Topical Musings

Advertise for a stenographer, and nine out of ten who apply, can neither spell nor punctuate- and do not think it necessary to. Can such a one write a letter to Garcia? “You see that Accountant”, said the foreman to me in a large factory. “Yes. What about him?” “Well he’s a fine accountant, but if I’d send him to town on an errand, he might accomplish the errand all right, but there is an equal chance that he might stop at four shops on the way for some personal matter of his own, and when he got to Main Street, would forget what he had been sent for!” Can such a man be entrusted to carry a message to Garcia? We have recently been hearing much sympathy expressed for the ‘downtrodden, poor people’ and the ‘homeless wanderer searching for honest employment’. Generally, along with such cries, we also hear many hard words spoken about the men in power, the people who employ. Nothing is said about the employer who grows old before his time in a vain attempt to get these idiots to do intelligent work. No one ever speaks about the employer’s long & patient striving with ‘the assistant’ who does nothing but loaf when his back is turned. In every store and factory there is a constant weeding-out process going on. The employer is constantly sending away ‘assistants’ that have shown their incapacity to further the interests of the business, and others are being taken on. No matter how good times are, this sorting continues. The incompetent and unworthy worker goes out of work. It is the survival of the fittest. Self-interest prompts every employer to keep the best – those who can carry a message to Garcia. I know one brilliant man, who cannot manage a business of his own, and yet who is absolutely worthless to anyone else. Why? 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. If we gave a message to him to take to Garcia, his answer would probably be, “Take it yourself”. Today, this man walks the streets looking for job. He doesn’t even have a good coat to protect him from the cold wind. No one who knows him will dare to employ him, for he is a regular fire-brand of discontent. He is (Continued from the previous issue. . .)

A Message to Garcia

impervious to reason. And I believe that the only thing that can impress him is the sharp lick of a horse-whip! It may be argued that this man is morally deformed. And family conditions, school & college situations, and life in general are responsible for his moral deformity. As a result, he has to be pitied just as we pity a physically handicapped person. But in our pitying this imbecile, let us also drop a tear for the men who are striving to carry on a great enterprise, whose working hours are not limited by the siren, and whose hair is fast turning white through the struggle to hold in line the stupidly indifferent, the slip-shod imbecile, the heartless & ungrateful idiot. It is a fact that these imbeciles and idiots would be both hungry & homeless, if they were not painfully kept in employment by the very business that they curse day and night. Have I put the matter too strongly? Possibly I have. But when the entire world has gone to sleep at night, I wish to speak a word of sympathy for the man who succeeds, the man who, against great obstructions, has directed the efforts of others, and having succeeded, finds there’s nothing in it: nothing but bare board and clothes. In my own life, there was a time when I have worked for daily 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. And 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 in office. And the man who, when given a letter for Garcia, quietly takes the letter, without asking any idiotic questions, and with no hidden intention of throwing it into the nearest sewer, never gets ‘fired’. Neither does he have 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. Such a kind of person 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 very badly – the man who can carry a message to Garcia. (Concluded.)

Nothing makes us work so well at our best and highest as when all the responsibility is thrown upon ourselves….You will give up all your criminal ideas as soon as responsibility is thrown upon you — your whole character will change. … when we have nobody to grope towards, no devil to lay our blame upon, no Personal God to carry our burdens, when we are alone responsible, then we shall rise to our highest and best. —Swami Vivekananda