ke their convictions come true.
The scoffers have remained to pray.

=Arguments Against Automatic Idea.= Naturally there has been a bitter
fight against the automatic. Those who have opposed it have contended:

First: that it is too complicated and, therefore, could be neither
reliable or economical.

Second: that it is too expensive, and that the necessary first cost
could not be justified.

Third: that it is too inflexible and could not adapt itself to special
kinds of service.

Fourth: that it is all wrong from the subscribers' point of view as the
public will not tolerate "doing its own operating."

_Complexity._ This first objection as to complexity, and consequent
alleged unreliability and lack of economy should be carefully analyzed.
It too often happens that a new invention is cast into outer darkness by
those whose opinions carry weight by such words as "it cannot work; it
is too complicated." Fortunately for the world, the patience and
fortitude which men must possess before they can produce meritorious,
though intricate inventions, are usually sufficient to prevent their
being crushed by any such offhand condemnation, and the test of time and
service is allowed to become the real criterion.

It would be difficult to find an art that has gone forward as rapidly as
telephony. Within its short life of a little over thirty years it has
grown from the phase of trifling with a mere toy to an affair of
momentous importance to civilization. There has been a tendency,
particularly marked during recent years, toward greater complexity; and
probably every complicated new system or piece of apparatus has been
roundly condemned, by those versed in the art as it was, as being unable
to survive on account of its complication.

To illustrate: A prominent telephone man, in arguing against the
nickel-in-the-slot method of charging for telephone service once said,
partly in jest, "The Lord never intended telephone service to be given
in that way." This, while a little off the point, is akin to the
sweeping aside of new telephone systems on the sole ground that they are
complicated. These are not real reasons, but rather convenient ways of
disposing of vexing problems with a minimum amount of labor. Important
questions lying at the very root of the development of a great industry
may not be put aside permanently in this offhand way. The Lord has
never, so far as we know, indicated just what his intentions were in the
m