Maine measures up

Two movements in southern Maine, which combine the whimsical and the serious, the romantic and the practical, are visible symptoms of the inner turmoil of Americans, whose quaint, comfortable pounds-and-inches system is being outcompeted by global metrification.

Last September, Brent Maynard of York successfully pitched 20 friends on his idea to buy the town speed-limit signs expressed in both miles- and kilometers-per-hour. They chipped in $10 each and the town now has about two dozen of these signs. Maynard, also known locally as “Mr. Metric,” apparently wants to complete the project, believed to be the first in the state.

The local reaction so far has been neutral. Other communities and the state should discuss emulating Wiscasset’s example. Maine shares a border with a nation that measures highway speeds in kilometers. The state actively promotes itself as a destination resort for Asian and European tourists. Unless those visitors are from Liberia or Burma (with the U.S., the only non-metric nations in the world), the unconverted MPH signs can’t be good for business.

Meanwhile, Seaver Leslie, a Wiscasset artist, and a band of romantic reactionaries are intent on repealing the 1988 act of Congress that declared metrics the preferred system of measure of the United States Government.

When Leslie and his cohorts aren’t rhapsodizing about the beauty of furlongs and rods, they are turning their creative talent to political intrigue. Rep. Marge Kilkelly, D-Wiscasset, has been asked to sponsor a legislative resolution appealing to the Maine congressional delegation to repeal the 1988 law.

The proposal is cute and frivolous, but as Rep. Kilkelly and other lawmakers should be aware, it is not entirely harmless.

Although inches and centimeters can coexist in this country — cooks will continue to buy their flour in pounds and measure it in cups — metric conversion of industry is important to competitiveness. Equipment calibrated in inches can be jiggered to meet metric tolerances, but that isn’t the same as setting up shop and training personnel to produce metrically in the first place.

Increasingly, dealing from the old system is an impediment to U.S. firms trying to crack international markets. Dealing in an archaic form of weights and measures provides a language barrier when countries open up their infrastructure development, construction projects and building-materials industries to bids from foreign firms. In these competitions, initial emphasis frequently is on establishing standards in product design so systems and components will mesh. In this arena, it is an obstacle when everyone else is talking metrics, without a translator at the home office.

Maine has challenge enough recruiting business and tourists when the thermometer is stuck on the low end between the “0s.” For the Legislature to go on record opposing industrial conversion to metrics would appear to the outside world that the state was out in the cold, and numb.