Little Joe was lucky enough to win a trip to the States for the summer, but when he exited the airplane, he didn’t know what to pay for his luggage; last he checked, the English used the Pound as their money. When he entered the taxi which took him to a hotel, he couldn’t tell how far he travelled, for the signboards were carved in miles. Once in his room, he almost had a panic attack when the weather woman told him it would be 70 degrees that day, that too, with a pleasant smile.
Today, the United States remains one of only three countries in the world, and the only industrialized nation to not have adopted the Metric System. Why this is so, retraces blame to the Founding Fathers of the State.
In the late eighteenth century, the US and France clapped backs like old pals, and while France helped the American Revolutionary cause like a determined foe of the British, Americans were less than eager to pay back the favour when France was undergoing the Measurement Revolution, with State Secretary Jefferson feeling like measurements were based on local French instruments, which would make it difficult for the States to keep a rigorous track of quantities. This Revolution was a complete upheaval of the existing measuring standards put in place by the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles the Great, based on Roman traditions. The unit of the King’s foot, for example, survived a thousand years after Charlemagne’s death, as did the Livre, and the Aune. After Charlemagne’s demise, however, his empire split up, and local rulers started adding their own variations to the standards, making it difficult for people of all states to agree on single measurements.
Thomas Jefferson, whilst shopping for his state’s fundamentals, asked the new French state for artifacts, to ease American conversion to the Metric System, or the Système international d’unités as it was called by France. The French sent Joseph Dombey, a botanist, with the standard kilogram, but his ship was blown off course, allegedly to the south, entering Caribbean territory, before reaching the States. He later died in pirates’ captivity. If I were Jefferson, and if I were superstitious, I would have closed the Metric door right there and then. Alas, I am not. Jefferson later changed his opinion on the affair, and opposed the system, believing it was too French. Coming from one of the most Francophile of the Founding Fathers, this was a lot.
Since America was a former British colony, it followed the British Imperial System. This arrangement was based on humans instead. A foot was based on the length from one’s toes to one’s shins, a yard constituted three such feet, an acre was an area a solitary farmer could ploy in a day etc. Pro-imperialists have argued in the past and continue to reason that measurements should be close to humans, instead of being kept safe and hidden in some corner of France. As the race for colonies reached its climax, so did the rival systems. The British-made Imperial System started to find its roots in English colonies, while mainland Europe slowly shifted from English and Dutch based systems to the French one. After rapid decolonization in the twentieth century, all former colonies have shifted to the Metric System, casting aside the less-efficient imperial units.
Source: statista.com
When the First Republic in France collapsed, giving way to the Bourbon Restoration, the standard measurement system formulated by the Enlightened Revolutionaries lost ground. All this time, the US focused on its dollar, the first decimal-based currency in the world, unbothered by the fate of this system since its main trading partner, the UK, had no preference for it either. Metrication resurfaced in the 1830s when Europe was swept by waves of revolutions, and other countries, like Germany, Italy and Belgium, adopted this system as well. These nations had just been unified, and needed an overarching system for internal and external trade.
Just after the Civil War, as Europe prepared for a Franco-Prussian brawl, the United States passed the Metric Act, in 1866. This protected the Metric System from any lawsuit based on its usage, and also provided a table for conversion between the Metric and Imperial systems. In 1875, the US became one of the seventeen signatories to the Metre Convention.
However, the US soon replaced Europe as a world power, and with this new found power, came the realization that the US was destined to lead the world to better times where perpetual progress could be achieved. Even if the average American couldn’t think with such depth into the future, they felt proud over what they had achieved and wanted to steer the driver’s wheel for a change. America must be a leader, not a follower. This is in spite of the unflinching reality that the United States Customary Units are a British colonial legacy, and there’s nothing Americans can do to change this fact and try to cite it as their own creation.
Jimmy Carter is widely credited with having started America on the path to the Metric System, but failed to muster popular support for the cause
From Alexander Graham Bell to George Washington himself and from former President Herbert Hoover to his successor – somewhere down the line – Jimmy Carter, America has listened to numerous individuals talk incessantly about the Metric System, time and time again but has refused to give away an inch (pun intended). In 2015, Presidential candidate, Lincoln Chafee promised to complete the Metric course Carter had set the American nation on. He dropped out of the race the same year.
So why doesn’t America revert to a system that has called on to it over and over again, only to receive a cold rejection in response? On paper, some experts have claimed the Metric System will benefit the US. Conversions are simple and easy; one simply has to shift the decimal place and add/remove prefixes. To the country that invented decimal currency, this shouldn’t be hard; much easier than the current system. Nearly all countries in the world use this system so bringing the US on-par to the rest of the nations wouldn’t be that bad – it would make trade considerably easier.
America’s innate desire to be considered different from the rest of us plays well with the mindset Americans have and their faith in All-America. While practicing an isolationist foreign policy or an interventionist one, the US has always prided itself for helping the world. But the very hard truth is that All-America doesn’t exist. America is not a nation in itself; it is a country made of immigrants and former slaves, snatching locals’ territory in an effort to establish themselves anywhere other than their birthplace, where they could no longer make a decent living, were outlawed, or forced out. But it is hard to argue with Americans who think like this:
This tweet is dated to when Chafee’s aims went viral
Some experts like to believe that America is half-Metric. Official declarations are all that remain and that judicial protection for the system has been around for decades, now. Yes, America is a sovereign nation and yes, America is at full-liberty to do whatever it wants, but oftentimes, people are unable to understand the complicated facts of an issue, which is why the representative government is responsible for acting in the best wishes of the people. Why do these representatives oppose Metrication every time it enters Congress?
True, the law states that conversion from Customary to Metric must be voluntary and true, changing the system will cost millions of dollars to the Treasury. NASA, alone, estimated that costs for the company could be more than $370 million. The pro Metric party argues that NASA already lost $125 million when the Mars Climate Orbiter mixed up Customary units with Metric ones. Individuals like Chafee also argue that short-term expenses would be worth the long-term benefits of switching to the system. Chafee also nominated himself for the 2020 Presidential elections, but dropped out once again on April 5. The front runners for the race, Biden and Trump, do not seem to be interested in measurement systems at all, so it seems like the Metric System must wait to be welcomed into the States, if it ever will be.
