The concept of daylight saving has caused controversy since its early proposals.
Winston Churchill argued that it enlarges "the opportunities for the pursuit of health and happiness among the millions of people who live in this country" and pundits have dubbed it "Daylight Slaving Time". Retailing, sports, and tourism interests have historically favored daylight saving, while agricultural and evening-entertainment interests (and some religious groups However, the opposition proved stronger, including Prime Minister
H. H. Asquith,
William Christie (the
Astronomer Royal),
George Darwin,
Napier Shaw (director of the Meteorological Office), many agricultural organizations, and theatre-owners. After many hearings, a parliamentary committee vote narrowly rejected the proposal in 1909. Willett's allies introduced similar bills every year from 1911 through 1914, to no avail. People in the US demonstrated even more skepticism;
Andrew Peters introduced a DST bill to the House of Representatives in May 1909, but it soon died in committee. hailed a 1918 DST bill. Germany and
its allies led the way in introducing DST during
World War I on 30 April 1916, aiming to alleviate hardships due to wartime coal shortages and air-raid blackouts. The political equation changed in other countries; the United Kingdom used DST first on 21 May 1916. US retailing and manufacturing interests—led by
Pittsburgh industrialist Robert Garland—soon began lobbying for DST, but railroads opposed the idea. The US' 1917 entry into the war overcame objections, and DST started in 1918. The end of World War I brought a change in DST use. Farmers continued to dislike DST, and many countries repealed it—like Germany itself, which dropped DST from 1919 to 1939 and from 1950 to 1979. Britain proved an exception; it retained DST nationwide but adjusted transition dates over the years for several reasons, including special rules during the 1920s and 1930s to avoid clock shifts on Easter mornings. , summer time began annually on the last Sunday in March under a
European Community directive, which may be Easter Sunday (as in 2016). In the US, Congress repealed DST after 1919. President
Woodrow Wilson—an avid golfer like Willett—vetoed the repeal twice, but his second veto was overridden. Only a few US cities retained DST locally, including New York (so that its financial exchanges could maintain an hour of arbitrage trading with London), and Chicago and
Cleveland (to keep pace with New York). Wilson's successor as president,
Warren G. Harding, opposed DST as a "deception", reasoning that people should instead get up and go to work earlier in the summer. He ordered District of Columbia federal employees to start work at 8 am rather than 9 am during the summer of 1922. Some
businesses followed suit, though many others did not; the experiment was not repeated. Since Germany's adoption of DST in 1916, the world has seen many enactments, adjustments, and repeals of DST, with similar politics involved. The
history of time in the United States features DST during both
world wars, but no standardization of peacetime DST until 1966.
St. Paul and
Minneapolis, Minnesota, kept different clocks for two weeks in May 1965: the capital city decided to switch to daylight saving time, while Minneapolis opted to follow the later date set by state law. In the mid-1980s,
Clorox and
7-Eleven provided the primary funding for the Daylight Saving Time Coalition behind the 1987 extension to US DST. Both senators from
Idaho,
Larry Craig and
Mike Crapo, voted for it based on the premise that fast-food restaurants sell more French fries (made from Idaho potatoes) during DST. A
referendum on the introduction of daylight saving took place in
Queensland, Australia, in 1992, after a three-year trial of daylight saving. It was defeated with a 54.5% "no" vote, with regional and rural areas strongly opposed, and those in the metropolitan southeast in favor. In 2003, the United Kingdom's
Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents supported a proposal to observe year-round daylight saving time, but it has been opposed by some industries, by some postal workers and farmers, and particularly by those living in the northern regions of the UK. In December 2008, the
Daylight Saving for South East Queensland (DS4SEQ) political party was officially registered in Queensland, advocating the implementation of a dual-time-zone arrangement for daylight saving in
South East Queensland, while the rest of the state maintained standard time. DS4SEQ contested the March 2009 Queensland state election with 32 candidates and received one percent of the
statewide primary vote, equating to around 2.5% across the 32 electorates contested. After a three-year trial, more than 55% of Western Australians voted against DST in 2009, with rural areas strongly opposed. Queensland Independent member
Peter Wellington introduced the
Daylight Saving for South East Queensland Referendum Bill 2010 into the Queensland parliament on 14 April 2010, after being approached by the DS4SEQ political party, calling for a referendum at the next state election on the introduction of daylight saving into South East Queensland under a dual-time-zone arrangement. The Queensland parliament rejected Wellington's bill on 15 June 2011. Russia declared in 2011 that it would stay in DST all year long (
UTC+4:00) and Belarus followed with a similar declaration. (The
Soviet Union had operated under permanent
"summer time" from 1930 to at least 1982.) Russia's plan generated widespread complaints due to the dark of winter-time mornings, and thus was abandoned in 2014. The country changed its clocks to standard time (
UTC+3:00) on 26 October 2014, intending to stay there permanently. However, Belarus did not follow suit and did not switch back to
Eastern European Time. In the
United States,
Arizona (with the exception of the Navajo Nation),
Hawaii, and the five populated territories (
American Samoa,
Guam,
Puerto Rico, the
Northern Mariana Islands, and the
US Virgin Islands) do not participate in daylight saving time.
Indiana only began participating in daylight saving time as recently as 2006. Between 2018 and 2024, former Florida Republican Senator
Marco Rubio repeatedly filed bills to extend daylight saving time permanently into winter, without success.
Religion Some religious groups and individuals have opposed DST on religious grounds. For religious Muslims and Jews it makes religious practices such as prayer and fasting more difficult or inconvenient. In
Israel, DST has been a point of contention between the religious and secular, resulting in fluctuations over the years, and a shorter DST period than in the EU and US. Religious Jews prefer a shorter DST due to DST delaying scheduled
morning prayers, thus conflicting with standard working and
business hours. Additionally, DST is ended before
Yom Kippur (a 25-hour fast day starting and ending at sunset, much of which is spent praying in synagogue until the fast ends at sunset) since DST would result in the day ending later, which many feel makes it more difficult. In the US, Orthodox Jewish groups have opposed extensions to DST, as well as a 2022 bipartisan bill that would make DST permanent, saying it will "interfere with the ability of members of our community to engage in congregational prayers and get to their places of work on time." == Effects ==