A Message to Garcia Being a Preachment   By: Elbert Hubbard (1856-1915)

Being a Preachment

by

Elbert Hubbard.

[Illustration: Elbert Hubbard]

[Illustration]

Done into a Printed Book by the Roycrofters at Their Shop, Which Is in East Aurora, Erie County, N.Y. Copyright 1914 by Elbert Hubbard

APOLOGIA

HORSE SENSE

If you work for a man, in Heaven's name work for him. If he pays wages that supply you your bread and butter, work for him, speak well of him, think well of him, and stand by him, and stand by the institution he represents. I think if I worked for a man, I would work for him. I would not work for him a part of his time, but all of his time. I would give an undivided service or none. If put to the pinch, an ounce of loyalty is worth a pound of cleverness. If you must vilify, condemn, and eternally disparage, why, resign your position, and when you are outside, damn to your heart's content. But, I pray you, so long as you are a part of an institution, do not condemn it. Not that you will injure the institution not that but when you disparage the concern of which you are a part, you disparage yourself. And don't forget "I forgot" won't do in business.

[Sidenote: A trying day ]

This literary trifle, "A Message to Garcia," was written one evening after supper, in a single hour. It was on the Twenty second of February, Eighteen Hundred Ninety nine, Washington's Birthday, and we were just going to press with the March "Philistine." The thing leaped hot from my heart, written after a trying day, when I had been endeavoring to train some rather delinquent villagers to abjure the comatose state and get radio active.

[Sidenote: The real hero of the war]

The immediate suggestion, though, came from a little argument over the teacups, when my boy Bert suggested that Rowan was the real hero of the Cuban War. Rowan had gone alone and done the thing carried the message to Garcia.

[Sidenote: The increasing demand]

It came to me like a flash! Yes, the boy is right, the hero is the man who does his work who carries the message to Garcia. I got up from the table, and wrote "A Message to Garcia." I thought so little of it that we ran it in the Magazine without a heading. The edition went out, and soon orders began to come for extra copies of the March "Philistine," a dozen, fifty, a hundred; and when the American News Company ordered a thousand, I asked one of my helpers which article it was that had stirred up the cosmic dust.

"It's the stuff about Garcia," he said.

[Sidenote: George H. Daniels]

The next day a telegram came from George H. Daniels, of the New York Central Railroad, thus: "Give price on one hundred thousand Rowan article in pamphlet form Empire State Express advertisement on back also how soon can ship."

I replied giving price, and stated we could supply the pamphlets in two years. Our facilities were small and a hundred thousand booklets looked like an awful undertaking.

The result was that I gave Mr. Daniels permission to reprint the article in his own way. He issued it in booklet form in editions of half a million. Two or three of these half million lots were sent out by Mr. Daniels, and in addition the article was reprinted in over two hundred magazines and newspapers. It has been translated into all written languages.

[Sidenote: Prince Hilakoff]

At the time Mr. Daniels was distributing the "Message to Garcia," Prince Hilakoff, Director of Russian Railways, was in this country. He was the guest of the New York Central, and made a tour of the country under the personal direction of Mr. Daniels. The Prince saw the little book and was interested in it, more because Mr. Daniels was putting it out in such big numbers, probably, than otherwise.

[Sidenote: The Russian railroad men]

In any event, when he got home he had the matter translated into Russian, and a copy of the booklet given to every railroad employee in Russia.