In 1899 Elbert Hubbard published a short essay about a U.S. Army officer, Andrew Rowan, sent during the war with Spain to carry a message to García, a leader of the Cuban rebels. Its key line: “Rowan took the letter and did not ask, ‘Where is he at?'”
Hubbard set Rowan against an office clerk who answers a simple task with questions: “Who was he?” “Which encyclopedia?” “Was I hired for that?” The New York Central Railroad reprinted the essay in huge numbers, and it was used as promotional literature by Wanamaker’s, the Boy Scouts of America and the U.S. Navy. Hubbard claimed “Over forty million copies.” A 1977 estimate put the figure at about 4 million.
The story itself is largely false. Rowan’s real orders were to gather intelligence, and there is no evidence that he delivered a letter to García.