Willmar tribune. [volume] (Willmar, Minn.) 1895-1931, 1904-12-28
When the Year Begins
There Is No Reason Why 1t Should Be
on January First.

TT is common saying that there is
a reason for everything, and usually
d a good one;" yet no one has yet
found any sensible ground for begin
ming the New Year with the first day OF
January. If it were made to occur IN
March, as the old Romans placed it,
there might be sense in it. 1t would be
the more reasonable if it began March
%, the vernal equinox, or at the autumn
nO-vernal equinox (September 22); or
June %, or December %. Excellent astro-
nomical reasons could be assigned for
such reckoning.
Higher civilization is in the northern
hemisphere; yet January in this part
of the world is a season of cold and snow
or chill and rain. 1t is a season when
moving is not only inconvenient, but
next to impossible 1t is time of the
beginning of nothing, coming ten days
after the winter solstice and 70 days be-
fore the spring equinox.
The day was chosen, probably, upon
the assumption that any time is good
enough for general starting point, pro-
vided everybody agrees to it, and it will
probably have to go at that. 1t is queer,
though, that in setting back the begin
ming of the year two months, the names
September, October, November and De-
cember should have been suffered to re-
main. These were, as their origin i'm
plies, the seventh, eighth, ninth and
tenth months when the year began with
March, but now that January is first.
they are the ninth, tenth, eleventh and
twelfth months, respectively. Conse-
quently they are decided misnomers.
Yet there is no use of finding fault,
where no amount of it will correct the
blunder complained of. 1t has been made
and stuck down mile-post of time by
all the civilized nations, and no profane
hand will be suffered to pull it up and set
it forward. 1t has been hallowed by
usage, and must be and abide until the
coming of another civilization.
Whatever its origin or causes, the day
brings in with it thoughts and associa-
tons that should prove serious to the
reflective mind. Unerringly as the clock
records the passing minutes and hours,
the New Year writes down the passage
of the years as they come and go. The
birth of the new is the death of the old
year. 1t proclaims that the past is gone
and cannot be resurrected. That time
which was lost in it can never be re-
gained; that follies committed, that sins
INDUCED, that vices practiced, while
past, have left their impress upon mind
and character It tells of good deeds
that will never die, of manly actions, of
heroic suffering for the right. All OF
these are in the dead past, irrevocable,
and useful only as the good done has
made better and stronger the character,
and evil done has made one less fitted to
meet the duties and responsibilities OF
the hour.
The New Year suggests the beginning
of things. It is time of good remorse
or sorrow for the past, and of good reso-
lutions for the future. The trouble is
that too many good resolutions are made
in this first day of the year and too many
of them are broken. It may be well to
purpose to do; but it is far better to do
and to hold fast. Broken promises, wheth-
er made to self or to others, tend to
lower character and render one more