Daylight Saving Time, Part IV

There was also resistance to Daylight Saving Time (DST) from labor unions, the transportation industry and dairy farmers.

One clever strategy Artie Samish employed was to insert anti-DST editorials in sightseeing pamphlets and tour schedules. One such piece appeared in a tourist guide advertising a wondrous day trip to San Mateo County called “Giant Redwood Trees.” It also spoon-fed the poor reader a persuasive essay on “Why The Daylight Saving Bill Should Be Voted Down.”

A sample paragraph read: “This (DST) would bring the average family dinner hour back to 5 p.m. instead of 6, requiring the hardest work of the day to be done during its warmest period. It would necessitate the putting to bed of small children while the sun was yet high in the heavens and before the air had a chance to cool off. Any mother knows what that would mean.”

DST waas firmly opposed by farmers, especially the dairy industry. “The former, feel, quite justly,” Samish pointed out, “that they get up early enough now. The latter assert and how figures to prove that daylight saving everywhere tends to cut down the yield of milk.”

Hotel owners, bartenders and organized labor were against DST. So were the railroads and other transportation interests, citing the inconvenience of having to completely revise their time schedules twice a year.

The editorial noted opposition from the “motion picture companies and theater owners generally on the ground that everywhere it has been tried theater attendance has fallen off and revenues consequently decreased.”

samishfriend.jpg

…To Be Continued…