U.S. Public Opinion for Calendar Reform, National Committee Tells State Department

The Seventh Day Adventists and Seventh Day Baptists are the only religious groups which have voiced objection to a reform of the calendar involving the introduction of “blank days,” it is declared in a 120-page report submitted by the National Committee on Calendar Simplification, of which George Eastman, of Rochester, N. Y., is chairman, to Secretary of State Stimson today. The report further states that while protest was made against the blank days, neither the Jews nor any of the other oppositional groups objected to the general idea of reforming the calendar, but demanded that provision be made against the interruption of the seventh day Sabbath. The report further states that both before the League of Nations Committee and the Foreign Affairs Committee of the United States House of Representatives, the opposition group presented a substitute proposal which would be satisfactory to them, but that both these proposals were unacceptable to the League Committee.

“Owing to the early approach of the year 1933, when January 1 falls on Sunday,” the report states, “the most convenient year until 1939 for putting a new calendar into effect, the Committee expresses the hope that an International Conference will soon be assembled, and that this government will in the near future indicate to the nations of the world its willingness to participate in such a conference.”

The report quotes the attitude toward Calendar Reform of the Holy See, the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Federation of Swiss Protestant Churches, the German Evangelical Church, and the Christian Science Board of Directors. The letter from the Holy See tends to contradict the aforementioned assertion of the Committee that only the Jews, the Seventh Day Adventists, and the Seventh Day Baptists are opposed to the blank day feature. The letter from the Holy See plainly reserves the right to object to the proposed reform on account of changing the date of Easter.

That portion of the committee’s report dealing with the religious opposition to the blank day plan reads as follows:

“Those reforms which involve the introduction of so-called blank days and thus interrupt the continuity of the weekly cycle have aroused the opposition of rabbis representing Jewish religious groups in Europe and America and clergymen of the Seventh Day Adventist and Seventh Day Baptist churches in this country. A conflict between the religious tenets of this group and the scientific and practical viewpoints of the advocates of the blank day principle is thus presented.

“The Sabbatarian ministers assert that such interruption of the weekly cycle and consequently the interruption of the continuity of seventh day Sabbath observance, would be a violation of divine law ordained at the creation of the world. They cite the fourth commandment of Moses: ‘Six days shalt thou labor and do all thy work but the seventh is the Sabbath.’ They assert that the seven-day cycle never has been broken. Not only would such a breach in Sabbath continuity do violence to their religious convictions, but it would interfere with the free exercise of their religion because it would cause their present Sabbath, under such a calendar, to fall on a different day of the week each succeeding year. In the opinion of M. Israel Levi, Chief Rabbi of France, it would ‘inflict additional sacrifices on the Jews.’

“These objections were voiced before the League of Nations special committee of inquiry by chief rabbis of Europe and by rabbis and clergymen of the Sabbatarian communions at the Washington hearings on the first Porter resolution. They announced their refusal to accept the blank day principle.

“None of them voiced objections to the idea of reforming the calendar; on the contrary, they went on record at Washington in favor of it, and the calling of an International Conference, but demanded that provision be made against the interruption of the seventh day Sabbath.

“Both before the League’s committee and the Foreign Affairs Committee, they presented a substitute proposal which would be satisfactory to them. This was to shorten the year to 364 days and allow the surplus day in ordinary years and the two surplus days in leap years to accumulate until they amounted to a week, which would be added every fifth of sixth year as a leap week. The remaining 364 days could then be divided either into equal quarters or into 13 equal months. To the Foreign Affairs Committee the proposal was also made by the rabbis that the 364 days be divided into 13 months of 28 days each and the surplus days allowed to accumulate until they amounted to a 28-day month, which would be added every twenty-third year.

“All such proposals were considered faulty by the League’s committee, because they introduce years whose lengths differ so greatly as to give rise to very serious difficulties in comparing annual statistics, fixing anniversary festivals, etc.

“The League’s committee, taking the Sabbatarian objections into consideration, recommended that ‘there should in particular be a fresh examination by the opposing religious bodies of the principle of a blank day’ and ‘discus

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sion on this subject in each country between religious bodies and others interested in the matter.

“No objections to the introduction of blank days have been voiced by the authorities of any other religions bodies as far as is known by the National Committee. The attitude of some of them may be judged from the report of the League of Nations special committee which commended the two Mark day schemes of reform and which included in its membership appointees of the Roman Catholic Eastern Orthodox and Anglican churches.

“The League’s committee stated with reference to the declarations of these representatives, that:

“From the point of view of dogma speaking the idea of the reform of the calendar, both with regard to the firing of Easter and the more general question of the reform of the reform Calendar does not meet with difficulties of such a nature that they could be regarded beforehand as insuperable.”

The report also contains a letter from Secretary of Agriculture Hyde, stating: “It seems the time is near at hand when adoption of one simple universal calendar by all the nations of the earth will confer important benefits upon all humanity and our posterity.

Secretary Hyde added that in his opinion the United States is justified in forwarding the report, although that of an unofficial committee, to the League of Nations as a response to the questionnaire from the League of Nations to the United States Government for information relative to calendar reform.

Religious groups were not represented on the Committee because it formed it difficult to secure comprehensive representative of all faiths the report explains.

“After a year of investigation the National Committee on Calendar Simplification for the United States considers that the requisite conditions exert to fructify the participation of this Government in an international conference to provide for the Committee’s of the calendar.” says the Committee’s report. “These conditions are:

“1. The prevalent of a demand for calendar improvement on the part of a large and representative body of American opinion.

“2. A growing recognition by the general public of the grave defects of the methods by which there can be ### and an intelligent understanding of the principles of calendar reform.

“3. The annual experience of many business concerns with the use of private simplified ### to service more accurate accounting in their business ### and their practically unanimous judgment in farce of the general ### of the civil calendar,” the report declares.