A Message to Garcia | Page 2

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 denizen of the sweat-shop" and the "homeless
wanderer searching for honest employment," & 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 with "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 fire-brand of discontent. He is impervious to reason,
and the only thing that can impress him is the toe of a thick-soled No. 9
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, slip-shod
imbecility, and the heartless ingratitude, which, but for their enterprise,

would be both hungry & 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 & 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; & 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 take 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; his kind is so rare that no employer can afford to let him go.
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, & needed
badly- the man who can carry a message to Garcia.
THE END
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