Various plans for an improvement of the calendar have been suggested; but on January 1, 1917, Joseph U. Barnes of Minneapolis, USA, evolved a plan which is conceded to be by far the best yet proposed. Under this plan, our present complicated and inconvenient arrangement can easily be made so simple and convenient that printed calendars would soon be unknown. Only three simple changes are required. They are as follows:
- First, make New Year's Day an independent legal holiday. Have it fall between the last day of December and the first day of January. Do not include it in any week or month.
- Second, provide another independent legal holiday for Leap Year. Have it fall between the last day of one month and the first day of the next. Do not include it in any week or month.
While making the change, Good Friday and Easter Sunday should be placed on certain fixed dates. According to history, the placing of these on fixed dates was seriously considered at the time that our present calendar was adopted. This change would secure a much-desired regularity and would be especially appreciated by members of the mercantile profession.
This simplified calendar could be adopted to take effect on Sunday, the first day of the next year, and the change would cause scarcely a ripple in our business or social life. Six months' experience under this simplified form would make us wonder why we put up with the inconvenience of our present form for so long.
The name chosen for the new month is Liberty. Barnes had, early in 1917, chosen the word Gregory, but the stirring events of 1917 and 1918 made the word Liberty so prominent that, when the president of a Minneapolis bank suggested it as a name for the new month, the suggestion was immediately adopted.
The new month is placed immediately after February, so in the new plan the months read: January, February, Liberty, March, etc. The independent legal holiday provided for Leap Year will be called Correction Day.
The advantages of this simplified calendar cannot be overestimated. The savings of time and mental effort in making calculations for the future would be beyond all comprehension. These advantages would arise from the fact that all the months in the entire year would be just alike. Every month would have exactly four weeks and every month would commence with Monday and end with Sunday. All holidays and anniversaries would always fall on the same day of the week. Every day in all the months would receive an absolutely fixed place in the four weeks. Our present exasperating system of four and a fraction weeks to the month would be done away with, and there would be no more five Sundays in a month to upset all our calculations.
People are called upon every day of the year to set dates for future occurrences. Dates for meetings, payments, commencement of employment, quitting employment, occupancy or vacancy of property, legislation, etc would be consistent. This simplified calendar would enable anyone to tell at once on what day of the week any future day of the month would fall.
As another simple illustration of the inconvenience of our present calendar, it might be stated that millions of people ask every year on what day of the week Christmas will fall. Under this new form of calendar, everyone would know that as Christmas comes on the 25th day of the month, it would always fall on Thursday.
Source: Joseph U. Barnes, The Liberty Calendar and the First Year under the New Calendar, Minneapolis, Minn., USA, 1918.