A MESSAGE TO GARCIA.

Marlborough Express, Volume XLIII, Issue 100, 26 April 1909, Page 2

A MESSAGE TO GARCIA.

A STRIKING PROTEST AGAINST THE SLACKNESS OF THE TIMES.

(By Elbert Hubbard.)

When Avar broke out between Spain and the (Jnited 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 nor telegraph message 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." t>

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

ion 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 to now tell in detail.

The point I wish to make is this: i 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 i deathless bronze and* the statute placed in every college in the land. It is not book-learning young men need, nor instruction about this ?nd that, but a stiffening of the vertebrse 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 endeavoured to carry out an enterprise where many hands were needed, but has been fti-11 nigh appalled at times by the imbecility of the average man; —the inability or unwillingness to concentrate on a thing and do it. Slipshod assistance, foolish inattention, dowdy indifference, and halfhearted work seem the rule; and no man succeeds unless by hook or cvook or throat he .forces or bribes other men to assist him, or mayhap, God in His goodness performs a miracle, and sends j 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 ehcyslopsedia and make a brief memorandum for me concerning the life of ' Cor-

leggio.'" ' Will the clerk quietly say: '' s\?s, sir," and go to the task? On your life he will not. > Fie v,-iJI look at you out of a fishy eye p.nd ask one or more of the following questions: ' ' Who was he?

Which encyclopedia ? Where is the encyclopaedia? Was I hired for that? - Don't you mean Bismarck? What's ithe matter with Charlie doing it? Is he dead?

Is there any hurry? Shall 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 X's, but you will smile sweetly and say, " Never mind," and go and 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, these are the things that put pure Socialism so far into the future. If men will not act for themselvesj what will they do when the benefit of their effort is for all? A first mate with 'knotted club seenis necessary; and the dread of getting "the bounce" on Saturday night holds many a worker in 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 be 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 wh<> grows old before his time in a vain attempt to get frowsy ne'er-do-wells to do intelligent work; and his Jong-, patient striving with "help ' that does nothing but loaf when his back is turned, fu every store and factory there is a constant weedmgout process going on. The employer, is constantly sending away •help that have shown their incapacity to further the interests of the biisiness, 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 for ever 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. Should a message be given him to take to Garcia, his answer would probably be, " Take it yourself!"

To-night this man walks the streets looking for work, the wind whistling through his threadbare coat. No one who knows him dare employ him, for ho is a regular firebrand of diacontent. He is impervious to reason, and the only thing that can impress

him is the toe of a thick-soled number nine 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 ingratitude which, but for their enterprise, would be both hungry and homeless. Have I put the matter too strongly ? Possibly I have; but when ail the world has gone a-slumming, I wish to speak a word of sympathy for the man who isucceeds—the man who, against great odds, has directed the efforts of others, and having succeeded, finds there's nothing m it— nothing but bare boards and clothes. I have carried a dinner pail and worked for a day's wages, and have also been an employer of labour, 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 at home.

And the man who, when given a .letter to 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 elso but deliver it, never gets '.'laid off," nor has to go on a strike for nigher wages.

Civilisation is one long, anxious search for just such individual. 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 raid 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. .