Dear Editor:
Canada was the first to try DST in 1908; for what reason I cannot say, perhaps to save candles. Germany, enacted DST in 1916 to save fuel used for artificial lighting, thereby benefitting the WWI war effort. France and the United Kingdom followed a few weeks later but reverted back to "Standard Time" after the end of the war.
In 1918, the United States also began using this new time standard only to be repealed seven months later. In 1942, during WWII, then President Franklin D. Roosevelt instituted DST year-round until Sept. 30, 1945. The new time zones were called Eastern, Central, Mountain and Pacific "War" Times and were changed to "Peace" Times after the Japanese surrendered in 1945. In 1966, the "Uniformed Time Act of 1966" was thrust upon us by Congress and caused widespread confusion across the country since there were no uniform rules. Imagine train and bus schedules, not to mention business and school confusion. 1973 saw a return to year-round DST from January 1973 to April 1974 due to the Oil embargo, another so-called energy-saving idea. The last major change was the "Energy Policy Act of 2005," again mandated by Congress.
Why am I telling you this? This has nothing to do with farming, but all to do with the whims of government with no concern for, or input by, citizens.
The pros of DST provide us with longer evenings, allowing us to spend more time outside, less artificial light, and safety due to a 7 percent decrease in robberies and better road visibility. Cons: DST does not save energy due to super efficient appliances, therefore savings is negligible. Changing time for one hour makes people sick by disrupting body clocks and causing tiredness, depression, suicide, car accidents and even miscarriages per "TimeandDate.com." Myocardial Infarction also increases the first three days after a time change. Autistic children are affected.
Parents worry about children waiting for the school bus in the dark, but criminals do their crimes at night and probably sleep till noon. I for one would prefer DST as the year-round time setting, but would agree to CST if we were not required to disrupt our lives twice a year. Letters to Gov. Greitens have not been responded to, so I suggest we contact newspapers, radio stations and social media to propose surveys to ascertain the "peoples choice."