Evening capital and Maryland gazette. (Annapolis, Md.) 1910-1922, 1918-05-16
NOTHING NEW ABOUT
DAYLIGHT SAVING.
The Idea Was Fathered BY
Benjamin Franklin Of Poor
Richard Fame
AWAY BACK IN 1884.
Almost AS Long Ago AS The
First Birthday Of This Coun-
try. Had It's Inception
With Great Thinker.

1t is often said There is nothing
new under the sun" Certainly the
daylight saving scheme is Nothing
new" Itswas conceived almost with
the birth of this nation by. a great
thinker.
If you don't like the daylight-sav-
ing plan, you can blame it on one Ben
anime Franklin of Poor Richard fame.
If the handy man about the house
finds that he gets home so long before
the sun goes down that he can be
pressed into service to beat the car
pets or put up the new spring hang
ings, let him reserve His grumblings
for that quiet old Quaker who walked
as a poor boy about the streets of
Philadelphia.
If that most important of persons,
the lady stenographer finds that the
sun is not sufficiently high when she
rises under the new time to enable
her to adjust her hair to the point OF
perfection at which she aims, let her
remember that the man who was the
representative of the United States
in the arranging of a peace treaty be-
tween this country and England after
the close of the Revolutionary War
was also the father of the plan TO set
the clocks ahead.
The daylight-saving idea is almost
as old as the United States and our
country can rightly claim the credit
for all the advantages which may ac-
crue from it, as well as receive the
blame for all the disadvantages which
NAV follow in the wake of its inaugur-
alton For, though other countries
anticipated the United States in its
adoption, Benjamin Franklin first con-
ceived the idea.
On an early morning walk along the
| streets of London in 1884 the thought
first came to him, and in passing it
along to the world at large, he said:
"In a walk through the Strand and
| Fleet street one morning at o'clock
| observed there was not one shop
omen. although it had been daylight
and the sun up for above three hours,
the inhabitants of London choosing
voluntarily to live by candle-light and
| sleep by sunshine; and often COM
! planning a little absurdly Of the duty
| on candles and the high price of tai
/ low"
I Soon thereafter in the Journal de
| Paris. he published an article later
appearing among his essays under the
| title IAN Economical Project" which
further elaborated the advantages OF
daylight saving; namely, of Turning
the clock forward an hour" so that
| everybody would live one hour longer
by daylight and one hour less by arti-
! fetal light.
For many years in England in the
last century Sir William Willet annu
ally introduced his daylight saving bill
in Parliament and annually the bill
was defeated amid laughter and ridi
| Guile
In 1915 Germany first adopted the
plan to speed up the war production
and to benefit by the tremendous saw
ing in fuel consumption.
An interesting bit of newspaper
writing is a short editorial printed ii
the Baltimore Sun in June, 1916. Ap
parentIy the wisdom of the daylight
saving idea had not taken hold il
the editorial mind. for the item reads
"One curious effect of the Euro
pea war is that the scheme to saw
daylight is now receiving serious con