A Message to Garcia
| Author | Elbert Hubbard |
|---|---|
| Published | 1899 |
| Format | Article |
| Original | Read the original |
TL;DR — Elbert Hubbard’s 1899 essay praising Lt. Rowan, who carried a letter to a Cuban rebel leader without asking questions, as the model of initiative and reliability.
Written by Elbert Hubbard and first published in his magazine The Philistine in 1899. Hubbard retells how, at the start of the Spanish–American War, Andrew Rowan was given a letter for the insurgent leader Calixto García, somewhere in the Cuban mountains, and delivered it without asking where García was or how to reach him.
The rest of the essay contrasts Rowan with the “slipshod assistance” Hubbard says employers usually get, and calls for workers who take a task and carry it through. It was reprinted in enormous numbers by businesses and the military and became a staple of management and self-help reading.
What it is: a short, hugely reprinted motivational essay; a cultural artifact rather than history. This is a three-page typeset copy.
Where this came from
- A copy saved in October 2026.
- Original source: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/17195
- Archived copy (Google Drive): Google Drive
3 pages. A copy is archived locally against link rot; the header links the original source.