Criticism and comment on the automatic system have been at a decided discount during the past twenty-four months. Critics, known and unknown, wise and unwise, have handled it over and over, apparently in all its prospects. Some whose sympathies and hopes cling to the old and established order of things have, after strenuous efforts to ignore the irresistible advance of the new ides, made an effort to hurl the telephone world into maclatrom of doubt and perplexity, by bringing into existence what they have styled the "Automatic Problem," and this has furnished fodder enough to chew on during the time their minds are readjusting themselves to the changed conditions.
The "Automatic Problem " as it has been presented is this: Is the automatic system, new, advanced, and radically opposed to almost all the established dou in telephony, aystem which deserves to succeed the manual system which has been evolved after thirty years of experimentation directed towards its perfection? This furnishes the basis for 4 long bill of objections, The substance these arguments is that the auto-stem, being the outgrowth of a new line of thinking, and a consequent subversion of the old, requiring in ite manufacture a greater number of parte, and being eomewlat more costly of pur: chase, dyes not recommend itee'f to the operating companies. Even admit ti 1 these arcumen's as to newness, ad tion of parts and cost, to be well founded, it is easily apparent that there would suh be something more to be said which these Doth suggest and demand The application of the automat idea to telephone practice is a result ax natural as the inw of gravitation. It is sim; another step in a larger movement has been directed towards the substituoperator presented iteolf. Years of toil and unremitting effort have been expended in the working out of this ides, and the result that is offered to the companies to-day represents the results of this effort. It represents also the results of experience secured from the actual result of exchanges, the first of which was installed as far back as the early nineties. Four years ago an automatic exchange of the multiple type, the first of the kind, was installed in New Bedford, Mass. That exchange isin operation to-day, giving service to nearly one thousand satisfied subscribers. Four years furnishes a reasonable basis for a test of such a system. Indeed, one has not to look far to find tenses where central energy systems of the approved types ud Ganutacture have been installed and discarded in periods scarcely longer. Cleveland sud Columbus, Ohio, furnish notable examples. I mention these imply to. show that the automatic system is nol yw and untried, but rather one whose history chronicles success, 'The second objection mentioned, that city of parts, has been' used more persistently as a red flag than any other and servos to introduce the question of maintenon quires a greater number of parts than the manual, the resultant cost of maintenance will be proportionately increased, and therefore the system is impossible, The line of reasoning does not compass all the facts, There is a law of compensation which, like the law of action and reaction, always holds good, and that law makes no exception in this case, If it wore granted that, since the automatic requires greater number of parts in its make-up than the manual, the cost of maintenance is correspondingly increased, it must also be granted that there is a saving in another direction, namely. operating cost, and this saving so decidedly outweighs this alleged extra cost "f maintenance that the force of the argument against automatic is los!. One ordinarily petent man at a time can look after all inherent troubles in an automatic exchange of one thousand stations. This being the case, it follows that the percent: age of troubler is not Isrye. Couple this with the further facts that all parts of the switchboard are accessible, all of them capable of easy and rapid replacement, that any switch may be altogether moved from the switchboard in twenty seconds' time and without disconnecting a single wire, so that in case of total disability a new one may be quickly substituted, and it will be bottor understood why it is no hazard to assert that the item of maintenance is burden no more serious in the automatic than in the manual system where cords, jacks, plugs, lamps, and other parts not easily cheaply replaced are constantly making inroads in profite.
But it remains with the operating companies to answer the question. The statement of the Citizens' Telephone Company of Grand Rapids, Michigan, showing an annual eaving of over $24,000 in operating and maintenance cost as result of the installation of the auto-system, is slone sufficient to settle iter. More significant than this statement even is the action of this company in installing, eight months after the Grand Rapids' exchange wont into service, an automatic plant of 1,000 lines in Battle Creek, Michigan.
The Home Telephone Company of Los Angeles, California, wore not acting i advisedly when they adopted the auto-in preference to the manual at s time when their previously i board had reached its limit and additional equipment was required to provide for increasing business, When it is taken into consideration fact in all cases where the automatic has been adopted, the purchases were made only after exhaustive investigation of other automatic exchanges previously installed, and that in exch case the ques-jon of maintenance injected itself into the consideration, these facto acquire weight, and give ground for the state-mont that the cost of maintaining the automatic system is not a matter of more conjecture.
The argument furnished by the cost of the automatic equipment is a sort of trump card played by the critics to add telling effect to the two previously mon-joned. That the cost price of the automatic exceeds that of the manual admitted. There cussion on that score, resolves itself into excess, investment entailed by the purchaser of the automatic bring returns sufficient to justify the expenditure? And by returns is meant not alone saving in operating cost and the consequent satisfaction of stockholders, but improvement in service.
I think the anewer to the firet of these considerations has already been suggested in the preceding paragraphs, which mentioned the statement of the Citizens' Telephone Company of Grand Rapids, Michigan, showing an annual saving of over $24,000 directly attributable to the installation of the automatic.
Passing to the consi subscriber's viewpoint, I think no truer idea could be given of the value placed upon automatic service by the users than by quoting from E. &. Fisher's annual report, as Secretary of the Citizens' Telephone Company of Grand Rapids, Michigan "Next in importance in its effect upon th system to t e installation and oper of the new automatic apparatus ix change of rates for service in the Grand Rapids Exchaug:, which became effective April 1 and sffected the earnings of the Inst quarter of the fiscal year just closed, The fact that that chang" in rates way cheerfully accepted by the patrons of the system avd that, contrary to the general expectations, there ws an actual net gein for telephones ordered for service during each of the three months of the quarter, notwithstanding the higher rates charged—that net gain reached 113 telephones in the quarter—is a proof ut the excellence efficiency of the service and a cor ment to the management of the compa: that is highly appreciated The results: of actual investigations have shown that more than 95 per cent
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