Conference attendees recommended forming a committee (a time-honored manner of resolving matters). The New York Daylight Savings Committee, based in the Borough President’s office and chaired by Marks, consisted of leaders from civic organizations, law firms, financial trusts, unions, manufacturers, and academia.
In January 1917, the Committee launched the idea of a Convention that would be addressed by Senators, Governors, Mayors, and others. Marks authored a column, “Health and Wealth in Daylight” in the newspaper Evening Sun attributing the idea of daylight savings time to “the brain of Benjamin Franklin over 135 years ago.” He wrote that “In 1784, Franklin estimated that the city of Paris that year would save in its lighting bills the somewhat exaggerated sum of $19,000,000.”
The article also refuted opponents claims: “It has been suggested that all the advantages could be obtained without turning the clock ahead, by rising and retiring an hour earlier. The answer is that we would not do it; and if we tried it we would find ourselves out of harmony with our surroundings…. There is an element of psychology in this movement. It would be quite an effort for those accustomed to arise at seven o’clock to get up at six. But when the clock says seven, habit asserts itself, and in a few days no one remembers that the clock has been turned ahead.”
