Elbert Hubbard wrote the following article in one hour, at home one
evening, after discussing with his son Bert over dinner, the merits and
identity of the heroes of the Spanish-American War (The Cuban War of
Independence). He subsequently used it as filler in the March 1899
issue of the magazine "The Philistine." Hubbard became astonished when
requests for reprints began to pour in; the rest as they say, is
history! Forty million copies had been made of this article
by 1913; it was translated into every written language. It held the
record for the most circulation of any article during the lifetime of
the author, in all of history. According to comments made by the author
in a 1913 article he wrote about the matter, not long before his death
aboard the Lusitania, a ship torpedoed by the Germans, it is one of the
principal causes of the US entering World War I. Following is the
original article:
A Message To Garcia, by Elbert Hubbard
In all this Cuban business there is one man 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 vastness of Cuba - no one knew where. No mail
nor telegraph message could reach him. The President must secure his
cooperation, and quickly. What to do!
Some one said to the President, "There's a fellow by the name of Rowan who will find Garcia for you, if anybody 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 an
oilskin pouch, strapped it over his heart, in four days landed by night
off the coast of Cuba from an open boat, disappeared into the jungle,
and in three weeks came out on the other side of the Island, having
traversed a hostile country on foot, and delivered his letter to Garcia
- are things I have no special desire now to tell in detail. The point
that 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, nor 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 a message to Garcia!"
General Garcia is
dead now, but there are other Garcia's. No man who has endeavored to
carry out an enterprise where many hands were needed, but has been
well-nigh 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 mayhap, God in
His goodness performs a miracle, and sends him an Angel of Light for an
assistant.
You, reader, put this matter to a test: You are
sitting now in your office - six clerks are within call. Summon any one
and make this request: "Please look in the encyclopedia and make a
brief memorandum for me concerning the life of Correggio." Will the
clerk quietly say, "Yes, sir," and go do the task?
On your life, he will not. He will look at you out of a fishy 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 Bismarck? What's the matter with Charlie doing
it? Is he dead? Is there any hurry? Shan't I bring you the book and let
you look it up yourself? What do you want to know for?
And I
will lay you ten to one 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 other clerks to help him try to find
Garcia - and then 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.
[BB]
Now, if you are wise, you will not bother to
explain to your "assistant" that Correggio is indexed under the C's,
not in the K's, but you will smile very sweetly and say, "Never mind,"
and go look it up yourself. 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 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 nine out of ten who apply can neither spell nor
punctuate - and do not 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 up
town on an errand, he might accomplish the errand all right, and on the
other hand, might stop at four saloons on the way, and when he got to
Main Street would forget what he had been sent for." Can such a man be
entrusted to carry a message to Garcia?
We have recently been
hearing much maudlin sympathy expressed for the "downtrodden denizens
of the sweat-shop" and the "homeless wanderer searching for honest
employment," and with it all often go many hard words for the men in
power.
Nothing is said about the employer who grows old before
his time in a vain attempt to get frowsy ne'er-do-wells to do
intelligent work; and his long, patient striving after "help" that does
nothing but loaf when his back is turned.
In every store and
factory there is a constant weeding-out process going on. The employer
is constantly sending away "help" that have shown their incapacity to
further the interests of the business, and others are being taken on.
No matter how good times are, this sorting continues: only, if times
are hard and work is scarce, the sorting is done finer - but out and
forever out the incompetent and unworthy go. It is the survival of the
fittest. Self-interest prompts every employer to keep the best - those
who can carry a message to Garcia.
I know one man of really
brilliant parts who has not the ability to manage a business of his
own, and yet who is absolutely worthless to any one 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 he
will not receive them. Should a message be given 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 firebrand of discontent. He is impervious to reason, and the
only thing that can impress him is the toe of a thick-soled Number Nine
boot.
Of course I know that one so morally deformed is no less
to be pitied than a physical cripple; but in our pitying, let us drop a
tear, too, for the men who are striving to carry on a great enterprise,
whose working hours are not limited by the whistle, and whose hair is
fast turning white through the struggle to hold in line dowdy
indifference, slipshod imbecility, and the heartless ingratitude which,
but for their enterprise, would be both hungry and homeless.
Have
I put the matter too strongly? Possibly I have; but when all the world
has gone a-slumming I wish to speak a word of sympathy for the man who
succeeds - the man who, against great odds, has directed the efforts of
others, and having succeeded, finds there's nothing in it: nothing but
bare board and clothes. I have carried a dinner pail and worked for
day's wages, and I have also been an employer of labor, 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 when he is at home. And the man who, when
given a letter for Garcia, quietly takes the missive, without asking
any idiotic questions, and with no lurking intention 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 a
man asks shall be granted. He is wanted in every city, town and village
- in every office, shop, store and factory. The world cries out for
such: he is needed and needed badly - the man who can "Carry a Message
to Garcia."
Elbert Hubbard - 1899
Humberto Rodriguez, CLU is a writer, author, programmer, marketer, insurance and financial consultant. Webmaster of several sites, he teaches you how to develop, publish and market your own website. Subscribe to his free newsletter:
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