Can You "Carry A Message to Garcia?"

Elbert Hubbard
1856-1915

In 1899, an American writer and philosopher named Elbert Hubbard, published an essay entitled: A Message to Garcia.

Within a few short years, Hubbard's essay became very famous. It eventually sold millions of copies and was translated into several different languages. While a number of the essay's historical details have since been proven inaccurate, the message contained in Hubbard's folk classic remains perennially valuable as it teaches important SAL character traits such as dependability, loyalty, and proactivity. 

As a professional contract trainer, I used to read excerpts of this classic to audiences when its subject matter was relevant to the topic on which I was training. 

I share these same excerpts with readers today as a means of establishing this piece of American literature as a SAL curriculum classic, not for the sake of its historical accuracy, but for the intrinsic value of its core message. Simply stated, self-action leaders are the kind of people who can be consistently depended upon and trusted to "Carry a Message to Garcia" whenever and wherever called upon to do so.  

Can YOU carry a message to Garcia?

A Message to Garcia  

By: Elbert Hubbard

In all this Cuban business there is one man [who] stands out on the horizon of my memory like Mars at perihelion. When war broke out between Spain & the United States [in 1898], it was very necessary to communicate quickly with the leader of the Insurgents. Garcia was somewhere in the mountain fastnesses of Cuba—[but] no one knew where. No mail or telegraph message could reach him. The President [needed to] ... secure his co-operation, and quickly.

What to do!

Someone said to the President [William McKinley], "There is 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 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: [President] McKinley gave Rowan a letter to be delivered to Garcia; Rowan took the letter & 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 [people] need, nor instruction about this and that, but a stiffening of the vertebræ 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 to 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 for 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. ...

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 chucking it into the nearest sewer, or do doing [anything] else but deliver it, [that person] never gets "laid off," nor has to go on a strike for higher wages. Civilization is one long anxious search for just such individuals. 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, & needed badly—the man who can carry a message to Garcia."

Sinking of the RMS Titanic
April 15, 1912

Historical Note:  After the disastrous sinking of the RMS Titanic on April 15, 1912, Elbert Hubbard wrote an essay about one of its passengers, a Mrs. Ida Strauss, who refused to leave her husband, opting to die aboard the vessel with him instead of boarding one of the limited safety boats offered to the women and children. Impressed by the courage of Mrs. Strauss and the deep love she shared with her husband, Hubbard effusively lauded their story of love and courage in his article. 

Wrote he:

"Mr. and Mrs. Struas, I envy you the legacy of love and loyalty left to your children and grandchildren. The calm courage that was yours all your long and useful career was your possession in death. You knew how to do three great things—you knew how to live, how to love and how to die. One thing is sure ... to pass out as did Mr. and Mrs. Isador Straus is glorious. Few have such a privilege. Happy lovers, both. In life they were never separated and in death they are not divided."  

Sinking of the RMS Lusitania
May 7, 1915

Amazingly, Hubbard and his own wife would eventually get their chance to follow in the precise footsteps of the Strauss's, proving that history turns on the hinges of harbingers. Three years later, in 1915, Elbert Hubbard was aboard the RMS Lusitania on his way to Europe to report on the events of the Great War. His wife was with him when their ship was torpedoed by a German U-boat, thereby affording Alice and Elbert the unique opportunity to die in each other's arms at sea—just as the Strauss's had done three years and one month previously.  

Now THAT is a TRUE LOVE STORT that is as true and tender as it is tragic!  

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At Freedom Focused, we champion classical virtues such as dependability, loyalty, and proactivity—the kinds of virtues that marked Rowan in Hubbard's classic essay, as well as the Mr. and Mrs. Hubbard and Strauss.

We also value respect for authority—as long as that authority acts, speaks, and delegates in accordance with principles of integrity and virtue. In other words, unless one's boss is truly exercising unrighteous dominion over his or her subordinates, then subordinates have a duty to follow the directions and carry out the tasks delegated by their supervisors.  

We live in a world where many classical virtues, including respect for authority, has eroded significantly throughout our culture. In some cases, this is the fault of unprincipled leadership, or even a complete lack of leadership. But in other cases, it is the result of unprincipled followership, including the arrogance that comes with an unjust sense of entitlement. It is our sincere hope that the work we do will influence a return to those classical virtues that marked those heralded in today's blog post.   

—Dr. JJ

February 15, 2023
Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, USA

Author's Note: This is the 308th Blog Post Published by Freedom Focused LLC since November 2013 and the 134th consecutive weekly blog published since August 31, 2020.   

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