A Message to Garcia

by Elbert Hubbard

"A Message to Garcia"
    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 fastnesses of Cuba—no one knew where. No mail or telegraph could reach him. The President must secure his co-operation, and quickly. What to do!

Someone 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 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, and in three weeks came out on the other side of the island, having traversed a hostile country on foot 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 in the land. It is not book-learning young men need, nor instruction about this or 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 tying 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 your 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 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 in his place.

Advertise for a stenographer, and nine times 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 to 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 "down-trodden denizen 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 with "help" that does nothing but loaf when his back is turned. In every store and factory there is a constant we "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, this 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 anyone else, because he carries with him constantly the insane suspicion that his employer is oppressing, or intending to oppress, him. He can not 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 No. 9 boot.

Of course I know that one so morally deformed is no less to be pitied than a physical cripple; but in your 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 the line in 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 a 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 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 strike for higher wages. Civilization is one long anxious search for just such individuals. Anything such a man asks will 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, and needed badly — the man who can "Carry a Message to Garcia."

Initiative

By Elbert Hubbard

THE WORLD BESTOWS ITS BIG PRIZES, both in money and honors, for but one thing. And that is Initiative.

What is Initiative? I'll tell you: It is doing the right thing without being told.

But next to doing the thing without being told is to do it when you are told once. That is to say, carry the Message to Garcia: those who can carry a message get high honors, but their pay is not always in proportion.

Next, there are those who never do a thing until they are told twice: such get no honors and small pay.

Next, there are those who do the right thing only when Necessity kicks them from behind, and these get indifference instead of honors, and a pittance for pay. This kind spends most of its time polishing a bench with a hard-luck story.

Then, still lower down in the scale than this, we have the fellow who will not do the right thing even when some one goes along to show him how and stays to see that he does it: he is always out of a job, and receives the contempt he deserves, unless he happens to have a rich Pa, in which case Destiny patiently awaits around the corner with a stuffed club.

To which class do you belong?
 

A Message to Salespeople

by Darren VanCleave 

Elbert Hubbard understood that successful people get things done.  He cared less about the process and more about the individuals who were willing to take on the challenge and do what it took to achieve success.  Too many of us today are focused on the 10 steps for doing this or the 50 ways to do that.  We want to read and understand the instructions before we take the first step.  Then, when we fail, we blame those instructions for being unclear.

Hubbard’s message to us is clear.  If you want to be a success in life, you must get the important jobs done.  You must get them done! No excuses, no whining.  He didn’t say that you had to do it alone, but that ultimately you must do what it takes to complete the task.

If Colonel Rowan was a sales rep, he would get to see the CEO.  He would find out who his competition was.  He would make enough calls to find enough prospects to make enough presentations to close enough sales to make the monthly goal.  And if he did not know how, he would seek out the advice he needed without waiting for his company to offer a free training program.

Rowans call me all the time.  They find me on the web or meet me at a seminar, and they ask specific questions.  I know they are Rowans when they immediately apply what they learn and reach their goals.  The world is waiting for more people like Colonel Rowan.  They will never be unemployed.  They will never be broke (for long).  They will always be in demand.

Are you a Colonel Rowan?  Can you get the message to Garcia?

It’s up to you.  Do what it takes!

Biographies:

Elbert Hubbard:  A renowned philosopher, author, editor and lecturer of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.  In 1895, he founded the Roycrofters, a semi-communal community of artists and craftspeople, in East Aurora, NY.  He and his wife were lost at sea, May 7, 1915, while traveling to England aboard the ill-fated Lusitania.

Calixco y Ingues Garcia:  A Cuban revolutionist and a leader in the Cuban insurrection against Spain (Ten Years War 1868-78).  He was captured and imprisoned for his activities until its end in 1878.  After his release he was again arrested.  In 1895, he came to the United States and as the leader of the Cuban Insurgents, played an important role in the United States war with Spain.  He died in Washington, D.C. in 1898 while there as part of a committee to discuss Cuban affairs with President McKinley.

Colonel Andrew Summers Rowan:  An American Army Officer and graduate of West Point class of 1881.  After his service in the Spanish American War, he served in the Philippines and posts in the United States, retiring in 1909.  He died in 1943.  Rowan did write his own story of this famous account entitled “How I Carried the Message to Garcia.”