Can You Carry a Message to Garcia?

Cuba was once a colony of Spain. However, by the late 1800’s a growing revolutionary movement made it clear that Cuba was about to declare its independence from Spanish rule. The United States had economic interests in Cuba, and as conditions became increasingly disorderly and the welfare of U.S. citizens was threatened, President William McKinley sent a ship, the USS Maine, to Havana to ensure their safety. While in the Havana harbor, the Maine mysteriously blew up and sank, taking the lives of 266 sailors. Soon the U.S. demanded that Spain withdraw from Cuba and allow Cuba its independence. Spain responded by cutting diplomatic relations with the U.S., and then the U.S. Navy began a blockade of Cuba. That was when Spain declared war on the United States, starting the conflict known as the Spanish-American War. Spanish soldiers fought against the Cuban revolutionaries as well as U.S. forces in Cuba.

The information mentioned above will help you better understand the setting of the now-famous article titled “A Message to Garcia.” President McKinley needed to send a very important message to a Cuban general by the name of Garcia. Colonel Andrew Summers Rowan was chosen for the task. His incredible success led a writer by the name of Elbert Hubbard to write “A Message to Garcia.” Its message is timeless. Here it is:



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 [the point in its orbit when the planet Mars is closest to the sun]. When war broke out between Spain & the United States, it was very necessary to communicate quickly with the leader of the Insurgents. Garcia was somewhere in the mountain vastness of Cuba- no one
knew where. No mail nor telegraph message could reach him. The President must secure his cooperation, 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." 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 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 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’erdo- 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.

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 streets looking for work, the wind histling through his threadbare coat. No one who knows him dare employ him, for he is a regular fire-brand 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, slip-shod imbecility, and the heartless ingratitude, which, but for their enterprise, would be both hungry & 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 & worked for day’s wages, and I have also been an employer of labor, and I know there is something to be said on both sides. There is no excellence, per se, in poverty; rags are no recommendation; & 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 for Garcia, quietly take the missive, without asking any idiotic questions, and with no lurking intention of chucking it into the nearest sewer, or of doing aught else but deliver it, 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.

God Speaks to His Prophets Today

While doing research for an essay about the nature of God, I wanted to see for myself the kind of God that traditional Christianity believes in. So I visited "the world's largest Bible study website" and found the following statement:

“The Mormons claim God is a perfect exalted man with a literal flesh and bones body. As man is, God once was, and as God is, man can be. This is also at the heart of New Age thinking, but it’s a far cry from the revelation of God in the Bible.”

There you have it: if it’s not in the Bible it cannot be true. For that writer and the rest of traditional Christianity, the Bible is not only the word of God, it is all the word of God there is. If you tell them that God has spoken to man in our day and continues to do so, their response is, “You are sorely mistaken. Revelation ceased with the Bible.” When we reply, “But God Himself has spoken! We have eyewitness accounts!” they will still not believe.This is not the first time people have denied that revelation exists. Many felt that way about the Biblical prophets. and even about Jesus.

Joseph Fielding McConkie gives a perfect illustration of this audacity, citing “an exchange between a friend and a scholar of another faith . . . My friend was challenged with the statement that there is no way in all the world that Latter-day Saints could ever justify the practice of polygamy. ‘Look,’ my friend responded, ‘if the God of heaven personally appeared to you and directed you to practice polygamy, wouldn’t you do it?’ ‘No,’ was the response,’ even if God himself commanded it, I would not do it, because it is not found in the Bible!’” (Here We Stand, 47). [Note: The reference to polygamy was only used as an example. It does not mean that Latter-day Saints condone or practice polygamy today. We do not.]

Traditional Christianity boldly and unashamedly looks the God of all Creation in the eye and says, “While it's true that we teach our followers that you are an All-Powerful God, don't think that you can just barge in here and start revealing your will to prophets in our day. You’re finished speaking. You’ve had your chance. From now on, we’re in charge.”

People don’t reject prophets because of a disbelief in God. What rubs them the wrong way is the idea of God sending living prophets to them! To paraphrase a statement by Truman Madsen: “Living prophets can get involved in your life, changing it, giving specific commandments and counsels, rebuking, approving or disapproving. But prophets long dead stay out of your hair.”

What a blessing it is to know that the heavens are open and that God still reveals His will to prophets in our day. That's not audacity! That's not blasphemy! After all, doesn't God love us just as much as His children were loved in ages past? Then why not prophets in our day? 

The prophet Amos declared, "Surely the Lord God will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret to his servants the prophets" (Amos 3:7). Unfortunately, traditional Christianity has added the following disclaimer: "Sorry--this offer had a limited shelf life and has since expired. God only had power to reveal His will to prophets during Biblical times. That power has run out and no longer applies. You will just have to blindly grope your way through life without the aid of living prophets. But if you have any questions, we're here to help."

An ancient prophet saw our day and declared: “Wo be unto him that shall say: We have received the word of God, and we need no more of the word of God, for we have enough!” (2 Nephi 28:29).