This аppeal poses a very narrow question of some difficulty. Sec. 176.06, Stats., provides that no premises for which a “Class B” retail license shall have been issued shall be permitted to remain open for the sale of liquor between the hours of 1 a. m. and 8 a. m. Defendant in error remained open until 12:55 a. m., сentral standard time, as that time was established prior to an act of congress hereinafter referred to. He remained open until 1:55 a. m. according to what is popularly known as “central war time,” established by this act of congress.
The question is whether upon these facts there has been a violation of sec. 176.06, Stats.
Sec. 175.09 (1), Stats., provides as follows:
*498 “Standard time. (1) The standard of time in this state shall be the'solar time of the ninetieth meridian west of Greenwich, commonly known as central time, and no department of the state government, and no county, city, town or village shall employ any other time, or adopt any ordinance or order рroviding for the use of any other than the standard of time.”
Other provisions of sec. 175.09, Stats., prohibit displaying or using of any other than the standard time and provide penalties.
The act of January 20, 1942, ch. 7, 2d Session, Public Law, 403, 77th Cong., S. 2160, provided in part as follows :
“Beginning at 2 o’clock antemeridian of the twentieth day after the date of enactment of this act, the standard time of each zone established pursuant to the act entitled ‘An act to save daylight and to provide standard time for the United States,’ approved March 19, 1918, as amended, shall be advanced one hour.” Provided that this act should cease to bе in effect six months after the termination of the present war.
• The act of March 19, 1918, ch. 24, secs. 1, 2, and 4, 15 USCA, secs. 261, 262, 263, provides in substance that for the purposе of establishing the standard time of the United States the continental United States is divided into five zones. It is provided that the standard time of the first zone shall be basеd upon the mean astronomical time of the seventy-fifth degree of longitude west from Greenwich; that of the second zone on the ninetieth degreе. The bases of the other zones are similarly set forth. It is provided that the limitations of each zone are to be defined by an order of the interstate commerce commission, having regard for the convenience of commerce and for the junction and division points of interstate commоn carriers engaged in interstate commerce. Sec. 263 provides that the standard time of the second zone, which includes Wisconsin, shall be known and dеsignated as United States central standard time.
Defendant in error has filed no brief, but his position is quite evidently that closing hours prescribed by sec. 176.06, *499 Stats., for prеmises operating under “Class B” licenses, and not stating any standard of time, must be governed by sec. 175.09, which provides that standard time shall be the solar time of the ninеtieth meridian east of Greenwich, commonly known as central time, in view especially of the fact that both •secs. 176.06 and 175.09 antedate the act оf congress of 1942, fixing a modified central standard time for the duration of the war.
Historically speaking, the method of measuring time in this country was the mean solar time of the particular place involved. It had long been known that actual solar time, that is the time based on the apparent actual mоvement of the sun over any particular meridian varied from day to day, and was impractical to use as a standard, after the abandonment of sundials, since watches and clocks had constantly to be reset. The mean solar time was based upon the apparent movement of an imaginаry constant' sun over the meridian. This gave a satisfactory time standard for a particular community, but was increasingly unsatisfactory as means of transportation and communication improved, because of the wide variety of time standards in communities thrown into close relation by these improvemеnts.
In 1883 railroad companies entered into an agreement to maintain their schedules on the basis of four standard time zones, approximately similar to the time zones now in use. This, of course, would mean that the standard railroad time for a place on the boundaries of a zone would vary abоut half hour from the mean solar time of that place. Following the lead of the railroads, people in all walks of life adopted generаlly the time standards of the railroad, but a great many difficulties came up in court cases. For example, in
Searles v. Averhoff,
Such a construction conforms to the evident purpose of the legislature to establish a single standard of time which would be in conformity to the standard upon which interstate commerce was based, and to avoid the confusion which has heretofore been adverted to. To adopt any other view would produce the very confusion that the legislature sought to avoid, and this, at a time when confusion will be costly and can be fatal to every interest of the state and nation.
By the Court. — Judgment and order are reversed, and cause remanded for further proceedings according to law.