My side of the line
Daylight Saving Time

By Rebecca JamesCourie
Editor-in-Chief

Tonight, or rather tomorrow morning at 2, Daylight Saving Time comes into play as we “spring forward” and set our clocks one hour ahead. Those folks who love to sleep in will grumble out of their stupor when they realized they’ve lost one hour of sleep. Every year we commiserate over why we have to do this, how many hours difference is it between us and Alaska, and will we ever not have to lose another hour of sleep? Of course, we get it back when we “fall back” in the fall, but really, why do it?

It all started with an Englishman back in 1905 who observed that Londoners slept through, what he thought was, the best part of a summer day. His solution was to advance the clock during the summer hours. He lobbied for this until his death in 1915—unsuccessfully I might add. It would seem Londoners didn’t share his passion for early-morning hunting. Benjamin Franklin, who is famous for his line, “Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise,” proposed a similar tact when he was an American envoy to France. In an anonymous letter, he suggested that Parisians economize on candles by rising earlier to use morning light. This satire proposed taxing shutters, rationing candles and waking the public by ringing church bells and fire cannons at sunrise. They didn’t find it humorous.

Although the idea had been tossed about since its inception, it was World War I that made it happen. Germany, its allies and their occupied zones were the first European nations to use the invention in 1916. Britain followed suite, then Russia and finally the United States adopted it in 1918. It was a way to alleviate hardships from wartime coal shortages and air raid blackouts. After the war, many countries abolished DST.

Today, however, the pendulum for its advantages still swing back and forth. In 1984, Fortune magazine estimated that a 7-week extension of DST would yield an additional $30 million for 7-Eleven stores. Golf enthusiasts, or rather the golf course owners, would see an increase in golf industry revenues of $200 million, according to the National Golf Foundation.

On the other hand, it wreaks havoc with farmers whose grain harvesting is best done after dew evaporates. When field hands arrive and leave earlier, their labor is less valuable. DST also adversely affects prime-time broadcast ratings and other entertainment venues that rely upon the sun.

Daylight Saving Time, for which its acronym has been dubbed “Daylight Stupid Time” and “Daylight Slaving Time,” is happening tonight—whether you like it or not, whether it’s right or wrong—and is just one more issue that we blindly adjust to because our government said to do so.