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A Message to Garcia / Being a Preachment

Chapter 1: APOLOGIA
By Elbert Hubbard
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About This Book

The collection opens with a short personal apologia and then presents a famous parable about a man entrusted with a sealed message to an elusive leader; the messenger undertakes and completes the perilous errand without questions, serving as an exemplar of initiative, loyalty, and obedient diligence. The author contrasts such dependable action with widespread sloth, excuses, and half-hearted work, criticizing reluctance to accept responsibility and urging a sturdier moral backbone in workers and citizens. Short, punchy exhortations and illustrative anecdotes argue for promptness, concentration, and self-reliance as the foundations of effective service.

Copyright 1914 by Elbert Hubbard

 

APOLOGIA

HORSE SENSE

If you work for a man, in Heaven's name work for him. If he pays wages that supply you your bread and butter, work for him, speak well of him, think well of him, and stand by him, and stand by the institution he represents. I think if I worked for a man, I would work for him. I would not work for him a part of his time, but all of his time. I would give an undivided service or none. If put to the pinch, an ounce of loyalty is worth a pound of cleverness. If you must vilify, condemn, and eternally disparage, why, resign your position, and when you are outside, damn to your heart's content. But, I pray you, so long as you are a part of an institution, do not condemn it. Not that you will injure the institution—not that—but when you disparage the concern of which you are a part, you disparage yourself. And don't forget—“I forgot” won't do in business.