Tom Cotton: “In January of 1974, billions of Americans traveled to work and school in darkness. Commuter trains were delayed…”

“In January of 1974, billions of Americans traveled to work and school in darkness. Commuter trains were delayed, schoolchildren carried flash lights. Tragically, some of these kids were struck by cars and killed while walking to school in the dark. One woman from Long Island, speaking to the New York Times, summed up the black mood of the Nation: "It's the end," she said. "I can't cope any more . . . I'm just staying in bed." What calamity had befallen our Nation? Had Soviet Russia finally attacked America? Had we suffered a nationwide power outage? Were the heavens conspiring to plunge our Nation into darkness? No. As it turns out, the answer was more mundane and foolish. A few months earlier, Congress, in its eternal wisdom, had imposed a top-down change on every Americans' daily life, eliminating standard time and adopting daylight saving time year-round. Such a change to the Nation's clocks had never happened before, except as an emergency rationing measure during wartime. While briefly popular, it proved deeply unpopular when reality set in. According to opinion polls, support for permanent daylight saving time fell by 30 percentage points in just 3 months. Only a few weeks after it was implemented, it was underwater. Congress beat a hasty retreat, repealing the law and changing the clocks back in October. What was supposed to be a 2-year experiment ended in abject failure after less than 1 year.”