presidential election – Author Sarah Angleton

On June 7, 1900 the clientele of Dobson’s Saloon in Kiowa, Kansas got something of a shock when a tall, possibly slightly unhinged woman entered the establishment with a hymn on her lips and bricks in her hands. Following a vision she believed to be from God, Caroline Amelia Nation greeted the bartender with a “Good morning, Destroyer of Men’s Souls,” and proceeded to smash up the place. She claimed she was perfectly within her rights to do so because the business should have been illegal anyway.

Carry A. Nation with a Bible in one hand and a hatchet in the other. N.N., Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

A decade earlier, Kansas had become the first state in the union to outlaw non-medicinal alcohol. Almost immediately, and to the disappointment of the temperance movement, the US Supreme Court issued a ruling that allowed for the interstate importation of alcohol in its original packaging. That weakened the law significantly and created a loophole for places like Dobson’s Saloon.

Political passion is important, and persuasive and open dialog is essential to a thriving democracy and to just generally being good humans. However, smashing up a lawful business, even if you don’t believe it should be such, is probably going a little too far.

Caroline, more often Carrie, had survived a bad first marriage to an alcoholic husband and became a fervent speaker against drink, founding a local chapter of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union. There’s a lot to admire about a person who crusades for a strongly held political belief, even one that turned out a few years later when the US enacted prohibition, to be kind of a bad idea.

Carry A. Nation, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Carrie Nation, who eventually changed her name to Carry A. Nation soon traded her bricks for a hatchet. Despite more than thirty arrests and a lifetime banishment from Kansas City, she kept on spreading her message through a series of unlawful saloon “hatchetations,” while also marching and speaking for women’s suffrage, establishing a women and children’s shelter, and feeding and clothing the poor.

I think it’s safe to say that in many ways, she was a pretty good lady, with a heart full of fire for the things most important to her. She certainly seemed to think so, and boldly titled her 1908 autobiography The Use and Need of the Life of Carry A. Nation.

In some ways, she’s right. A nation needs passionate people to carry it forward. Of course we in the United States are feeling keenly this week the reality that passionate, pretty good people don’t always agree on which way the nation needs to be carried.

It’s okay to disagree. It’s probably even a good thing because none of us is right all the time, and we do need to engage in purposeful, respectful conversations about the things that matter most to each of us. We just also need to leave our hatchets at home.

It’s election season once again here in the United States, with early voting already in full swing, and most people convinced that the nation will fall if their pick for president doesn’t win. I’d say something reassuring, but alas, I’m not totally immune to the hysteria. One thing I can say for sure is that no matter what happens, next Tuesday will be a dark day for all Americans.

That’s because in the early hours of Sunday morning time itself will suffer a stroke when our clocks fall back an hour. The early evening will suddenly become the blackest depths of nighttime, my dog will fail to sleep a second past 4:00 in the morning, traffic accidents will see a slight uptick, and everyone will be universally miserable for a good week or two.

The US first observed Daylight Saving Time in 1918. In 1919 Congress scrapped it because of the universal misery, and because apparently at that time Congress cared. It wasn’t implemented again until World War II when it once again proved temporary on a federal level, though some states and cities embraced the misery and adopted some version of it. Then in 1966, the Uniform Time Act signed by Lyndon Johnson, standardized the practice across the country, except in a couple of states that didn’t feel like it and decided to stay on standard time.

The awful tradition has been tweaked several times since, with the dates of clock changing moving around a little, but the most exciting development came in 2022 when the US Senate passed, by unanimous consent, a bill to eliminate standard time. Everyone cheered and looked forward to the first Sunday of November, 2024 when Daylight Saving Time would become the standard across the land.

Everyone, that is, except the House of Representatives where the bill has still not been voted on because it has proven weirdly controversial despite not dividing along party lines. 71% of US citizens want to stop the biannual insanity, which is pretty much a slam dunk for politicians who claim to want a less divided nation. Granted, 40% favor keeping to Daylight Saving Time while 31% are incorrect. I guess maybe 29% just didn’t understand the question?

20% of the members of my household, and NOT a fan of time changes.

I don’t know, but it is true one has to be careful with polling results because they can be pretty heavily manipulated based on how a question is worded or a sample taken.

For example, I recently conducted a highly scientific poll of a fair cross-section of the American population, consisting of the members of my household and found that 80% of participants were entirely unpersuaded by political gripes on social media. I know that can’t be right because pretty much everyone I know is still spouting their opinions from their keyboards.

20% of the members of my household don’t use social media, were just happy to be a part of the conversation, and thought they deserved a treat. And he’s right, because he’s a very good boy, even though starting this Sunday, he is not going to let me sleep a second past 4:00 in the morning.

One thing I can confidently state is that 100% of the residents of my household do pretty much despise the biannual time change. I was shocked to discover that we don’t all agree on whether we prefer Daylight Saving or Standard Time, but when it comes down to it, I suspect we’d be willing to set our differences aside and agree that we’d just like to stick to one or the other.

Alas, as with all things political, not all of us can get exactly what we want, which can feel a little dark and frightening. But when it comes down to it, at some point, we’re going to have to at least try to set our differences aside if we don’t want to be universally miserable.