"Elbert Hubbard - A Mesage To Garcia" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hubbard Elbert)

to manage a business of his own, and yet who is absolutely worthless
to any one else, because he carries with him constantly the insane
suspicion that his employer is oppressing, or intending to oppress
him. He cannot give orders; and he will not receive them. Should a
message be given him to take to Garcia, his answer would probably
be, "Take it yourself."
Tonight this man walks the streets looking for work, the wind
whistling through his threadbare coat. No one who knows him dare
employ him, for he is a regular fire-brand of discontent. He is
impervious to reason, and the only thing that can impress him is the
toe of a thick-soled No. 9 boot.
Of course I know that one so morally deformed is no less to be
pitied than a physical cripple; but in our pitying, let us drop a
tear, too, for the men who are striving to carry on a great
enterprise, whose working hours are not limited by the whistle, and
whose hair is fast turning white through the struggle to hold in
line dowdy indifference, slip-shod imbecility, and the heartless
ingratitude, which, but for their enterprise, would be both hungry &
homeless.
Have I put the matter too strongly? Possibly I have; but when all
the world has gone a-slumming I wish to speak a word of sympathy for
the man who succeeds- the man who, against great odds has directed the
efforts of others, and having succeeded, finds there's nothing in
it: nothing but bare board and clothes.
I have carried a dinner pail & worked for day's wages, and I have
also been an employer of labor, and I know there is something to be
said on both sides. There is no excellence, per se, in poverty; rags
are no recommendation; & all employers are not rapacious and
high-handed, any more than all poor men are virtuous.
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 take the missive, 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. Civilization
is one long anxious search for just such individuals. Anything such
a man asks shall be granted; his kind is so rare that no employer
can afford to let him go. He is wanted in every city, town and
village- in every office, shop, store and factory. The world cries out
for such: he is needed, & needed badly- the man who can carry a
message to Garcia.
-THE END-