time leads to all sorts of queer con-
sequences. The cablegrams received
to-day are dated tomorrow. Only the
breaking of the cable at Manila pre-
vented our hearing of Deweys victory
the day before the battle was fought!
If you should start at noon to-day and
travel westward at the rate of about a
thousand miles an hour, it would still
be noon in every region you passed
through all the way around the world.
You would catch no glimpse of night;
you would see no sunset and no sun
rise. Yet when you reached home
again, twenty-four hours later, it would
be tomorrow. Proceeding in the OPP
posite direction, you would, of course,
get just the opposite result. You would
gain day, apparently.
The day of the month is a purely ar
bitrary arrangement. Nature does not
define it. One dag slides into another
just as yarn goes round the reel. Yet
1t Is necessary 10 make the change
somewhere. SO we draw an arbitrary
line from north to south, on the one
side of which 1t Is to-day and on the
other tomorrow, even in places not
mile apart. Theoretically there are
points where a single step would carry
you from Sunday noon into the middle
of Monday. This is the so-called date
line. Here all ships as they cross drop
or repeat day, throwing your diary
sadly out of gear. Sailing eastward
you go to bed Sunday evening, and
when you rise in the morning 1t is still
Sunday. Sailing toward the west, you
find that you have slept till Tuesday,
though you got only your usual rest.
The true date line is rarely shown on
maps. The accompanying chart is
therefore worth preserving.
Roughly, the course of the line is as
follows: Starting at the north pole it
passes through Behring strait, then
slants to the westward to clear the
long horn formed by the Aleutian chain
of Islands and give them the same day
as the United States, to which they
belong. This accomplished, 1t returns
to the one hundredth and eightieth
meridian and drops southwark into the
tropics, keeping far TO the east of the
japanese group and the Philippines,
until it approaches the latitude of the
Fill Islands. AS these and some neigh
boring groups belong to Great Britain
and do business chiefly with her Aus
tralan colonies, the date line here
makes sudden swerve eastward, so
as not to embarrass the local commerce
with a change of day. When we pur-
chased Alaska we annexed the Siberian
day, which at that time cut into the
American continent. though occupying
a remote and desolate region. We
quickly revised the date line, however,
TO suit our own convenience.
The case of the Philippines Is sngu-
lar. For long time they enjoyed the
American day, though the Aslatic cal
endar prevailed all around them, thus
dragging the date line far out of its
natural course. Some who ought TO
know better seem to suppose that this
absurd practice is still maintained. A
statement to that effect appeared in a
well-known magazine not many years
ago. But in 1874 the much-needed
change was made by Narciso Claveria,
then Governor General and Arch