[00:11.50]In all this Cuban business there is one man stands out on the horizon of my memory like Mars at perihelion.
[00:20.98]When war broke out between Spain and the United States,
[00:24.65]it was very necessary to communicate quickly with the leader of the Insurgents.
[00:30.62]Garcia was somewhere in the mountain fastnesses of Cuba - no one knew where.
[00:37.19]No mail or telegraph message could reach him. The President must secure his cooperation, and quickly. What to do?
[00:47.62]Some said to the President, “There’s a fellow by the name of Rowan who will find Garcia for you, if anybody can.”
[00:56.63]Rowan was sent for and given a letter to be delivered to Garcia.
[01:01.90]How the “fellow by the name of Rowan” took the letter, sealed it up in an oilskin pouch,
[01:09.59]strapped it over his heart, in four days landed by night off the coast of Cuba from an open boat,
[01:17.02]disappeared into the jungle, and in three weeks came out on the other side of the Island,
[01:24.58]having traversed a hostile country on foot and delivered his letter to Garcia -
[01:30.96]are things I have no special desire now to tell in detail.
[01:36.61]The point that I wish to make is this: McKinley gave Rowan a letter to be delivered to Garcia;
[01:46.59]Rowan took the letter and did not ask, “Where is he at?”
[01:52.23]By the Eternal! There is a man whose form should be cast in deathless bronze
[01:59.35]and the statue placed in every college of the land. It is not book learning young men need,
[02:07.94]nor instruction about this and that, but a stiffening of the vertebrae which will cause them to be loyal to a trust,
[02:17.46]to act promptly, concentrate their energies: do the thing - “Carry a message to Garcia.”
[02:29.42]General Garcia is dead now, but there are other Garcias.
[02:34.87]No man who has endeavored to carry out an enterprise where many hands were needed,
[02:40.94]but has been well nigh appalled at times by the imbecility of the average man -
[02:47.04]the inability or unwillingness to concentrate on a thing and do it.
[02:53.55]Slipshod assistance, foolish inattention, dowdy indifference, and half hearted work seem the rule;
[03:03.94]and no man succeeds, unless by hook or crook or threat he forces or bribes other men to assist him;
[03:12.40]or mayhap, God in His goodness performs a miracle, and sends him an Angel of Light for an assistant.
