New Britain herald., 1920-03-11
COMMUNICATED
The So-Callcd Daylight Saving"

70 minutes as in our shortest day, the noon mark always divides the day into two parts of, equal length. This is Gods unalterabIe law and I
 for one do not want mans law to state in substance that Gods law is
 wrong. 1 have no use for law which makes the clock falsely pro-
 claim l2 o'clock when in fact it is only II, thereby causing no end of confusion as our minds naturally revert back from the new fool time to the old standard time, thus rem dering our almanacs useless and
 things which have existed ever since God called the light Day And yet believe in early rising, and be- ginning business at an early hour ill order that our regular working hours may cease at an earlier hour of the
 day. This is more particularly ad- vantageous to those who work only short hours. as most men now do, and of little or advantage to those who work eleven hours or more daily, all men used to do. It is not necessary to divide our working
 hours into two equal parts. In my native town. long years ago. the
 regular working hours in all of the
 factories were six hours in the fore
 noon and five :n the afternoon.
 I was glad to see in The Herald
 recently a proposal to regulate the summer hours without nieddIing with the clock. There is no possible ob- iect of turning the clock ahead, other
 than to induce some people to so to work an hour earlier than all people
 wish to- or perhaps to console others ,r-,@J F~I e.fi1
 to work at the usual time. Barnum
 used to say that the people liked to
 be fooled. and it was evidently the
 intent of the so-calIed Daylight
 Saving" law to fool the people, be-
 cause it was thought, (and in sub
 stance alleged.D that the people
 would not fall in with the plan of
 starting the summer work day an
 hour earlier unless they were ln-
 duced to do by lying clock. At
 best the lying clock is an indirect
 and roundabout way of accomplish
 ing the object sought As business
 proposition it is always poor policy
 to make 8 statement which is known
 to be untrue much less to put such
 a statement on paper. or enact 1t in
 law. In so far as setting the clock one hour ahead of the correct time i has been a financial gain, that gain ] has been obtained by false pretenses. ! The resultant gain was good, but the means by which it was attained were vile.
 I believe that the majority of the general public will be benefited by some rule for commep epcing business at ap earlier hour in summer than in winter. and I for one have no objection to any such plan. All that Is necessa ry to do so is concerted ac- tion in regulating the summer hours. 1 The public may rest assured that all will fall in with the plan, in case i their vacations are such that they 1 can reap any advantage therefrom. l Of course it will be to the advantage ! of all transportation lines to run 1 their cars when people wish to ride. The originators of the so-called
 Daylight Saving" law were not quite 1 satisfied with it's deceptive charac i ter. hence they coined a new phrase, day light saving.'' There is no defi 1 milton of the word saving in the l several dictionaries I have consulted
 which can be properly applied to that l phrase. It is not only a misnomer. 1 but it has been so associated with 1 lying clock as to make the phrase l positively odious to many persons. l At no time in our history has there been so much meddling with the or 1 dinary affairs of the public as there | has been during the World War;
 It seems sometimes as if there was ! a desire to make everything as hard l for us as possible, or at least. to be 1 wholly indifferent to public conven- l fence.
 1 As to the phrase day light saw | ing" daylight is not commercial I commodity and cannot be saved up ! boarded or wasted. To work or play ! by daylight is still work play. and not of itself daylight as the phrase l seems to imply. There is always as much day light as God gives. no more l more and no less. It is free to all l without money and without price l There is always enough for every one 1 and we can each have all that there
 is and no more. If the use Of day I light constitutes daylight saving l then it would seem that the use of l light by night would constitute ar tifical light saving. I had always 1 supposed that a saving or artlhclal
 light was made by not using it. In so far as. know the so-called | "daylight aving law is the first law ! in the history of the world by which 1 two separate and distinctly opposite provisions were enacted, with a re- ] quirement that one be substituted | for the other periodically. The idea | that time which jumps an hour at | a time from one day to another
 IS standard time is absolutely ri- diculous Time which IS rcckoned
 according to two different stan
 dards on two different consecutive l days is not. and cannot be the stan 1 dard time.
 I,l, inc nd