In the interests of the Signs of the Times, the Pacific Press Publishing Association recently sent me to New York State. While there, I had the opportunity to visit the headquarters of the calendar-reform organizations. I suppose most of our brethren understand that there are two of these,—the International Fixed Calendar League and the World Calendar Association.
The International Fixed Calendar League has its American headquarters in Rochester, New York. This organization is in favor of the thirteen-month plan, invented by Mr. Moses Cotsworth and financed by the late Mr. George Eastman. When I came to Rochester, I found that their offices are housed in the Eastman Kodak Building, so that the International Fixed Calendar League has the air of being an appendage of the kodak business.
Directed to the room which the League occupies, I found a pleasant young woman there who was glad to tell me all about their work. I explained frankly that I was an opponent of the league and its system—though carefully emphasizing that my only objection, and the only objection of the denomination which I represented, was the interference with the free-flowing week. As far as I could find out, the League has no special organ of publicity,—no magazine or journal devoted to publishing their views. They get out various tracts and pamphlets, but it does not seem that any of these has a very wide circulation.
I asked the young lady if I might be introduced to Mr. Meredith N. Stiles. Mr. Stiles, as some will recall, is the author of "The World's Work and the Calendar," a book of 181 pages, which was put out in 1933. This work devotes two chapters to a very warm—I almost said hot—discussion of Seventh-day Adventists and all their works. If you have not already done so, you should read chapter XIII, "Calendar Reform 'In These Last Days,' " a bitter discussion of our beliefs and religious views. However, I thought it would be a good thing to see Mr. Stiles.
The young lady in charge mentioned that he had been assigned to another department of the plant; but she succeeded in finding him in a few minutes. The three of us had a very interesting talk. I discovered that the thirteen-month calendar reformers, naturally enough, have a strong dislike for the twelve-month calendar, which they claim is a halfway measure.
I went away from the interview with the feeling that if the only calendar movement we had to contend against was the International Fixed Calendar League, we would be fortunate. For one thing, the plan is too iconoclastic. The idea of having the months in a year total thirteen—a number which cannot be divided into halves or thirds or quarters—is too fantastic to ever receive a very wide support. Indeed, from all that I could discover, the issue is not even being pushed very energetically at present.
A fortnight later, when I was in New York City, I visited the headquarters of the World Calendar Association. This organization carries on its work in the Columbia Broadcasting Building, 485 Madison Avenue. The president of the association is Miss Elisabeth Achelis, who I am told also finances the project. The work of this group of calendar reformers is going ahead at a much more rapid pace than that of the Cotsworth group. Their plan, which calls for a twelve-month system with shifting days, appeals more to the popular mind than the more logical, but less convenient, Cotsworth Plan.
Their publicity also seems to be carried on in a much more skillful way than that of their rivals. They print a quarterly, Journal of Calendar Reform, which receives contributions from many prominent scientists and clergymen advocating a blank-day calendar; and this journal is undoubtedly gotten up in a form which will appeal to the more thoughtful and influential type of reader. Besides this, they print numbers of leaflets dealing with various aspects of calendar reform.
(To be continued)
