The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1921-11-12
A New Calendar
BY FREDERICK j. HAskIN

WASHINGTON, D. c., Nov. 1.-THE
trials of saying Thirty days hath
| September" and then counting labor
! iously on your fingers to find out on
what day of the week Christmas or
pay day comes, will be ended if bill
| by Representative Thomas Schall of
Minnesota becomes a law.
. Representative Schall says that in
! Minnesota business men are urging a
change in the calendar system. Bust
ness men, he points out, are every
| day giving their promissory notes with
out knowing whether they will come
due on Sunday or on some day of the
week on which they have engagements
at distant points. The amount due an
employee who works by the month is
often in dispute if he quits at the end
of any week previous to the end of the
month, because the week is not an in
! tegral part of the month.
! Millions of our people work by the
month, and yet We have no such thing
! as standard month. We have stand
ardized everything else except our
measure of time-the very thing we
use the most. We need a simple, well
| planned calendar, so that we would no
longer have TO consult an almanac or
engage in tiresome calculations every
time we plan an engagement or sign a
paper"
The business men who feel most
strongly about the irritatiOns of our
present time-reckoning system have
organized into the Liberty Calendar
Association of America One of them.
| Mr.. Joseph Barnes, of Minneapolis, has
evolved a liberty calendar, which has
been approved by experts on higher
mathematics, and by the Chamber of
| Commerce.
This calendar is the one which Mr..
| Schall has submitted to Congress. 1t
would divide the year into IS months
of 1 even weeks. Every week and
every month would begin on the same
day-Monday-as the bill stands And
every quarter of 13 weeks would al
ways begin on the same week dav.
which would be a great convenience
to business men.
A New Month
The extra month was originally to
be called Liberty, but this does not
exactly harmonic with the names Of
! the II months as they stand so Vern,
meaning spring, has been suggested.
/ trSrn would fall between February and
! March.
The irregularities necessary to keep
| a calendar accurate are provided for
! by the inventor of the liberty calen-
! dar. Thirteen months of 4 weeks each
provide 364 days to year The 65th
| day, or rather the first, is made New
| Years Day, and a holiday 1t would
! have no status as a day of the week
except that every seventh year it
would be observed as Sunday.
Our Leap Year system is changed
somewhat by the liberty calendar. Feb
ruary still has only % days, but so
have the other months, so that there IS
no especial need to give it the extra
day. Instead, Leap Year Day is placed
between the 2Sth of June and the first
Of July, and made legal holiday 1t
occurs, as at present, every four years,
except once in four centuries.
The calendar bill provides that
November II, which would always fall
on Thursday, would be observed as
Peace and Thanksgiving Day. thereby
killing two birds with one stone. 9th
/ er generally observed holidays would
remain about as at present.
The liberty calendar would solve one
problem for the benefit of the church.
Easter Sunday would always fall on
the 14th of March This obviates the
difficulty of fixing the date each year
! by the ecclesiastical moon and an intri-
cate formula.
The present method of determining
Easter has long been regarded as I'M
necessarily troublesome. European as
/ tronOmers are now planning to confer
at Rome next spring to make Easter
Sunday a fixed date, and perhaps to
discuss other improvements in the cal
endar.
If one important country made radi-
cal changes in its way of reckoning
time, other progressive nations, it is
claimed. would undoubtedly follow
suit. 1t is not thought that there would
be any difficulty in getting the import
ant countries of Europe to agree on a
change from the Gregorian system to
something better. The details, such
as holidays, and names, need not be
the same in different countries, but
there should be some agreement as to
the arrangement of days, weeks, and
months.
Efforts at Calendar Reform.
1t is recognized abroad, as we'll as
in this country, that the Gregorian cal
endar is not the most convenient pos