Calendar Reform

As it often does, the League for Safeguarding the Fixity of the Sabbath Against Possible Encroachment by Calendar Reform, stiffened its back last week. Once again in the Press was news of the kind of change which L. S. F. S. A. P. E. C. R. is pledged to oppose to the death. Chile announced it is going to adopt a perpetual calendar, and in Dayton, Ohio the Federal Council of Churches opened its biennial meeting with the declaration that the great Christian churches of the world are now in substantial agreement concerning calendar reform.

Of the many modifications which have been suggested for the calendar which Pope Gregory XIII gave the world in 1582, only two have any great current following. The International Fixed Calendar League, one of the hobbies of the late George Eastman, is for a year of 13 months with 28 days each, plus an extra holiday every Dec. 29 and a Leap Day on June 29 in Leap Years. The World Calendar Association favors a twelve month year with equal quarters in which the first, fourth, seventh and tenth months would have 31 days, the rest 30 days, plus a Year-End Day and a Leap-Year Day. In 1931 the League of Nations, which on off days dabbles in calendar reform, sponsored a conference at which these two calendars were examined. Nothing much else was done.

Religious opponents of calendar reform are few--"Sabbatarian" sects like the Seventh Day Adventists and pious Jews such as compose the L. S. F. S. A. P. E. C. R. Six days do they labor and do all that they have to do but the seventh they worship and rest. If one extra day alone were introduced into their year they would eventually be observing the Sabbath on weekdays while the rest of the world worked.

Chief advantage of a new calendar for churchmen would be that Easter would be stabilized instead of roving capriciously anywhere between March 22 and April 25. Likewise the rest of the liturgical year would be immovable, since all the feasts except Christmas and Epiphany depend upon Easter. In Dayton last week Dr. Samuel Parkes Cadman, chairman of the Federal Council's Department of Relations with Churches Abroad, announced that heads of the Orthodox and Protestant Churches and, unofficially, the Roman Catholic Church favor a reformed twelve-month calendar like the one for which Chile plumped. In this, Christmas would always fall on Monday, New Year's on Sunday preceded by Year-End Day. Easter would always be April 8--the 99th day of the year, on which, according to tradition, Christ arose from the dead. Last week the Federal Council also:

P:Sidetracked, at the behest of Bishop James Cannon Jr., a liberal committee report on the liquor traffic, declared itself instead "unalterably opposed" to that traffic.

P: Flayed child labor, the present system of paying and uniforming Army and Navy chaplains, and a U. S. Supreme Court decision of last fortnight upholding the right of land-grant colleges to force students to take military training.

P:Approved Senator Nye's proposal for a confiscatory tax on incomes over $10,000 in wartime; urged that an anti-war conference of world religions be called next summer.

P: Elected Southern Methodist Dr. Ivan Lee Holt of St. Louis its new president for two years, succeeding Northern Baptist Dr. Albert William Beaven of Rochester. There had been talk that this year the Presbyterians would have their turn at the presidency. But one of the reasons for reorganizing the Federal Council two years ago was to avoid denominational cat-&-dog fights, and the election of Dr. Holt, a persuasive middle-of-the-roader like Dr. Beaven, was accomplished with utmost smoothness. Dr. Holt's church, St. John's, is one of St. Louis' half-dozen most popular. Wealthy without being snobbish, it has often been called "the Cathedral Church of Southern Methodism."

Born in Arkansas 48 years ago, he went to Vanderbilt and to the University of Chicago where he studied Greek, Latin and Sumerian dialects. Dr. Holt went to St. Louis after two pastorates and a professorship at Southern Methodist University. He brings to the Federal Council a great aptitude for interdenominational fellowship.

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