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Show You'd Only Need to Buy a Calendar Once In Your Life-If We Used 'World' Model April Fools' day always would fall on Sunday. This is what is meant by a "perpetual" calendar. Even leap year does not throw the World Calendar out of joint, as the extra day is fitted in as a numberless num-berless or "intercalary" day like Year-End day. Leap-Year day is an extra Saturday too. Next in importance, probably, is the fact that every quarter of every ev-ery year would contain the same number of days, 91, making calculations calcu-lations of interest, rent, comparative compara-tive production, and so forth, much easier. Each month would have 26 week days, so direct comparisons of months as equal working periods would be possible. Thirty - day months would have four Sundays, 31-day months five Sundays, so the extra day would not be a working day anyhow. Holidays, insofar as Any Date Always Falls on Same Day Of Week, Every Year By ELLIOTT PINE Released by Western Newspaper Union. New Year's day falls on Saturday this year. If it hadn't been for Hitler and the ambitions of Japan, New Year's day might be Sunday this year, and next year; in fact it would be Sunday every year. Back in 1931 the League of Nations Na-tions began to talk about calendar reform. During the next four years there was much talk, but at last two plans emerged from the welter. One was the 13-month year, and the other the World Calendar. In the World Calendar, New Year's day is always on a Sunday. If it were not for the war, the League would still be functioning, and the World Calendar Cal-endar might be in use by now. So Hitler is responsible for wrecking, or at least sidetracking, calendar reform. But the calendar can wait. Time goes on, and a better way of measuring meas-uring it can be adopted at some future time. Of the two schemes, the World Calendar seems to be the more favored as it does not break violently with custom and tradition, as the 13-month calendar does. Principal advantages of the World Calendar are: first, it is perpetual; that is, any date in any year is always al-ways the same day of the week. Second, every quarter is the same in length and arrangement. Third, the months are almost the same length; eight have 30 days and four 31 days. Every month has 26 week days. How It Works. The World Calendar is based on the idea of equal quarters. Each three - month period contains the same number of days: 91. The first month of each quarter has 31 days; the other two, 30. So January, April, July and October are 31-day months; the other eight each have 30 days. To accomplish this rearrangement it is necessary only to change seven days in the familiar pattern. The first is in February. That peculiar month gets two additional days. These two days are the 31st of May and of August, which are taken tak-en off these two months, leaving them each an even 30 days. Then the 31st of March is sliced off and put pnto April. , Lastly, December 31 becomes "Year-End day," which has no number on the new calendar. This "Year-End day" is the really brilliant feature of the World Calendar. Cal-endar. The 365th day is the one that throws every attempt to formulate formu-late an evenly divisible year into chaos. By calling the last day of the year "Year-End day" and making mak-ing it an extra Saturday, the problem prob-lem is pretty well solved. One other difficulty, the additional day of leap years, as 1944 is, must be taken care of some way. This is done by adding a day to June. In leap years the last week of June would have two Saturdays. This "Year - End day" seems somewhat fantastic, the first time it is thought about, but it is no more difficult in principle than turning back or advancing your watch an hour when you cross one of the time belts, or picking up or losing los-ing a whole day at the International Interna-tional Date line, out in dorsed the plan. Little religious opposition op-position has been shown or is anticipated an-ticipated to the World Calendar, in fact. Business men want some kind ot calendar reform. The difficulties of computing interest, making comparisons compar-isons of periods, keeping inventories, invento-ries, and other accounting problems, are much complicated by the irregularities irregu-larities of the months. A few businesses busi-nesses use 52 weeks, divided into 13 periods of 28 days, or four even weeks. But this 13-month calendar, it is thought, would never be adaptable adapt-able to general use, for many reasons, rea-sons, some traditional and sentimental, senti-mental, but real, nevertheless. In any case, the International Chamber Cham-ber of Commerce went on record in 1933 as favoring the World Calendar, Calen-dar, or a similar plan. Lawyers Like It. The legal profession also has endorsed en-dorsed the World Calendar through action at a conference of the American Ameri-can Bar association in 1931 Lawyers Law-yers are particularly anxious for the complications of the present calendar calen-dar to be ironed out, according to j spokesmen. Social activities would be easier with the World Calendar in use, as invitations would then be dated accurately ac-curately more often than now. People Peo-ple would not be arriving on the wrong day so frequently. Practically Practi-cally everybody, in fact, would benefit bene-fit by a simplified calendar: farmers, farm-ers, merchants, housewives, scientists, scien-tists, schoolteachers and everyone else. Publishers of calendars would be the only losers. . Leaders of every important nation have endorsed the calendar reform, most of them advocating the World Calendar, or some similar 12-month, equal-quarter plan. In June, 1931, a special League of Nations committee, com-mittee, after due consideration, had trimmed 200 proposed reformed calendars cal-endars down to two. One was the j 13-month calendar The other was the 12-month, perpetual, equal-quarter scheme, known in the United States as the World Calendar. Dele- J gates of six nations leaned toward i the 13-month plan. Most speakers stated that the people they represented repre-sented would wish to retain a 12-month 12-month calendar from custom and religious reasons, and that, in their opinion, a change to a 13-month calendar cal-endar would be too drastic to gain wide acceptance. In the end, the question of reform was laid aside for further study. Must Wait on New 'League.' In the '30s the League of Nations steadily lost power and prestige, and with the outbreak of the European war the only international body capable of putting the. World Calendar Calen-dar into effect, disappeared. It must be remembered that a new or reformed re-formed calendar would have to have world-wide acceptance. The world has grown too small, as has often been said lately, for nations to go their ways independently. Air travel trav-el will demand uniformity. It may be that the Peace Conference Confer-ence everybody is looking forward to will give this calendar reform matter consideration and perhaps, in the postwar period of eagerness for improvements, some new League may be able to have the reformed calendar adopted. Swift action will be necessary, however, as the next chance to slip the World Calendar into use without a ripple will be January 1, 1950. If much time is spent in arguing and ratifying, the opportunity for a smooth transition will pass again. An Inca calendar, made of hammered ham-mered gold, found in Peru. The symbols sym-bols around the rim are supposed to represent the months. Many ancient peoples devised fairly satisfactory calendars, often having the year divided di-vided into 12 30-day periods. The five days left at the end of the year were special days, sometimes feasts, sometimes unlucky or evil days. possible, would be celebrated on Saturdays, Sundays and Mondays. Holidays, at least in the tlnited States, would fit into the week-ends rather conveniently Christmas, the 25th of December, would always be on Monday, giving most working people a 2Vi or three-day holiday. holi-day. The new holiday, "Year-End day," being an extra Saturday on the end of December, would lengthen length-en the New Year's week-end, for New Year's day would be Sunday always. Labor day would fall on Monday, September 4, every year, providing a nice long week-end. The disruption of holidays in the middle of the week would be done away with. Thanksgiving day could be moved to Monday, November 20, if it were,' thought necessary, or Monday the 27th. So various other holidays, observed ob-served in different sections and states, could be moved to the nearest near-est Monday, Saturday or Sunday. Churches in Favor. Church councils and synods have gone on record as favorable to the World Calendar, as well as a fixed date for Easier. Between 1931 and 1936 the Episcopal church, the Presbyterian, Pres-byterian, the United Lutheran, and the Methodist Episcopal of the South, to name a few, have all passed resolutions endorsing calendar calen-dar reform, and a fixed Easter. The Roman Catholic church, while making mak-ing no formal declaration of approval, approv-al, has stated that no dogmatic difficulties dif-ficulties exist. Eighteen Catholic bishops and archbishops, throughout the world, are members of the World Calendar association. The Eastern Orthodox church, through the Patriarch Pa-triarch of Constantinople, has en- the Pacific. .It would not j be hard to get accustomed accus-tomed to the change. It is only about 60 years since the Standard time system was adopted. The difficulties as well as the advantages of Standard time are now taken for granted. Right now we are living un- j der a temporary disturbance dis-turbance of this system, called War Saving Time, which inconveniences many, despite its benefits. bene-fits. The "Year - End day" would fit in much easier than it seems at first glance. Advantages of the World Calendar are several. sev-eral. First, the calendar calen-dar is "perpetual"; that is, any particular date in any year would always fall on the same day. Thus, for instance, May 21 would always fall on Tuesday, no matter what the year. It would be Tuesday in 1950, 1976, 1949 or any other year. Fourth of July would always be Wednesday; Christmas day always Monday. |