U.S. At War: War Time Two-Time

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The perennial gripe of the farmer against clocks which show anything but "God's Time" threatened, last week, to play hob with war production. Farmers protested against dark, early morning risings, said their cows were even more upset. A word to State legislatures was sufficient to set the rebellion rumbling. Georgia seceded from the nation's War Time schedule fortnight ago, turned clocks back an hour. Michigan set Feb. 15 for a shift back to Central Time, permitted cities to continue on War Time. Last week Ohio rushed a similar bill through both houses. Kansas and Oklahoma debated the change. The farm belt was in full revolt.

The trouble started last December along the western borders of the Eastern Time belt, where the sun rises nearly an hour later than on the seaboard. More was at stake than farm grousing over early milkings, dark and dewy fields. In one year on War Time the U.S. had saved an estimated billion kilowatts of precious electric power. Now all that was jeopardized, and more. From Washington, War Production Chief Donald M. Nelson warned that a general change back to old time would delay vital war production, result in dire confusion.

Last week the confusion had started. No citizen of any time-shifting State could eye his watch or keep a date with any certainty. In Georgia only Governor Ellis Arnall could say with cocksureness: "It is now 11:30 in Georgia." (Clocks in four sizable Georgia cities still pointed to 12:30.) In Michigan, Detroit ordered a separate referendum, would probably ignore the Lansing Statehouse clock. Cryptic comment of one Ohio legislator, before Ohio went two-time: "I think we ought to pass something that won't fool someone. If we are going to have two times, we ought to know what we have."