OUR GREATEST MUDDLE

We have been living of late in changing times, no doubt; but nowhere have times changed with such rapidity, diversity, and inconvenience to all, as on the faces of our clocks during the last two weeks. Revolutions in the Rhineland, pogroms in Poland, and starvation in Syria may all have their effect on contemporary history and the H. C. of L.; but compared with the juggling of our timepieces their influence is nil.

The Lilliputians thought that Captain Gulliver's watch was his god, because he said that he consulted it before taking any important action. Consequently, when every one of our official bodies, from state legislatures down to city councils and boards of selectmen, try to establish their own regulations in regard to clock-worship (chronometrolatry, if a more exact term is desired), the effects are apt to be disastrous. We have read of New Jersey court-houses, where the judge arrived an hour early and the jury an hour late, while the prisoner and the witnesses were kept in agonized suspense, of New Haven trains stopping to alter their schedules at every siding, water-tank, and town boundary in the state of Connecticut, of Farmers' Associations threatening to retire from business if the Daylight Saving Ordinonce were adopted, and Chambers of Commerce vowing to disband if it were not. At present most of us are in the same state of mind as the old lady who declared not long ago that she "hoped that some day the clocks would tell time according to the will of the Almighty, instead of mixing up with Democratic politics."

All this serves to drive into our minds the need for uniformity in clock-regulation, if in no other field of our activity. A large part of our people believe in Daylight Saving; the CRIMSON earnestly hopes that their wishes will be carried into effect. But if Daylight Saving is to be adopted at all, it should be by some method that will secure uniformity throughout larger areas than single city wards. We are so closely interdependent that any measure of local option is sure to cause great inconvenience to many. Daylight Saving is a matter for Congress alone; we hope that Congress will reconsider their stand on the matter, at the earliest possible opportunity.