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    A Message to Garcia and Other Works
    A Message to Garcia and Other Works
    A Message to Garcia and Other Works
    Ebook83 pages1 hour

    A Message to Garcia and Other Works

    By Elbert Hubbard

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    American writer, philosopher, publisher, and artist, Elbert Hubbard, founded the Roycroft Arts and Crafts community in East Aurora, New York. Hubbard set up a small printing shop next to his family home, where he began printing “The Philistine” magazine. The publication, quite popular in its time, was filled with Hubbard’s sardonic wit, satire and often controversial commentary. An 1899 edition of the magazine included “A Message to Garcia”, an inspirational essay celebrating the initiative of Major Andrew Rowan during the Spanish-American War. Hubbard remarked that the essay was written after a discussion with his son Bert about the heroism of Officer Rowan, and what was originally intended as a filler piece for the magazine quickly became an iconic piece of American literature. The essay has been reprinted and translated many times, has inspired screen adaptations, and was given to every U.S. Navy enlistee and U.S. Marine in both world wars. A self described anarchist and socialist, Hubbard believed passionately in freedom in every avenue of life. Along with “A Message to Garcia” fourteen additional essays are included in this representative selection of Hubbard’s works.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDigireads.com Publishing
    Release dateJan 1, 2017
    ISBN9781420955248
    A Message to Garcia and Other Works
    Author

    Elbert Hubbard

    Elbert Hubbard was born in 1856 in Bloomington, Illinois. He was a writer, publisher, and artist who was an influential member of the Arts and Crafts Movement. His best-known work is the short publication A Message to Garcia.

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      Book preview

      A Message to Garcia and Other Works - Elbert Hubbard

      cover.jpg

      A MESSAGE TO GARCIA

      AND OTHER WORKS

      By ELBERT HUBBARD

      A Message to Garcia and Other Works

      By Elbert Hubbard

      Print ISBN 13: 978-1-4209-5523-1

      eBook ISBN 13: 978-1-4209-5524-8

      This edition copyright © 2017. Digireads.com Publishing.

      All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

      Cover Image: a detail of a photograph of Elbert Hubbard, c. 1904. Colorization by Erica Amaral, Digireads.com Publishing copyright 2017.

      Please visit www.digireads.com

      CONTENTS

      Apologia

      A Message to Garcia

      Success

      Life Lies in the Quest

      An Educated Person

      What is a Genius?

      Advantages and Disadvantages

      Remember the Week-Day to Keep it Holy

      Get Out or Get in Line

      Mental Attitude

      Initiative

      One-Man Power

      The Master Man

      The Boy from Missouri Valley

      A Prayer

      Apologia

      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 radioactive.

      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.

      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 with-out 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.

      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.

      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.

      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.

      Other countries then took it up, and from Russia it passed into Germany, France, Spain, Turkey, Hindustan and China. During the war between Russia and Japan, every Russian soldier who went to the front was given a copy of the Message to Garcia.

      The Japanese, finding the booklets in possession of the Russian prisoners, concluded that it must be a good thing, and accordingly translated it into Japanese.

      And on an order of the Mikado, a copy was given to every man in the employ of the Japanese Government, soldier or civilian.

      Over forty million copies of A Message to Garcia have been printed. This is said to be a larger circulation than any other literary venture has ever attained during the lifetime of the author, in all history— thanks to a series of lucky accidents.

      E. H., East Aurora, December 1, 1913.

      A Message to Garcia

      The Philistine, March 1899.

      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 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 message could reach him. The President must secure his co-operation, and quickly.

      What to do!

      Some one said to the President, There is 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 oilskin 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 delivered his letter to Garcia—are things I have no special desire now to tell in detail. The point that 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

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