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(Unmll Hmwjsiitg \ 
 
 
 THE GIFT OF 
 
 
 A^ /3^^/0 
 
 ..IZ^'K 
 
 
 
M1SSAC5E 
 
 iO GakjuiA 
 
 lOI 
 
 H(BS£^NTBDTO 
 OF THE 
 AMERICAN ART 
 ASSddlATION 
 OP PARIS 
 
 -^Rodman Wanauu^er. 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tiiis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924031017589 
 
A,m,37o 
 
Total number of these 
 booklets issued, to Aug. 
 20th, x8gg, six hundred 
 and eighty-one thousand 
 
Copyright 
 1899 
 
 by , 
 
 Elbert Hubbard 
 
A MESSAGE W€ W€ 
 TO GARCIA 
 
 N all this Cuban busi- 
 ness there is one man 
 stands out on the hori- 
 zon of my memory like 
 Mars at perihelion. 
 When war broke out 
 tijetween Spain & the United States, it 
 was very necessary to communicate 
 quickly with the leader of the Insur- 
 gents. Garcia was somewhere in the 
 mountain fastnesses of Cuba — no one 
 knew where. No mail nor telegraph 
 message could reach him. The Presi- 
 dent must secure hi^ co-operation, and 
 quickly. 
 What to do ! 
 
 ..^ Some one said to the President, 
 " There 's a fellow by the name of 
 Rowan will find Garcia for you, if any- 
 body can." 
 Rowan was sent for and given a letter 
 
 The 
 President 
 needed a 
 
 man (\ 
 
 and 
 
 fonnd 
 
 one. 
 
A MESSAGE 
 
 He deUv- 
 ered the 
 message. 
 
 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 hi&letter to Garcia, 
 are things I have no special desire 
 now to tell in detail. 
 The point I wish to make is this : Mc- 
 Kinley gave Rowan a letter to be de- 
 livered to Garcia ; Rowan took the let- 
 ter & 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 «2$ 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 
 
 The 
 Moral. 
 
TO GARCIA 
 
 loyal to a trust, to act promptly, con- 
 centrate 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 car- 
 ry out an enterprise where many ^ 
 hands were needed, but has been well 
 nigh appalled at times by the imbecil- 
 ity of the average man — the inability 
 or unwillingness to concentrate on a 
 thing and do it. 
 
 Slip-shod assistance, foolish inatten- 
 tion, dowdy indifference, & half-heart- 
 ed work sepm 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 
 
 There are 
 
 other 
 
 Garcias. 
 
A MESSAGE 
 
 tbe En 
 cydope' 
 
 one and make this request : " Please 
 look in the encyclopedia and make a 
 Where is brief memorandum for me concerning 
 the life of Correggio." 
 dia! 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 
 
 What's 
 the mat- 
 ter with it ? 
 Churiift 
 
 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 
 
TO GARCIA 
 
 I was n't 
 hired for | 
 that, 
 anyway ! 
 
 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. 
 
 OS Now if you are wise you will not 
 bother to explain to your " assistant " 
 that Cotreggio 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 infirm- 
 ity 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 ? «it 
 A first-mate with knotted club seems 
 
A MESSAGE 
 
 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 Gar- 
 cia? VW 
 
 " You see that book-keeper," 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 
 
 Who 
 wants a 
 maolflce 
 this? 
 
TO GARCIA 
 
 " down-trodden 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 go- 
 ing on oS The employer is constantly 
 sending away " help ' ' that have shown out pro 
 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 sort- 
 ing is done finer — but out and forever 
 out, the incompetent and unworthy go. 
 It is the survival of the fittest. Self- 
 
 The 
 weeding- 
 
A MESSAGE 
 
 This man 
 says 
 limes are 
 scarce. 
 
 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 mes- 
 sage be given him to take to Garcia, 
 his answer would probably be, " Take 
 it yourself, and be damned ! " 
 To-night this man walks the streets 
 looking for work, the wind whistling 
 through his thread-bare 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. 
 
TO GARCIA 
 
 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 enter- 
 prise, whose working hours are not 
 limited by the whistle, and whose hair 
 is fast turning white through the strug- 
 gle to hold in line dowdy indifference, 
 slip-shod imbecility, and the heartless 
 ingratitude, which, but for their enter- 
 prise, would be both hungry & home- 
 less *:^P 
 
 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 thbre 's 
 nothing in it : nothing but bare board 
 and clothes. 
 I have carried a dinner pail & worked 
 
 A 
 
 spiritual 
 cripple. 
 
 A word of 
 S3rmpathy 
 for the 
 man who 
 succeeds. 
 
10 
 
 A MESSAGE 
 
 Rags not 
 necessa- 
 rily a 
 recom- 
 menda- 
 tion. 
 
 Good 
 
 men are 
 
 always 
 
 needed. 
 
 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 pov- 
 erty ; rags are no recommendation ; & 
 all employers are hot 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 takes the missive, 
 without asking any idiotic questions, 
 and with no lurking intention of chuck- 
 ing it into the nearest sewer, or of do- 
 ing 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 individu- 
 als. Anything such a man asks shall 
 be granted ; his kind is so rare that no 
 employer can afford to let him go. He 
 
TO GARCIA 
 
 XX 
 
 is wanted in every city, town and vil- 
 lage — in every office, shop, store and 
 factory J^ The world cries out for 
 such : he is needed, & needed 
 badly — ^the man who can 
 carry a message 
 to Garcia. 
 
 # 
 
 So here then endeth "A Message to 
 Garcia " as done into a booklet by the 
 Roycrofters at the Roycroft Shop, that 
 is in East Aurora, New York, U. S. A. 
 
 Needed 
 to-day ft 
 needed 
 badly— 1 
 I 
 
THE 
 ROrCROFTERS 
 
 ARE A SMALL BAND OF WORK- 
 ERS WHO MAKE BEAUTIFUL 
 BOOKS AND THINGS— MAKING 
 THEM AS GOOD AS THEY CAN. 
 1^ THE PAPER ON WHICH XOY- 
 CjROFT BOOKS ARE PRINTED IS 
 HAND-MADE, & THE INITIALS 
 ARE ILLUMINED BY HAND, SIM- 
 ILAR TO THE FIRST INITIAL IN 
 THIS BOOKLET. 
 
 IF YOU LOVE GOOD BOOKS, A 
 
 CATALOG OF THE ROYCROFT 
 
 WARES MAY INTEREST YOU. 
 
 THE ROYCROFTERS, 
 
 East Aurora, 
 
 N.Y. 
 
o GAka/ 
 
 \4[aTch, caused- thie edition 
 ^i. cx^kauBteSi^ithS'i »iri»i>v 
 t^t, publication 
 printed tbejarticle to< 
 of those Discerning 
 ."tppreciate a good thing, uop 
 bdokl«t form, on." Holland hs< 
 rt&i4t papet, with/one lltumir 
 initial, ptici^ioc ^ach^^Or in qv 
 titles; say ten da^ar? ptfr ;>■ 
 dred. Ojie thoUsanlll <k>pib!i nu 
 bered.ft f ignp4 by.auth6r^bo>' 
 in limp charii"'", sof'n -|i»ji»o 
 luminedl^le- 
 
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 A message to Garcia 
 
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 3 1924 031 017 589 
 
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