Time Lord

by Clark Blaise

  Based on votes at the earlier geodesic gatherings in Rome and Venice, and at the Montreal convention of the American Civil Engineers, Fleming had reason to believe that his efforts of the past seven years in research, writing, and lobbying might possibly result in the acceptance of his modified time proposals. Alone among the “Anglo-Saxon” delegates, he was sensitive to French objections. He understood that an overtly British-American solution to the prime-meridian dilemma would merely antagonize the French and result in the loss of the desired consensus. French intellectual prestige among other “Latin” countries might well drag many South American and some European countries with her. With such complications in mind, Fleming had nurtured Italian, Spanish, Russian, and Belgian support. The delegate from Spain, Juan Pastorín, the head of his country’s observatory, was also the Spanish translator of Fleming’s papers.

  But at his most realistic, Fleming must have recognized that the tides of history were shifting against him. He had been stronger in Montreal, at the American Society of Civil Engineers’ first foreign convention in 1881, than with the geographers in Venice a year later, and more in command at Venice than in Rome, two years after that. His standing was higher among engineers than among astronomers, and higher with astronomers than with the unknown world of naval officers and foreign diplomats. And now that “convenience” was being cited as an important, perhaps even a decisive, consideration over, say, fairness, or international harmony, the appeal of Greenwich might well be insurmountable.

  By the end of 1883, North American railroads had standardized their time to Greenwich, but not to the convenient standards of what we’d recognize today as time-zones. Europe was linked by rail from Iberia to Istanbul, yet it still had no coherent time standard across its expanse. Britain, France, Sweden, and Switzerland all recognized single national times, determined by their national observatories, yet their times were not coordinated with one another. Germany, which observed five official times, had already indicated, through the last public statement of Field Marshal Helmuth von Moltke (head of the chiefs of staff of the Prussian army), its endorsement for a single Berlin time, if for no other reason than military preparedness. The governments of Italy and Spain—countries whose maritime fleets adhered to Rome and Cádiz prime meridians—were in significant agreement with Fleming’s proposals for world standard time and a Pacific prime. Otto Struve already plotted some Russian survey maps from Greenwich charts, and was an enthusiastic supporter of Fleming’s modified Greenwich scheme. In other words, parts of the world had drawn closer, but the remaining differences in some ways had hardened.

  If Greenwich, or any variation of Greenwich, were adopted, Paris, Berlin, Bern, Uppsala, St. Petersburg, Rome, and Cádiz, among others, would lose their prime meridians, their astronomical charts, and their proud histories. The national astronomers from “lesser” traditions were, in effect, being invited to prepare their professional suicide.

  THE CONFERENCE opened at noon with Frelinghuysen’s welcoming speech and a brief formal gathering with President Arthur. An hour later the thirty-five delegates settled around the large oval table in the Diplomatic Hall and unanimously elected Admiral Rodgers president of the congress. Rodgers opened by assuring the gathering that the United States, despite occupying one hundred degrees of longitude, not counting the Aleutian Islands (which spanned the European equivalent of London to mid-Siberia), and twelve thousand miles of coastline, had no intention of urging an American meridian upon the convention. The United States had experimented with a Washington meridian in its first half-century, but had voluntarily surrendered it in favor of Greenwich in 1849. He alluded only indirectly to the contentious issue of choosing a prime meridian, focusing instead on the problem of prime proliferation:

  In my own profession, that of a seaman, the embarrassment arising from the many prime meridians now in use is very conspicuous, and in the valuable interchange of longitudes by passing ships at sea, often difficult and hurried, sometimes only possible by figures written on a blackboard, much confusion arises, and at times grave danger. In the use of charts, too, this trouble is also annoying, and to us who live upon the sea a common prime meridian will be a great advantage.

  The French diplomat Monsieur Lefaivre responded immediately, if somewhat obliquely. He suggested that all motions and addresses be translated into French. The French demand was predictable, but it, too, was a kind of code. The admiral had strayed just a little too close to the third rail of nineteenth-century international politics, the French-English rivalry, otherwise known as “the susceptibility.” The dread words “common prime,” coming in the English language from a naval officer in an English-speaking country were not, to the French sensibility, scientifically “neutral.” They were code words for Greenwich, a dagger in the heart of Paris.

  The first session ended with notification by the other American naval officer, Commander Sampson, that the next day’s session would raise two peripheral matters: first, the desirability of opening all meetings to the public; and, second, that of inviting commentary from eminent specialists who happened to be passing through Washington, or in residence. Monsieur Lefaivre served notice that he would oppose both proposals. Admiral Rodgers pledged State Department support in finding bilingual secretaries to prepare French and English transcripts of each day’s proceedings. In this, the State Department’s efforts were to fail. It was the British delegate representing the Dominion of Canada, Mr. Fleming, who would discover bilingual secretaries in Victorian Washington. The delegates broke for tea, cigars, dinner, and drinks, and a visit to the telegraph office to gather instructions for the next day’s session. Mr. Fleming repaired to his rooms at the Biggs Hotel and on Sunday joined his friend Cleveland Abbe for services at a Negro church.

  True to Commander Sampson’s promise, the second session opened on the two motions for open seating and distinguished visitors, and both were defeated. Monsieur Lefaivre pointed out that although the conference was partially scientific, for which visiting experts and public attendance were entirely appropriate, the conference was also diplomatic. To admit the public to deliberations that were by their very nature privileged would expose the conference to popular pressure by uninformed partisans. The same could be said of the participation of unaccredited experts—all of whom just happened to be major American and British scientists—whatever their eminence. French logic carried the vote. Even Great Britain and the United States voted with the French in rejecting it.

  All was going well indeed for France until Professor Rutherfurd moved: “Resolved: That the Conference proposes to the Governments represented the adoption as a standard meridian that of Greenwich, passing through the center of the transit instrument at the Observatory of Greenwich.” Here it was, the perfidious resolution that France had hoped to delay, perhaps even bury, brought up as the first serious resolution of the conference.

  The sweet logic of diplomacy, as practiced by Monsieur Lefaivre, was about to enter a virtuoso phase. First, he stated, the motion was out of order. Since the conference did not constitute a deliberative congress, they were merely gathering information for some future congress with executive powers. He denied that the scientific findings of Rome had any application to the diplomacy of Washington. To this, Admiral Rodgers ruled that the motion was indeed in order, and was in fact the best way to stimulate discussion on the very issue they’d been brought to Washington to resolve. Lefaivre then appealed to the self-regard of the delegates: “This Conference is composed of various elements, among which are scientists of the highest standing, but also functionaries of high rank, who are not familiar with scientific subjects, and who are charged with an examination of this question from a political stand-point. It is, moreover, our privilege to be philosophers and cosmopolitans, and to contemplate the interests of mankind not only for the present, but for the most distant future.”

  At that point, Lefaivre turned to his scientific colleague, Jules-César Janssen, director of the National Observatory, to pursue th
e objection. And so, a strange spectacle unfolded. Two of the leading scientists from the same field, spectroscopy, friends and colleagues who’d been at the 1869 South India eclipse together, found themselves cast as opponents, not collaborators, representing their countries, not a common cause. Janssen steered the discussion back to first principles. “We have inverted the process,” he began, “nominating a meridian before discussing the nature of a prime, or indeed, if a prime for all nations is necessary. Since we are not empowered to select a prime, but only to report on the deliberations leading to recommendations, the Rutherfurd motion is out of order.”

  Commander Sampson rose to the challenge and amended the resolution: “Resolved: it is desirable to adopt a single prime for all nations.” And so, the old issue of a prime was resurrected. A single prime for all nations was indeed desirable. General Strachey quoted Frelinghuysen’s welcoming speech. Rutherfurd quoted President Arthur; it was foregone for both that a single prime was desirable, and that it was a waste of time to discuss it. Janssen got his answer in the form of a unanimous support for a prime.

  Janssen rose to the occasion, in his country’s finest tradition of imperturbable logic. With the Greenwich motion now on the table, he sought to end the conference with a preemptive strike. We have done our job, the principle of a prime has been upheld. We are not empowered by our governments to execute any other decision. There would have to be a second (and a third, and a fourth) conference to debate the actual meridian.

  And this is where Rutherfurd’s preparation saved the conference (and the world) vast time and annoyance. He quoted from President Arthur’s follow-up letter to each foreign minister, including the French, which clearly stated the objectives of the conference. Acceptance of the invitation implied acceptance of the objectives of the conference.

  Diplomatic meetings are a delicate interplay of wit and logic, bluster and modesty. France had just been unanimously defeated, the United States had mounted a brilliant defense, but Rutherfurd pushed his advantage just a bit too hard. The whole object of the conference was to fix a prime meridian; there must be some misapprehension on the part of the learned gentleman from France in thinking that this conference did not have the power to fix a prime meridian. It seemed to him that the delegates undoubtedly were ready to hear and express arguments pro and con in regard to that very question, and he supposed that every delegate had studied the matter before coming. He did not think that any delegate would be likely to have come unless he knew, or thought he knew, something about the matter.

  All of which unleashed a flurry of denials from Spain, Sweden, Russia, Germany, Mexico, Brazil, and even Britain. None of them, they averred, was empowered to fix a prime—merely to recommend.

  The final speaker of the second session was Sandford Fleming. He called attention to the language of the act of the U.S. Congress that had authorized the conference:

  … [that] The President of the United States be authorized and requested to extend to the Governments of all nations in diplomatic relations with our own an invitation to appoint delegates to meet delegates from the United States in the city of Washington, at such time as he may see fit to designate, for the purpose of fixing upon a meridian proper to be employed as a common zero of longitude and standard of time-reckoning throughout the globe.

  The second session ended, the Greenwich motion still in play.

  In the corridor outside the doors of the closed session, Monsieur Lefaivre swore to Commander Sampson, “France will never agree to emblazon on her charts ‘degrees west or east of Greenwich’!” It was a promise, against all apparent odds, that could have been taken to the bank. France had dodged the first bullet, but the Greenwich guns would not go away. There were five days before the next session. During the break, lacking a country, and diplomatic instructions, Fleming returned to Montreal for a board meeting of the Hudson’s Bay Company.

  THE THIRD session witnessed a new French strategy, that of demanding a “neutral” prime meridian. France denied favoring a Paris prime; but she was equally opposed to any prime that carried historic importance, or conferred national advantage. If Greenwich carried the vote, British astronomers would not have to change their charts; their traditions would continue into the next century, while everyone else’s would die. France would be stripped of everything, without compensation. As Janssen put it, “Whatever we may do, the common prime meridian will always be a crown to which there will be a hundred pretenders. Let us place the crown on the brow of science, and all will bow before it.” By “crowning science” he meant there should be no local commercial benefit attached to the designation. By “neutral” France meant that any meridian selected had to be culturally naked and not fall on the continents of Europe or America. Only an ocean-based prime, like Fleming’s anti-prime, met the standards. Fleming and France became unstable allies, one from a desire to implement standard time without dissension; the other to sidetrack the debate for as long as possible.

  Arguing against neutrality, or even attempting to define it, is philosophically treacherous. (It is not the sort of argument that British and Americans make easily anyway, and it led, over the next two sessions, to flashes of anger on both sides. “Gentlemen, I remind you, we are not all belligerents,” one British delegate was forced to plead.) The moment one defines neutrality, it loses its neutral nature and takes on the national or linguistic character of the definer. Commander Sampson, no mean debater, observed: “Since France today proposed neutrality, we may conclude that they have the necessary delegated power to fully consider and determine the main question before us—the selection of a prime meridian.”

  The American delegates, Abbe and Rutherfurd, asserted that neutrality, as defined by the French, was a fantasy. Every longitudinal meridian touches land at some point in its arc, and is thus rendered suspect. And if the French wanted a Pacific prime, it would still have to take its bearings from some land-based observatory, which would then render it the astronomical property of some nation. The meridian favored by France made its landfall on the Kamchatka Peninsula, just west of the Bering Strait and thus would be controlled by a Russian or American observatory. Cleveland Abbe demanded, “How long will it remain so [i.e., neutral]? Who knows when Russia will step over and reconquer the country on this side of Bering’s Strait? Who knows when America will step over and purchase half of Siberia?” And he went on, Cleveland Abbe of the looping, ephemeral weather maps, Abbe of precision and mutability, Abbe the friend of black empowerment, the visionary: “Something must be found which is fixed, either within the sphere of the earth or in the stars above the earth.” (Global positioning might, in fact, eventually eliminate the need for an earthbound prime meridian.)

  The French, now down to their fallback position, suggested that if the Anglo-Saxon countries would adopt the “neutral” metric system, France might accept an English meridian. No, Abbe repeated, even the metre, that one-ten millionth of the quarter-arc of the earth as measured by the French in the last century, was a French meter. (The Germans had recently remeasured the arc and come up with a slightly different value; thus a German meter.) An American measurement would doubtless create an American meter. All measurement is deneutralized by properties of the measurer. In any event, Admiral Rodgers ruled speculations over the meter out of order.

  Failing to convince the French of the logical impossibility of their stand (“I have listened to my learned colleagues,” J. C. Adams recoiled, “and it turned almost entirely on sentimental considerations”), the combined forces of the United States and Britain then shifted the argument to terms more conducive to their own pragmatic natures. It was Commander Sampson who introduced the word that had the sanction of the President and the Secretary of State: “convenience.” Neutrality may or may not exist, but practicality does, and for the aggregate convenience of the world, only one meridian satisfies that demand. This was the course of debate that lit the fuse.

  Janssen retorted: “We consider that a reform which consists in giving to a
geographical question one of the worst solutions possible, simply on the ground of practical convenience; that is to say, the advantage to yourselves and those you represent, of having nothing to change, either in your maps, customs, or traditions—such a solution, I say, can have no future before it, and we refuse to take part in it.”

  After three hours of give and take, and with the original motion on Greenwich still unresolved, as well as France’s motion on absolute neutrality, the third session ended and a week’s recess was called. Of all the sessions leading up to a vote, the third was the least conclusive but the most revealing. The French position was exposed as fundamentally self-interested, and its proponents no better at defining neutrality than the British and Americans had been in attacking it. And there was genuine passion, a kind of requiem, in the French defense of what they felt to be the surrender of their noble astronomical tradition on an altar of complacent Anglo-Saxon commerce.

  When the delegates reassembled a week later on October 14, the weather had turned cool and misty, all traces of summer gone. Instructions from governments had been cabled, speeches rehearsed, and the swords were out. It was Sandford Fleming, France’s erstwhile ally, who opened the argument. Pressing hard on France’s greatest sensitivity, he displayed the figures of maritime tonnage that were then employing Greenwich charts. Paris came in second, one-fourteenth the size of Greenwich. Seventy-two percent of commercial shipping used Greenwich, 8 percent used Paris. But Fleming’s purpose was not to attack Paris; rather, it was to eliminate a potential objection to his own anti-prime, which he then posed as the ideal compromise between utility (Greenwich) and utopia (neutrality). As always, he wanted the advantages of Greenwich, without calling it by the dread name.