Message to Garcia by Elbert Hubbard

If you have not read it already I strongly suggest that you do.

In all this Cuban business,there is one man who stands out on the horizon of my memory like Mars at Perihelion.
When war broke out between spain and the united states,it was very necessary to communicate quickly with the leader of the insurgents.Garcia was somewhere in the mountain fastnesses of Cuba-no one knew where.No mail or telegraph message could reach him.The president must secure his cooperation, and quick. What to do?

Some one said to the president,"There is a fellow by the name of Rowan who will find Garcia for you,if anyone can."
Rowan was sent for and given a letter to be delivered to Garcia.How the fellow by the name of Rowan took the letter,sealed it up in a pouch,strapped it around his heart,in four days landed by the night off the coast of Cuba from an open boat,disappeared into the jungle,and in 3 weeks came out on the other side of the island,having traveresed a hostile country on foot,and delivered a letter to Garcia- are the things I have no special desire to tell in detail.The point I wish to make is this : McKinley gave Rowan a letter to be delivered to Garcia; Rowan took the letter and did not ask,"Where is he at?"

By the eternal: there is a man whose form should be cast in deathless bronze and the statue placed in every college of the land.It is not book learning young men need, or instruction about this and that,but a stiffening of the vertebrae which will cause them to be loyal to a trust,to act promptly,concentrate their energies: do the thing-"carry the message to Garcia".

General Garcia is dead now,but there are other Garcias.No man who has endeavored to carry out an enterprise where many hands were needed,but has been well high appalled at times by the imbecility of the average man- the inability or unwillingness to concentrate on a thing and do it.
Slipshod assistance,foolish inattention,dowdy indifference,and half-hearted work seem the rule.And no man succeeds,unless by hook or crook,or threat he forces or bribes other men to assist him, or maybe god in his goodness performs a miracle, and sends him an Angel of Light for an assistant.

You can put this matter to the test.You are sitting in your office- 6 clerks within call.Summon anyone of them and request "Please look in the encyclopedia and make a brief memorandum for me concerning the life of Coreggio"
Will the clerk quietly say,"Yes, sir," and go to the task?
On your life he will not! he will look at you out of a fish eye and ask one or more of the following questions :
Who was he?
Which encyclopedia?
Where is the encyclopedia?
Was I hired for that?
Don't you mean Bismark?
Whats the matter with Charlie doing it?
Is he dead?
Is there any hurry?
Shall'nt I bring you the book so you can look it up yourself?
What do you want to know for?

And I will lay you 10 to 1 that after you have answered the questions,and explained how to find the information and why you want it,the clerk will go off and get one of the others to help him try to find coreggio and come back and tell you there is no such man.
Of course I may lose my bet but according to the law of average I will not.Now if you are wise, you will not bother to explain to your "assistant" that Coreggio is indexed under "C" and not under "K", but you will smile sweetly and say,"Never mind", and go look it up your self.And this incapacity for independent action,this moral stupidity,this infirmity of the will,this unwillingness to cheerfully catch hold and lift - these are the things that put pure Socialism so far into the future.If men will not act for themselves,what will they do when the benefit of their effort is for all?

A first mate with a knotted club seems necessary, and the dread of getting "the bounce" saturday night holds many a worker to his place.Advertise for a stenographer,and 9 out of 10 who apply can neither spell nor punctuate-and don't think it necessary to.Can such a one write a letter to Garcia?
"You see that bookkeeper?" said the foreman to me in a large factory. "Yes what about him?"
"Well he's a fine accountant,but if i'd send him upto a town on an errand,he might accomplish the errand alright, on the other hand,might stop at 4 saloons on the way, and when he got to the main street would forget what he had been sent for."

Can such a man be entrusted to carry a message to Garcia?

I know a man of really brilliant parts who has not the ability to manage a business of his own, and yet who is absolutely worthless to anyone else because he carries with him constantly the insane suspicion that his employer is oppressing , or intending to oppress him.He cannot give orders and will not receive them.Should a message be given to him to take to Garcia, his answer would probably be "Take it yourself!"

Tonight this man walks the streets looking for work,the wind whistling through his threadbare coat.No one who knows him dare employ him for he is a regular fire brand of discontent.He is impervious to reason and the only thing that can impress him is the toe of a thick soled number9 boot.

I have carried a dinner-pail,worked for a day's wages and I have also been an employer of labour and I know there is something to be said on both sides.There is no excellence, per se,in poverty; rags are no recommendation; and all employers are not rapacious and high handed,any more than all poor men are virtuous.My heart goes out to the man who does his work when the "boss" is away,as well as home, and the man who, when given a letter for Garcia,quietly takes the missive, without asking any idiotic questions and with no lurking intentions of chucking it into the nearest sewer, or of doing aught else but deliver it,never gets "laid off" , nor has to go on a strike for higher wages.Civilization is one long anxious search for just such individuals.Anything such man asks shall be granted.He is wanted in every city,town,factory,shop and store.The world cries out for such : he is needed and needed badly-the man who can carry a message to Garcia.

So people what do you think? Do you think you can take a message to Garcia?