A MESSAGE TO GARCIA
by Elbert Hubbard 1899
姜汤怎么煮In 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 & 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 cure his cooperation, and quickly.
What to do!
牛黄十三味丸
Some one said to the President, "There's a fellow by the name of Rowan will find Garcia for you, if anybody can."
Rowan was nt for and given a letter to be delivered to Garcia. How "the fellow by the name of Rowan" took the letter, aled 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 traverd 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 who 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 cau them to be loyal to a trust, to act promptly, concentrate their energies: do the thing - "Carry a message to Garcia!"
No man, who has endeavored to carry out an enterpri 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 em 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, & nds 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: "Plea 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 yourlf? 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 cour I may lo my bet, but according to the Law of Average, I will not.
Now if you are wi 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 yourlf.
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 themlves, what will they do when the benefit 谁能比我更爱你>落叶落>烙面
of their effort is for all? A first-mate with knotted club ems necessary; and the dread of getting "the bounce" Saturday night, holds many a worker to his place.
Adverti 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 e 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 nd 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 nt for."
Can such a man be entrusted to carry a message to Garcia?
We have recently been hearing much maudlin sympathy expresd for the "downtrodden denizen of the sweat-shop" and the "homeless wanderer arching for honest employment," & with it all often g
o 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 going on. The employer is constantly nding 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 - tho 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 el, becau 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 yourlf." Tonight this man walks the streets looking for work, the wind whistling 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 cour 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 enterpri, who working hours are not limited by the whistle, and who 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 enterpri, would be both hungry & homeless.骆驼祥子故事概括
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 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 , 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 h
ome. 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 wer, or of doing aught el but deliver it, never gets "laid off," nor has to go on a strike for higher wages. Civilization is one long anxious arch 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.
-THE END-
Here is what Hubbard said about the "book" (a 4 page pamphlet which sold for 25 cents a copy) that went over the top with the largest circulation known in the history of the world. (I thought it was the Bible that did that)
"The thing leaped hot from my heart, written after a trying day. The immediate suggestion came from a little argument over the teacups, when my boy Bert (Elbert jr?) suggested that Rowan was the real hero of the Cuban War. Rowan had gone alone and done the thing -- carried a message to Garcia. It came to me like a flash! Yes, the boy is right. The hero is the man who does his work -- who carries t描写节日的古诗
一件快乐的事作文he Message to Garcia. I got up from the table, and wrote "A MESSAGE TO GARCIA". The edition went out and soon orders began to come for extra copies. A dozen, fifty, a hundred, a thousand, and yes, a hundred thousand. Then in half million lots until finally it was translated into nearly every language." (over 100 million copies!)
What did Rowan get? A promotion from Lieutenant to Lieutenant Colonel, a citation 24 years later, and a chance to write his own
story with limited distribution. Mark found a rare copy in the Sutro Library archives which I reprinted here (without permission).
