Donald Trump has said that he will try and finally end Daylight Saving Time. But where did it even come from? For his whole life, Glenn believed that it was about helping the farmers. But recently, he discovered the shocking – and infuriating – truth. As with everything annoying in our country, you can trace it back to … Woodrow Wilson. Glenn reviews the real history of Daylight Saving Time, from Benjamin Franklin to the Germans in World War 1 to Wilson and FDR. So, can Trump do away with yet another pointless progressive legacy?
Transcript
Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors
GLENN: Yesterday, we were kind of having this argument, I think, off-air, of Daylight Savings Time.
And I was like, okay.
I seem to remember, it has something to do with farmers. Okay? They have too much.
They need more sunlight. Or, I can't remember. And I'm like, it's farmers!
I'm sure it's farmers! And so I've got to check this out. Because if it's about farming, I'm for it.
STU: That's a good stance.
That's how we get a giant 500 billion-dollar farm bill every year. Is it about farming? So here is the -- I said to you yesterday, I'll do my homework.
Let me look into where it started.
STU: I'm interested to know where it landed on this.
GLENN: Oh, you won't believe.
Okay. So if you start looking into all the dark corners of human history, you find a man named Benjamin Franklin.
STU: That's not a dark -- he's my favorite founder.
GLENN: Right. Founding father. Inventor.
Love of lightning. Lover of libraries. Pretty good guy, right?
So he's in Paris.
And in 1784. He writes, now, remember in America, he wrote an op-ed, under a pseudonym.
A non deplume. And it was all just comedy, basically.
He was just ripping things apart, comedically.
Okay?
Well, he does this in the Journal de Paris.
And he writes this letter, because he -- he thinks the Parisians are lazy.
Now, who would have thought --
STU: Where did that come from, jeez?
GLENN: How things have changed, huh?
So he said, I've got an idea.
First of all, I can save you a fortune on candles.
And candles, if you woke up a little earlier, you wouldn't need the candle at night.
Because you would be tired.
And you would go to bed.
So in this, he said, and we should tax shutters.
Because if you don't have a shutter, the light would come in, and you would wake up, and you would go to work!
Okay.
And if that doesn't work.
We should fire cannons at sunrise.
Get out of bed!
Okay?
So he's writing this about basically making fun of the French about being lazy and laying in bed.
Okay!
He didn't mean it, but a seed had been planted. So now we have to go 100 years into the future.
Another guy who becomes very serious about the clocks. Is George Vernon Hudson.
He's an entomologist in New Zealand.
Okay? And he's like, you know, Benjamin Franklin was right!
Why?
Because this guy collected butter flies after his job, and it got dark too early.
STU: For his butterfly collection?
GLENN: For his butterfly collecting. I mean, this is insane. So he stirs up a big deal.
He's like, we have to drop our clocks back. But he didn't say an hour.
He said like 20 minutes.
20 -- 20 minutes!
What are you talking about?
You know how screwed up everything would be if we set our clocks.
I want to set them back 16 and a half minutes.
STU: We can't handle the most basic of tasks.
Imagine that.
GLENN: All right. So he's doing this, because, again, he's collecting insects.
All right.
1895, is when he did that.
It didn't come back again, until William Willett in 1907.
He was a wealthy English man.
He said, just like Benjamin Franklin, except he was sincere about it.
Nobody's working anymore. Why can't -- now, this is -- you have to remember, this is a wealthy English man. Why aren't my workers on the plantation early in the morning?
I should be woken up by the sound of hard work.
He said, this is a waste!
And he writes a pamphlet. A waste of daylight.
He also suggests we only turn the clocks back 20 minutes.
All right?
So he lobbied parliament. Nobody listened to him.
Okay?
1916.
1916, the beginning of the great war.
All across Europe, countries are desperate to do what?
What are they doing? They're fighting, right? If you're fighting, what do you need? Don't think daylight. What do you need?
STU: Night.
GLENN: No. No. Forget the time.
What is valuable? What's valuable is armaments! Okay. And how do you make armaments back then!
Coal.
STU: Okay.
GLENN: They want the light to last as long at night as possible.
So the coal plants can -- are taking all the coal, instead of giving it to people for energy in their houses. So they can turn on all their lights.
They can make armaments. So they have a shortage of fuel, of coal. All right?
STU: It's a winding road. I would not have gotten that.
GLENN: This is why I did this dusty, dusty work yesterday.
STU: Yeah. It is.
GLENN: Okay. Suddenly, Germany is like, hey, wait a minute. Remember that guy that was -- Germany did this, not England. Germany said, remember that guy, who was in parliament. Who said, you should set the clock back?
Yeah. Twenty minutes.
And so a German said, how about a full hour?
Would that save things?
April 30th, 1916, Germany was, nothing good comes from Germany.
Sorry. Really good desserts. Really good desserts. Other than that, nothing good -- okay. BMWs are pretty nice. Mercedes, pretty nice.
But other than that, nothing comes out of Germany, that is good.
STU: Aren't you German?
GLENN: There's a few exceptions. Okay.
So all across Europe, the war is raging.
Germany sets their clocks back. So they can have the daylight. So they're not -- they're not wasting coal.
And England is like, hey. Wait a minute.
Six weeks later. England joins in.
Then Europe joins in.
Everybody is doing this, for the war effort.
And Wilson.
Then Wilson comes in. And he does it, as well.
In the United States. So the first time it ever happened. Was under Woodrow Wilson.
I could end the story there, and that explains why I'm now not for Daylight Savings Time.
I could end it there!
So after Wilson, because of the progressives, this is so amazing. Think about this, in history.
The progressives in 1919, were -- became very unpopular.
Because Woodrow Wilson had had a stroke his last year in office.
Was absolutely incapable of running anything in the White House.
He wasn't in charge, his wife was, does any of this sound familiar. And he had taken America and pushed it into socialism.
And we had -- we had lost freedom.
And it scared the American people, because at that time, they knew the Constitution, and it happened in eight years, and they were like, we've got to get away from this. So they reversed it. And all the things he did, they reversed. Including Daylight Savings Time.
And then World War II happened.
And FDR came in. And he called it wartime.
And he did it for the same reason. To save on coal.
Save energy.
So to conserve resources, again, we put in wartime.
And then we never let it go. So 70 countries, now, still observe Daylight Savings Time. That's a third of the world!
Across Europe, the clouds spring forward, fall backward, like clockwork. Pun intended. Over in Europe, it's called summertime.
In North America, United States, Canada, and Mexico, we're still dancing to this tune. Except, Mexico is starting to opt out.
Parts of Australia and New Zealand still observe it. But in Asia, Africa, and most of South America.
They are like, these guys are stupid. What are you doing?
They're like, yeah. That's -- that's not really -- I mean, we don't have candles anymore.
Or coal.
So, you know, I think we're -- you know, I think we're pretty good with this.
And it messes with our bodies. And doctors show, that the time change increases. Heart attacks.
Strokes. Car accidents. And grumpiness. The one thing it is, it's on a Saturday. And you're like, oh, I missed church. Gosh darn it, I didn't set my clock. Now, that's not a very good -- that's not a good reason to be against it. Wilson is.
Your kids miss buses. Anyway, so that is what happened.
Now, if we don't -- if Donald Trump comes in and says, we're getting rid of Daylight Savings Time.
That means, the sun in Boston, will come up at 4:07 a.m.
Like 4:11 in Minneapolis. Around the same in Seattle.
That is significant! 4:20, I think, in Los Angeles.
But it's still light until 7 o'clock at night. 8 o'clock at night.
I'm pretty cool with that. I'm pretty cool with that.
I don't like it when it -- you know, the problem is, in the winter, it gets dark so early.
You -- you kind of like.
Wait. I don't need it to be darker.
You know, at three in the afternoon.
I went to -- where was it? Copenhagen, I think. It was in Sweden. And I was doing a deal on the Muslim uprisings over there. This was years ago. And like the sunrises at like 9:30. 9:45. And goes down at 3:00. You know, 2:45. And it never gets past like the sunset.
It's never above 20 degrees horizon. And so it just kind of circles the edge. It always looks like dawn or dusk. I think I would kill myself!
I don't care how good the chocolate is, or whatever. I think the Swiss Miss would be fashioning a rope for me, really quickly.
Oh, my gosh. I don't think I could handle it. So, anyway, that's the story. Donald Trump, right again!
STU: He is right. On this one.
GLENN: Anything that goes against Woodrow Wilson! And FDR.
I fully 100 percent back!