Toward Nationwide D.S.T.

CUSTOMS Toward Nationwide D.S.T.

Ever since the U.S. began experimenting with daylight-saving time in 1918, the nation during the spring, summer and fall has turned itself into a chaotic crazy quilt of conflicting time patterns. Eighteen states observe D.S.T. on a uniform statewide basis. In another 18 states, individual communities decide for themselves whether or not they will follow D.S.T. and set for themselves the dates on which it goes into and out of effect. Fourteen other states, including almost the entire South, remain on standard time all year long.

The great timekeeping hodgepodge costs railroads, airlines and bus companies millions of dollars a year just for printing and distributing revised timetables. But the obvious answer, nationwide D.S.T., has long been opposed by farmers who argue that "fast time," as they call it, wrecks their harvests since they cannot begin work until the dew is off the hay. Furthermore, they complain, it is one thing to tell a man to get up an hour earlier, quite another thing to tell a cow.

Last week, by a decisive 281-to-91 vote in the House, Congress approved a bill previously passed by the Senate that takes a major step in the direction of uniform nationwide D.S.T. Effective this year, the bill requires that D.S.T. commence on the last Sunday in April and end on the last Sunday in October for all states and communities that choose to observe it. Next year, under the bill's provisions, all states will have to observe uniform D.S.T. statewide unless their legislatures opt for uniform standard time for the entire state. But as early risers know, the sun is already up before 6 a.m., tennis courts in the South have been readied for after-work play, and early gardening has begun. So why not begin D.S.T. on the last Sunday in March rather than April?

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.