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A Message to Garcia
"Delivering the Message"
by Elbert Hubbard
March, 1899
The
cover of "A Message To Garcia" & a link to the Roycrofters, the handicraft
community founded by Elbert Hubbard
 "Since my own discovery of a tattered, tiny booklet in 1985,
the "message" has been a part of my service to others. My copy had been
carried by sailor named A. Lee Golden and was dated, in his hand, as 10
December 1923. It is my hope that seaman Golden carried the message."
Jack Selway, Pueblo, CO
ELBERT HUBBARD
penned his classic essay, A Message to Garcia" in one hour after a
dinnertime discussion with his family. At dinner, Hubbard's son, Bert,
claimed that the true hero of a particular Spanish-American war battle was
Rowan -- a messenger who braved death by carrying a note behind the lines to
Garcia, the leader of the insurgents.
The essay originally ran in Hubbard's magazine, The Philistine, in February,
1899. Inspired by its message, George Daniels of the New York Central
Railroad asked permission to reprint and distribute 500,000 copies. Prince
Hilakoff, Director of Russian Railways, read one of Daniel's reprints and
had it translated into Russian. A Message to Garcia was distributed to every
one of his railroad employees.
The Russian military then picked up the ball: each Russian soldier sent to
the Japanese front was given a copy. The Japanese found the essay in the
possession of the Russian prisoners and subsequently had it translated into
Japanese. On an order of the Mikado, a copy was given to each member of the
Japanese government.
Ultimately, forty million copies of A Message To Garcia were published.
The story:
 n all
this Cuban business there is one man stands out on the horizon of my memory
like Mars at perihelion. 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
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."
Rowan was sent for and given a letter to be delivered to Garcia. How "the
fellow by 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, and in three weeks came
out on the other side of the island, having traversed a hostile country on
foot, and having 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 in the land. It is not book-learning
young men need, nor instruction about this or 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!"
Continued please, page two |
