Message to Garcia

Who Was Garcia?

Elbert Hubbard wrote this essay in an hour after supper on February 22, 1899. The piece was a last-minute, untitled addition to the March issue of his magazine, Philistine. Hubbard had put in a tough day trying to get his employees to do what he wanted, or, as he put it, urging them “to adjure the comatose state and get radioactive.” Hubbard’s son Bert inspired the essay by insisting – as part of an ongoing office discussion – that a mysterious figure named Rowan was “the real hero” of 1898’s 10-day Cuban War, also known as the Spanish-American War.

In that war – precipitated by a mysterious explosion aboard an American battleship, the USS Maine, and the ship’s subsequent sinking in Havana’s harbor – the US fought Spain for possession of two Spanish colonies, Cuba and the Philippines. At the commencement of hostilities, America’s strategy in Cuba depended on contacting Cuban anti-Spanish insurgent forces so they would rise in armed resistance against their Spanish occupiers. Garcia, a renowned guerilla leader, made his headquarters in Cuba’s impassable mountain forests. Nobody in the US knew where Garcia camped, how often ...