An article in the Aug. 20, 1901, Geneva Daily Times was headlined, “THE MESSAGE TO GARCIA — More Than 7,000,000 Have Been Printed — General Passenger Agent Daniels Responsible for the Demand for It.”

The popular essay was originally published in 1899. So why did the Times’ Editor decide to publish a reprint?

Stephen Colbert coined the term “truthiness” in 2005 to describe the epidemic of politicians, pundits, and influencers “talking about something that seems like truth — the truth we want to exist.” However, truthiness was skillfully deployed well before the advent of social media.

By 1901, the phrase “Message to Garcia” was in modern parlance as a reference to someone who carried out a difficult task unhesitatingly, without asking questions, through personal initiative, persistence, and resourcefulness. The phrase was used commonly from 1899 to 1945; it persisted with increasingly lower usage until 1990.

The essay first appeared in “The Philistine,” a periodical written and published by Elbert Hubbard. The story is set just before the outbreak of the Spanish-American War in 1898. President McKinley ordered 1st Lt. Andrew S. Rowan to carry a message to Gen. Calixto Garcia, the leader of the Cuban insurgency, whose stronghold was somewhere in the rugged mountains — “no one knew where.” Rowan traveled alone to Cuba via Jamaica, single-handedly located Garcia, delivered the message, and returned unscathed to the United States, having done immeasurable service to the American cause. Hubbard drew the moral in no........

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