Jewish Opposition Given As One Reason for Not Making Proposed Reform of Calendar

Opposition by Jews and other seventh-day Sabbath observing sects to the proposed calendar reform is one of the reasons why the reform should not be made, according to Francis D. Nichol, who in the July number of the “Forum” debates the question with George Eastman, Rochester kodak manufacturer and one of the chief proponents of calendar reform in this country.

“The revisionists have endeavored to belittle this religious objection by declaring that only an insignificant group of Sabbatarian sects are opposing revision on religious grounds”, says M. Nichol. “Well, even if it were true that only Jews, Seventh-day Adventists and Seventh-day Baptists objected, it is at least interesting to note that a revision intended so materially to aid business should find some of its most unyielding opposition from the Jewish race.

“So far as the observers of the seventh-day Sabbath are concerned”, continues Mr. Nichol, “there is no compromise possible. It is not that they desire to block ‘progress’, but rather that they find no alternative than to continue to obey the command of Almighty God to keep holy ‘the seventh day’. And after consistently giving one meaning and value to ‘the seventh day’ for thousands of years, they are quite unable to find in the fevered twentieth century appeal for efficiency, any justification for abandoning their historic interpretation”.

Mr. Eastman mentions the opposition of the Sabbatarian sects to calendar reform, but says that “those who oppose this movement would do well to remember where history has left the standpatters who objected to the improvement of the calendar in the past”.