An ounce of loyalty is worth a pound of intelligence, Elbert Hubbard

This is a prime example of an attitude to challenge that I know. History or story widely reported since the nineteenth century, inspires us to take action, from truth to the action. I hope you enjoy!

Time reading this post: 10 min.

Below is the text of Elbert Hubbard, 1899:

In all this Cuban, one man stands out on the horizon of my memory like Mars at perihelion. When war broke out between Spain and the United States, what mattered to them was to communicate quickly with the leader of the insurgents, Garcia, known to be in a stronghold within the interior of Cuba, but no one could to indicate exactly where. It was impossible to communicate with him by mail or telegraph. However, the President had to deal with to ensure their cooperation, and that as soon as possible. What to do?

Someone said to the President: "There is a man named Rowan, and if anyone is able to find Garcia, Rowan has to be."

Rowan was brought before the President, who entrusted him with a letter with the task of delivering it to Garcia. Of how this man, Rowan took the letter, put it in a waterproof casing, tied it on his chest, and after four days, jumped in a boat without a deck, high night off the coast of Cuba; how to plunged into the wilderness, and then three weeks came across the island, having traversed a hostile country on foot and delivered his letter to Garcia - are things that do not matter recount in detail here. 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?".

Hosannah! Here is a man whose form should be cast in imperishable bronze and the statue placed in every school in the country. It is not bookish wisdom that young people need, nor instruction about this or that. Accurate, yes, a hardening of the vertebrae in order to show themselves proud in the exercise of a trust, to act promptly to do the trick, for, in short, carry a message to Garcia.

General Garcia is no longer of this world, but there are other Garcias. No man who has endeavored to carry out an enterprise in which the help of many hands were needed, have been spared moments of real despair at the idiocy of many men, given the inability or unwillingness to concentrate the mind a particular thing, and do it.

Irregular assistance, foolish inattention, indifference annoying and sloppy work seem the rule. No man can be truly successful unless they resort to all means at its disposal either of force or bribery, to force other men to help him, unless God Almighty, in his great mercy, do a miracle by sending him the aid of a angel of light.

Dear reader, you can even take the test. You are sitting in your office, surrounded by half a dozen employees. Well, one of them calls and asks him: "Please be so kind to check out the encyclopedia and make me a brief description of the life of Correggio."

Could it be the case with the clerk quietly say, "Yes, Lord" and perform what is asked?

Not so! You will look puzzled and sideways to make one or more of the following questions:

Who is he?

What encyclopedia?

Where is the encyclopedia? Was I hired to do this?

Do not you mean Bismarck?

And if Charles did?

Is he dead?

Is there any hurry?

Is it not better that I bring the book to look for yourself what you want?

What do you want to know?

And I bet ten to one that after you have answered the questions, and explained how to find the requested data and why you need them, your employee will ask a mate to help him find Garcia and then come back to tell you that no such man exists. Of course, I may lose the bet, but according to the law of averages, right in the game. Now, if you're wise, do not you give the time to explain to your "assistant" that Correggio is written in "C" and not "K", but merely to say Thou shalt softly, drawing the best smile. "It's okay, do not bother," and that said, Thou shalt rise up and look yourself. And this incapacity for independent action, this moral ineptitude, the invalidity of the will, the disposition of this atrophy is diligently to field and act - are things going back to a future so remote the advent of pure socialism. If men do not take the initiative to act on his own behalf, they will do when the result of their efforts redound to the benefit of all? For now it seems that men still need to be doers. What has often employed in their place and makes it work is the fear of not doing so, be dismissed at the close of the month. Announces need a stenographer, and nine out of ten candidates for the vacancy will not know spelling or score - and, what is more, they think they do not need to know.

Can such a one write a letter to Garcia?

- You see that bookkeeper?, Told me the head of a large factory.

- Yes, do you have?

- It is an excellent bookkeeper. However, if I send them, make a note, perhaps you release him to the satisfaction of the commission, but it could well be that the path entered in two or three houses of drinks, and that when they arrived at their destination, no longer recall the assignment given him.

Be trusted to such a man to deliver a letter to Garcia?

Lately we have heard a lot of sentimental expressions expressing sympathy for the poor beings who toil from dawn to dusk, to the unfortunate unemployed in search of honest work, and all this almost always interspersed with many hard words to men who are in power.

Nothing is said about the employer who grows old before his time in a vain effort to induce eternal bitter and unhappy to work conscientiously, nothing is said of his long and patient demand for staff, which, however, often does nothing more than "killing time "as soon as his back is turned. There is no company that is not expended staff is unable to look after their interests in order to replace it with something more apt. And this process of selection by elimination is constantly operating in adverse times, the only difference being that when times are bad and work is scarce, the selection is done finer, putting off forever, the incompetent and unusable. It is the law of survival of the fittest. Every employer in its own interest, just about saving the best - those who can carry a message to Garcia.

I know one man of really brilliant skills, but without the fiber needs to manage a business and, furthermore becomes completely useless to anyone else because of the insane suspicion that constantly holds that his employer is oppressing, or intending to oppress him. Unable to send, will not tolerate anyone to send. If you were entrusted with a message to Garcia, his answer would probably be, "Take it yourself."

Today this man wanders the streets wandering in search of work in nearly petition misery. However, anyone who knows you venture to give you job because he is the personification of the spirit of discontent and replica. Refractory to any advice or admonition, the only thing it can produce some effect would be given a good kick with the tip of a No. 42 boot, thick soles and spout.

I know, no doubt, that a morally deformed like this, there is less to be pitied than a physical cripple. However, this demonstration of compassion, also shed a tear for the men who strive to carry out a large enterprise, whose working hours are not limited by the sound of the whistle, and whose hair prematurely whitened are on the constant struggle we are engaged against the indifference contemptuous against the crass stupidity and ingratitude atrocious, just those who, without their enterprise, would be both hungry and homeless.

Could it be the case that I have painted the situation too strongly? Maybe yes, but when everyone is pleased to launch ramblings want a word of sympathy for the man who succeeds to a business, the man who, despite a lot of impediments, can direct and coordinate the efforts of others and that after the triumph, perhaps check that nothing gained, nothing except their mere subsistence.

Also I carried lunch pails and worked as a journeyman, as I also have been an employer. I know therefore, that any thing can be said on both sides.

There is excellence in poverty per se; rags are no recommendation. Not all bosses are greedy and tyrants, just as all poor men are virtuous.

All my sympathies belong to the man who works conscientiously, whether the employer is or not. And the man who, when given a letter for Garcia, quietly takes the missive, without asking questions stupid, and no lurking intention of throwing it in the gutter to find the first, or take any other feat that is not delivering it the recipient, this man ever gets "laid off" nor has to be declared on strike to force a salary increase.

Civilization anxious search for man in these conditions. All we ask such a man, you will be granting. He is wanted in every city, every village, every hamlet, in every office, every shop, every shop, factory or sale. The cry of the world pretty much boils down this: One must and needs with the urgency of a man who can carry a message to Garcia.

Take and read the letter from the author, written in December 1, 1913, on the impact of his writing, which at the time of creation had little claim:

This literary trifle, A Message To Garcia, I wrote it one evening after dinner in an hour. It was February 22, 1899, Washington's birthday, and the number of our magazine's March "Philistine" was about to enter the press. I found myself in the mood to write, and the article comes spontaneously from my heart, written, as it was, one day after painstaking, during which some residents had sought to convince a reluctant either place, they should get out of the comatose state in which pleasure, striving to instill in them radioactivity.

The original idea, however, came to me from a little argument with my son Bert ventilated when we go for coffee, when he sought that Rowan was the real hero of the Cuban War. Rowan had gone alone and done the thing - carried the message to Garcia. What bright spark, the idea took possession of my mind. It is true, I told myself, the guy is absolutely right, the hero is one who does the job that carries the message to Garcia.

I got up from the table and wrote "A Message to Garcia" in one sitting. However I called so little importance to this article, which ran it in the Magazine without a heading. Shortly after the edition went out of print, came pouring requests for extra copies of the March "Philistine": a dozen, fifty, one hundred, and when the American News Company ordered a thousand, I asked one of my helpers which the article had raised the cosmic dust.

- This Garcia - replied to me.

The next day a telegram came from George H. Daniels, the Central Railroad of New York, saying: "Give price on one hundred thousand copies of the article on Rowan booklet form, with ads on the back of the railroad. 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 us an awful undertaking.

The result was that gave Mr. Daniels permission to reprint the article in his own way. He did so then in the form of leaflets and distributed them in such profusion that, two or three editions of half a million sold out quickly. In addition, the article was reprinted in over two hundred magazines and newspapers. It has been translated, so to speak, in all languages ​​spoken.

It happened that just when Mr. Daniels was doing the distributing A Message To Garcia, Prince Hilakoff, Director of Russian Railways, was in this country. He was the guest of the Central Railroad of New York, traveling throughout the country under Mr. Daniels. The prince saw the book and was interested more by the very fact that Mr. Daniels who was out in big quantity, which properly for any other reason.

In any event, when the prince returned to his homeland to translate the brochure into Russian and deliver a copy to each employee of the railroad in Russia. The was soon imitated by other countries, from Russia it passed into Germany, France, Turkey, Hindustan and China. During the war between Russia and Japan, was given a copy of "Message to Garcia" every Russian soldier who went to the front.

The Japanese, finding the booklets in possession of the Russian prisoners, concluded that he should be a good thing, and not slow to pour it into Japanese. By order of the Mikado a copy was given to each employee, civilian or military, the Japanese government.

For over forty million copies of "A Message to Garcia" have been printed, which is undoubtedly the largest circulation ever attained by any literary work during the life of the author, thanks to a series of lucky accidents.