Daily Arizona silver belt., 1909-11-19
BIRTH ANNIVERSARY OF STANDARD
 TIME
Present System Twenty Six Years Old-Previous Cha
 otic Conditions

| WASHlNGION, D. c., November IS Father Time has reason to celebrate today, for it is the twenty-sixth ami versary of the adoption of what is now known as Standard time.' Pre-. vious to November IS, 1883, Old Dad Time must have been a very busy and much-harrassed old gentleman. for there were m existence no less than half-a-hundred systems of measuring time. On November IS, twenty-siX years ago, there was a general reset ting of watches {; Ad clocks all over the United States and Canada and tho four great time zones one hour apart, into which the country is divided, came into being. Practically everyone knows that there are four different standards of time prevailing in the United States Eastern, Central, Montana and Pa cfic time-but there ire few that know that the adoption If this method of regulating time WIS due almost entire ly to the efforts of one man, a New Yorker.
 By general conseI the credit of this work of bringing order where chaos reigned before is given to w. F. Al, len, secretary and treasurer of the American Railway association, and since 1872, editor of the official Rail way Guide In recognition of this achievement, MT. Allen is ofen referred to as "Father Time or the "Father of Standard Time" His is the distinc- tion of having caused a greater change in the habits of the people in the United States and Canada than any other man now living.
 Mir. Allen is the only man who ever lived that once caused Trinity clock to stop three and one-half minutes in the middle of the day, while thousands of people stood around the corner of Wall street and Broadway in New York with watches in hand, waiting for the stroke which would show that it was exactly F o'clock in Washington, Bal timore, Philadelphia, New York, Bos- ton, Portland and Pittsburg; II o'clock in Chicago, New Orleans and Omaha 10 o'clock in Laramie, Wyo. and Salt Lake City, and o'clock in San Fran cisco; it being s 'clock in Sitka, Alas ka; D. m. in San Juan, Porto Rico; , O clock in London, and a. m. the next day in Manila, Phillipine Islands.
 The day on which this almost world wide revolution in measuring time took place was November IS. 1883. There are people who will recall what excite ment it caused at the time. There are those who declared such a thing an out rageous and impeTtinent meddling with the affairs of the Almighty, and there was one clergyman in Charleston, S. C., who declared that this presumption on the part of puny humans would be followed by some terrible visitation sig nifying the anger of the Heavenly powers. The Charleston earthquake did follow soon after, mad no doubt the worthy clergyman considered this a special fulfllment of his dire prophecy.
 Previous to 1883 the methods of measuring time in the United States were so varied and so numerous as to be ludicrOus. There were fifty differ ent standards used in the United States from coast, and on one road between New York and Boston, whose actual difference is twelve minutes, there were three distinct standards of time. Even small towns had two different stand ards, one known as "tOwn" or local time and the other "railrOad" time. Naturally this condition of affairs caused endless complications and rail road officials were harried to the point of despair in their efforts to make out time tables that could be understood by the lay public.