Evening star., 1937-05-20
BY WILLIAM A. BELL.

BY WILLIAM A. BELL.
Washington's last experience with
daylight saving created so much con-
fusion that the President of the
United States cried, Hold! Enough!"
In justice to the advocates of day.
light saving time, however, 1t must
be noted that this experiment in
volved no turning back of clocks, but
simply provided - in theory - that
every one go to work an hour earlier
and thus get out an hour earlier.
That was in the Summer of 1922.
The following year Washington re-
turned to it's old habits and stayed
with them, despite the widespread
adoption of daylight saving through
out the East.
What was believed to be the first
legislation for national daylight saw
ing time was introduced in Congress
about As years ago by Representative
Joseph H. O'Neil of Boston, who pro-
posed that clocks be turned ahead Is
minutes on each of the four Sundays
IN April and reversed Is minutes on
each September Sunday. Nothing
came Of this.
Adopted as War Measure.
Following the example of European
countries, the United States adopted
daylight saving time as a conservation
measure during the World War, to eff
feet a saving of coal and according
to one view, to get the civilian pop
ulace out in home gardens during the
afternoon and thus increase the Ma
tions food supply.
Soon after the war, opponents of
daylight saving began to agitate for
Its repeal. Chief among these were
the farmers, who complained that
they got up quite early enough under
normal time. Some declared it was
useless for them and their farm hands
to go into the fields an hour earlier,
because crops were too wet with dew
to work with.
Writing to The Star in March, 1919,
an upstate New York husbandman
protested that getting up to milk his
COW at 3 am. by the sun instead of
am. burdened him with the ad-
oil light.
National daylight saving time came
to an end on October 26 1919, when
Congress repealed the wartime law
over President Wilson's veto.
New Drive in 1922.
Three years later proponents OF
daylight saving in Washington made
. temporarily successful drive for a
get-up-an-hou earlier plan. The
Board of Trade, the Chamber of Com
merce and the Merchants and Manu-
1acturers' Association were the lead
ing advocates. Representative Ernest
r. Ackerman figured it would save
45,5OO,0o0 hours of daylight annually
for air and sunshine and allow
base ball fans to see five innings OF
play without loss of time from work.
President Harding said he favored
the idea, but would not establish day.
light saving by executive order. He
believed the Government departments
should get together and agree mu-
tually to start work at 8 o'clock in
stead of 9.
A newspaper survey revealed the
majority of Government department
heads were pro-daylight saving, with
Secretary of War Weeks and Secre-
tary of Commerce Hoover emphatic
in the belief that it would make for
better administration of government.
On the other hand, Luther Steward,
president of the National Federation
of Federal Employees, said he favored
daylight saving time, but not the
O'Clock opening plan.
Earlier Opening Adopted.
On May Is, 1922, the earlier-opening
plan was adopted by the Government
and several private businesses. 1t was
by no means universal, however, and
the resultant confusion was not long
tn coming. A Bergman cartoon in
The Star pictured half dozen clocks,
all with different times, encircling a
puzzled 'schoolboy" labeled ID. c."
The cartoon was captioned with the
following jumbled jingle:
"A diller, dollar
A 10 o'clock scholar,
What makes you come so soon?
You used to come at 10 o'clock,
But now you come at noon"
The public schools fell in line with
The plan, which caused Representative
Free OF California to introduce bill
making 1t a misdemeanor for the
Board of Education to compel children
under IA to attend school before am.
Eastern standard time. The father of
two sets of twins, all under IA, Rep
resentative Free said he was unwilling
to yank his youngsters out of bed for
8 am. classes.
Light Bills Increased.
Housewives complained that they
were having to get up too early to
prepare breakfast, and an organiza-
ton of letter carriers said the plan
Increased rather than decreased their
gas and electric light bills. The post
men passed a resolution condemning
daylight saving ION economic and
psychic grounds"
Washington had had enough of this
Kind of daylight saving. Everything
got into such a mix-up that President