BOYS' OWN COLUMN.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 146, 22 June 1929, Page 2 (Supplement)

BOYS' OWN COLUMN.

MESSAGE TO GARCIA. A FAMOUS STORY RETOLD. Dear Doys, — Only yesterday I re-vead for the hundredth time that splendid story "A Message to Garcia." It has been printed and reprinted a thousand times in a thousand languages, and because of its lesson, and in case you have never read it, I print it again because it should never be forgotten. 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-opsration, and quickly. What to do? Someone said to the President: There is a young 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 oilskin 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, 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, but a stiffening of the vertebrae, which will cause them to be loyal to a trust, to act promptly, concentrate ttheir energies; do the thing. And the man who, when given a letter for Garcia,, quietly takes the message without asking any idiotic questions, and with no lurking intention of doing aught else but deliver it, never ha* to go on strike for higher wages. Mr. Elbert Hubbard, who wrote for the world the story of Lieut. Rowan, also said, "The world cries out for such; he is needed, and needed badly—the man who can carry a message to Garcia." In these days of unemployment it is the boy and man who is [ IS capable of carrying a message to Garcia who will secure a position, hold the job he is In.