--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Hubbard, Elbert collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 2 number: 12 published: 1899-10 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: 'Hubbard, Elbert, "A Message to Garcia," *Improvement Era* 2, no. 12 (October 1899): 909–913.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera212unse transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers. identifier: improvementera212unse start_page: 909 end_page: 913 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1899-10) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera212unse publication_year: 1899 note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1899, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # A Message to Garcia MESSAGE TO GARCIA, BY ELBERT HUBBARD. [Elbert Hubbard, through his monthly magazine, The Philistine, has made the little New York village, East Aurora, famous for sensible literature and high class books, although its population does not exceed fifteen hundred people. Besides publishing his tiny magazine, Mr. Hub- bard delights in issuing first-class books, said to be "the embodiment of all that is most exquisite and elevated in taste and refinement in the high art of book-making." But it is to his recent very striking, yet simple, article under the above caption that we wish at this time to call attention. It appeared first in the magazine, was afterwards reprinted in pamphlet form, also in an edition de luxe, and has been sold by the thousands of copies, being also quoted extensively in the press of the country. We reproduce it, and commend its lessons to the young men. Editors.] 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 message could reach him. The president must secure his co-operation, 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, dis- 910 IMPROVEMENT ERA. appeared 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 I wish to make this: McKinley gave Rowan a is 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 or that, but a stiffening of the vertebras which will cause them to be loyal to a trust, to act promptly, concentrate their energies; do the thing — "Carry a mes- sage 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 unwilling- ness 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 your call. Sum- mon any one and make this request, "Please look in the encyclo- pedia 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? A MESSAGE TO GARCIA. 911 Sha'n'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. 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 stupid- ity, 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. "You see that bookkeeper," said the foreman 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 forget what he had been sent for." Can such a man be intrusted to carry a message to Garcia? We have recently been hearing much maudlin sympathy ex- pressed for the "down-trodden denizens of the sweat-shop" and the "homeless wanderer searching for honest employment," and with often goes many hard words for the men in power. it all Nothing is said about the employer who grows old before his time in a vain attempt to get frowzy ne'r-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 con- stantly 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 912 IMPROVEMENT ERA. 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 him 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 street looking for work. 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 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 ingrati- tude 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 some- thing 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-minded 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 A MESSAGE TO GARCIA. 913 chucking it into the nearest sewer, or of doing aught else but de- liver it, never gets "laid off," nor has to go on a strike for higher wages. Civilization is one long, anxious search for just such indi- viduals. 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, and needed badly — the man who can carry a message to Garcia.