A Message to Garcia

A Message to Garcia
by Elbert Hubbard
1899
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 & 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 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
oil-skin 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, &
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 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 Garcias.
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. Slip-shod assistance, foolish
inattention, dowdy indifference, & 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, & 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.
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 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,
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