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How to send a message to Garcia 怎样把信送给加
西亚
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 vastness of Cuba-no one knew where.
No mail nor telegraph message could reach him.
The president must secure his cooperation,and
quickly.
What to do!
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 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 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,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?”
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 men need,nor instruction about
this and that,but a stiffening of the
vertebrae which will cause them to be loyal to
a trust,to act promptly,concentrate their
energies:do the thing-“carry a message to
Garcia!”
General Garcia is dead now,but there are
other Garcias.No man who has endeavored to
carry out an enterprise 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.
Slipshod assistance,foolish inattention,
dowdy indifference,and half-hearted work seem
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 s miracle,and sends him an
angel of light for an assistant.
You put this matter to a test:
You are sitting now in your office-six clerks
are all within call.Summon any one and make
this request:“please 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?What ’s the matter with
George doing it?Is he dead?Is there any
hurry?Shan ’t I bring you the book and let
you look it up yourself?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 course I may lose the bet,but
according to the law of average,I will not.
This incapacity for independent action,this
moral stupidity,this infirmity of the will,
this unwillingness to cheerfully catch hold
and lift –these are the things that put pure
socialism so far into the future.If men will
not act for themselves,what will they do when
the benefit of their effort is for all?
My heart goes out to the man who does his work
when the “boss ”is away,as well as when he
is at home.And the man who,when given a
letter for Garcia,quietly takes the mission,
without asking any idiotic questions,and with
no lurking intention of chucking it into the
nearest sewer,or of doing aught else but
deliver it,never gets “laid off ”nor has to
go on a strike for higher wages.
Anything such a man asks shall be granted.He
is wanted in every city,town and village and
in every office,shop,store and factory.The
world cries out for such:he is needed and
needed badly-the man who can “carry a
message to Garcia ”.