A Message to Garcia
Lieutenant Andrew
Rowan and General Calixto Garcia in Cuba
Have you ever
asked someone to do something that was very important to you, and they agreed
to do it, but then failed to do it?
How about you? If you agree to
do something for someone, do you do everything in your power to make it happen?
How many people do you know that you can absolutely
count on to do something?
Do you think that others can count on you? Absolutely?
The
world is filled with people who have the best of intentions. They say they’ll do something, they really mean
to do it, but…. it just doesn’t get done.
Oh, they always have an excuse, but you were counting on them.
You probably won’t
count on them again.
Many years ago, when I
started at the U.S. Naval Academy as a plebe, they issued us each a little
booklet, A Message to Garcia, by Elbert Hubbard. We had to memorize this little story, and the
reason was to engrave upon our brains the absolute importance of getting the
job done. Whatever job. If you are assigned a job, and you accept it,
then you do it.
The “Message to
Garcia” was about President William McKinley, facing possible war with Spain over Cuba . He wanted to get a letter to a Cuban
insurgent, high in the mountains of Cuba ,
to communicate the intentions of the United States of America , and to
determine the military situation. He
needed someone he could rely upon to deliver this message, and the name of this
young Army officer, Lieutenant Andrew S. Rowan, came up.
Lieutenant Rowan took
the President’s message, and, after four days of travel through dangerous
terrain, found General Garcia and delivered the message.
There are men and
women every day who are given a task to do, and, without asking a lot of
questions, without any excuses, they go to work, and do the job.
And then there are far
more men and women who do not get the job done.
This event in Cuba happened 114 years ago, but Elbert Hubbard picked up the story and
wrote a preachment that, if you’ve never read it, might make a difference to
you.
Let me share with you
a few paragraphs of A Message to Garcia, so you can see for yourself
this lesson for the ages:
1899
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 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
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 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.
--end of excerpt--
You
can supply for yourself tasks like A Message to Garcia. Certainly when President Obama gave the
approval to carry out the mission to kill Osama bin Laden, he was a assigning
it to men fully capable and willing to carry out the mission. And they did.
Here’s the link to the whole treatise of
A Message to Garcia:
The
Personal Navigator offers these books and papers:
Q. How did the reign of Emperor Henry IV conclude?
A. Pope Pafcal II. in the year one thoufand one hundred and two, again excommunicated him, and inftigated his son, who was afterwards Henry V. to declare war aginft his father, whom he vanquifhed and defspoiled of the empire in the year one thoufand one hundred and fix.
A. Pope Pafcal II. in the year one thoufand one hundred and two, again excommunicated him, and inftigated his son, who was afterwards Henry V. to declare war aginft his father, whom he vanquifhed and defspoiled of the empire in the year one thoufand one hundred and fix.
--Historical Grammar, 1808
Historical
Grammar or a Chronological Abridgement of Universal History, by LaCroze,
translated from the 7th edition of the French by Lucy Peacock. Revised,
corrected and greatly enlarged by Caleb Bingham, A.M., author of the columbian
Orator, American Preceptor, &c. 1808 Boston, MA: Caleb Bingham, No. 44
Cornhill, David Carlisle, printer. 228 pp. 10.8 x 17.6 cm. This is an abridged
history. Part I: From the Creation of the World to the Deluge, 1656 years. Uses
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History/Educational.
Historical Reader, The,
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NH
Hurricane Sept. 21, 1938,
The; Historical and Pictorial, Third Printing by Cawley, William A. 1938 Westerly , RI: Lewis R.
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Il Diritto, L'arma dell'onesto e' la correttezza!
Direttore: Prof. Carlo Francesco Nicolosi, Via Maqueda, 230, Palermo. New York,
Maggio 1925, Anno. XIV-- No. 3 by
Nicolosi, Prof. Carlo Francesco 1925 New York, NY: Istituto Educativo Salesiano
per Orfani di Guerra. Italian-language booklet appeals for contributions
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Indians: Lives of Celebrated American Indians by the
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Irish: Story of the Irish Race, The; A Popular
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Istoriya Frantsuzkoi
Revolutsii --Kultur'no-Istoricheskaya Biblioteka (History of the French
Revolution , from the Cultural-History Library) (In Russian) Edited by K.K.
Arsenev. 1897. St. Petersburg ,
Russia France were swept from power. 438
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Jesuits in North America in
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in North America " by Parkman, Francis
1888. Boston , MA
Jews: The Epic of a People,
The Story of the Jews by Addleson,
Abraham 1943 New York, NY: Bloch Publishing Co. "The Jewish Book
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Journal
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6th of January to Sat. the 12th of March, 1808 Perez Morton, Speaker of the House. Boston ,
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Resolution supporting Government of the United States with regard to action
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La Commune de Paris aujourd'hui, sous la
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Lynn, MA; Proceedings in Lynn, Massachusetts, June 17,
1879 Being the 250th Anniversary of the Settlement, embracing the Oration, by
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History
Madame Tussaud's Exhibition,
Coronation Catalogue, 1937 London , England : Madame Tussaud's Exhibition, adj. Baker
St. Station, London
N.W.1. Special Coronation catalogue, features photos of H.M. King George VI and
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Road . Outline of History of Madame Tussaud's.
Photo of Tussaud's Cinema Lounge where cinema patrons can peruse illustrated
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minor wear to wraps, good. (7523) $30.00. History
Mahomet and His Successors in
two volumes by Irving , Washington
1873 Philadelphia , PA :
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Massachusetts Magazine, The,
A quarterly Magazine Devoted to History, Genealogy and Biography. July, 1908. Waters,
Rev. Thomas Franklin, Editor. 1908 Salem , MA : The Massachusetts
Magazine. "The Idylls of Franklin
County Deerfield Sept. 1,
1675. Attack of Feb. 29, 1704 on Deerfield
settlers by French and Indians. Cover
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Tipped-in photographs of Memorial Building in Deerfield, George Sheldon's Home, also Paul Revere's
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"Robert Luce" by John N. McClintock, with photo. "Colonel
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April 1759. ad for New Ocean House, Swampscott. Ad for American Sewage Disposal
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adv. 18 x 24 cm. Paper periodical, cover lightly soiled, edges frayed, spine
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History/Biography
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