Chapter II (10)

ONE week ago yesterday morning woe folded her dark and gloomy pinions and settled over our fair and sunny Southland! He, who by his love for us, by his incessant labor for the advancement of our material progress, whose voice was raised to dispel the shadows of hate and prejudice, and bring the North and South into a closer union, whose heart was filled with charity, and whose hands were ever performing deeds of kindness, the eloquent and gifted Grady—the knightly and chivalrous leader of the peaceful hosts of the New South—was called to a brighter home in the skies, where all is peace and joy and supernal bliss. The whole South laments his death “and may his soul rest in peace” is the sentiment of every heart. His virtues are sung in sweetest song, and his worth proclaimed by lips tremulous with emotion. Young in years, but matured in wisdom, he grappled the great question that affected his people, and with matchless eloquence presented their cause on New England soil and told of their loyalty and love, still cherishing and remembering the traditions of the past. His death everywhere is recognized as a national calamity. Every public utterance and every public appearance, whether in New York, Boston, Texas or on his native soil, amid “the red old hills of Georgia,” has been greeted with applause and demonstrations of delight. Made fatherless in youth by the cruel ravage of war, he struck out with a stout heart and strong hands for success—how well he achieved it, the praises showered upon him from every quarter forcibly demonstrate the fact! Who has not felt the warmth of his sunny nature?—it glows in every stroke of his pen, and shines in all his eloquent utterances, and brightens his memory as his name and triumphs pass into history. Mr. Grady, by his pen and eloquence, has done more for the South than any other of her sons, and their love and appreciation is attested in their universal sorrow. His gifts were rare, his eloquence wonderful, and he bore in honor and peace the standard of his people, and they will ever keep his memory fresh and green.

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HIS CAREER.

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_From the “Dalton Citizen.”_

ONLY a few short weeks ago Hon. Henry W. Grady left his Atlanta home to electrify a critical audience in Boston, Mass., with one of his inimitable speeches. Through all the papers of the country the fame of this magnificent address went ringing, and ere the speech itself was printed, in full, the orator from whose lips it fell was stricken with a fatal disease on his return homeward. In little more than a week his life’s sands had run their course, and in the flush of a glorious and useful manhood Henry Grady lay dead, while his eulogies were on the lips of the whole nation. There has been much written by friends (he had no foes) in the newspaper world concerning this great loss; but it is all summed up in the words, “Henry Grady is dead!”

Somewhere, in an English poet’s writings, we find a pregnant little sentence: “I stood beside the grave of one who blazed the comet of a season.” The career of Henry Grady has been likened by several speakers and writers to a star burning brightly in the national and journalistic sky, but its light quenched in the darkness of death ere it reached its zenith. Fittest, it seems to us, is the simile quoted previously. A comet trailing its brilliant light across the darkening heavens, a spectacle focussing the gaze of millions of eyes, causing other stars to sink into insignificance by reason of its greater glow and grandeur.—Then, while the interest concerning its movements has reached its intensity, its gleaming light fades, and presently the sky is merely glittering again with the myriad stars, for the flash and the blaze of the comet have disappeared forever and it is invisible to mortal eyes. The question is, will another take its place, and when?—We think not soon. Even should an orator, whose eloquence might sway multitudes, rise to reign in the dead hero’s stead, it is more than probable that he would not combine with his oratory the wonderful statistical knowledge possessed by Mr. Grady, whose solid reasoning was only exceeded by the winsome touch, creeping in here and there, of the true artistic nature. He spoke in his last address of the South’s vast resources—of its “cotton whitening by night beneath the stars, and by day the wheat locking the sunshine in its bearded sheaf.” A practical argument at one turn and a beautifully rounded sentence at another.

These things made up the speeches that held so many in breathless attention, augmented by his magnetic personality. It would be well for our Southland could another as gifted shine forth in like splendor.

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OUR FALLEN HERO.

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_From the “Hartwell Sun.”_

WE little thought in our last issue for the old year, when we penned a brief paragraph to the effect that Mr. Grady had returned from his brilliant triumph in Boston to his home in Atlanta sick with a cold, that in a few hours afterward his grand spirit should have winged its flight to the home beyond, and that upon the Christmas day, when the glad bells should ring out their joyous message of “Peace on earth—good will to men” in the great city so much of his own making, that instead they should toll the sad requiem of “Dust to dust,” and that every heart from the ragged newsboy to the chief magistrate should be bursting with anguish as the noble form of their idolized leader was consigned to the cold, silent grave.

The blow came so suddenly and was so totally unexpected, that it spread consternation—not only in his own beloved State and Southland—but over the entire country. Was there ever a man so universally loved with so brief a career! Was there ever a man so sincerely and widely mourned! Was there ever a man so grandly, so eloquently eulogized! Never have we seen anything like it—never have we heard of anything like it; nor do we believe there was ever a parallel.

But all the panegyrics by passionate lips uttered, nor all the burning words of eulogy by eloquent pens written, have yet expressed the tremendous weight of sorrow that oppresses the hearts of the people who loved him so well. This was indeed a time when strong men of mighty mind and fluent tongue felt the utter poverty of expression and the inadequacy of words.

It did appear as if he was just entering upon his glorious career,—as if his life’s work yet lay out before him. And yet what a glorious, what a grand work he had done! And may not his death have emphasized his glowing appeals for a broader charity; for an unquestioning confidence; for fraternal love and justice; for a re-united country. In our very heart we believe so. If not—God help our country!

We will not attempt to eulogize Henry Grady—to speak of his brilliant intellect; of his matchless eloquence; of his spotless character; of his great, warm, unselfish heart—that has already been done by those better fitted for the loving task; but the hot tears blind our eyes as we think of the handsome, boyish form of the peerless Grady lying cold in the remorseless embrace of death. Peace be to his precious ashes!—Eternal joy to his immortal spirit!

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A DEATHLESS NAME.

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_From the “Gainesville Eagle.”_

There was buried in Atlanta yesterday a young man that illustrated the possibilities of American youth.

There are two forces that combine to make great men—heredity and environment. The first had given Henry Grady magnificent natural endowment—a kingly and masterful mind. The second gave him opportunity, and he utilized it for all it was worth. Combined, they have given him a deathless name and fame that will make one of the brightest pages in the Southland’s history.

All over the land, men and women, who loved his sweetness of soul, grieve to-day over his untimely end. All over the South, men who expected much of his tongue and pen, mourn sincerely the loss of the brilliant mind which worshiped so loyally at Patriotism’s altar. How illy could he be spared. How inscrutable the ways of Providence! We can but bow and grieve.

But what an inspiration the history of his brief years! Poor and unknown a few years ago, he died in a halo of glory that had made his name a household word over a continent. His life was a psalm of praise. Like the birds, he sang because he must. Eloquence dwelt in his tongue like the perfume in the heart of the flowers; sweetness flowed from his pen as the honey comes from the mysterious alchemy of the bee—it was his nature.

This is not the time or place to analyze or measure his life-work. History and the future must render that verdict. Frankly, we are not of those who believe that his speeches—eloquent and grand as they were—will wipe out sectional feeling. The people who hate and fear the South are given over to believe a lie. It is their stock in trade; it is the life blood of their political partisanship, and though one rose from the dead, they would not believe. But he had done and was doing, and had he lived would have brought to a marvelous fruition something of far more practical value. He had made known to the world the marvelous resources of the South, and gotten the ear of capital and enterprise and brought, and was bringing, the enginery of its power to unlock the storehouses of an untold wealth. ’Tis here his grandest work was done. Call it selfish, if you will, but ’tis here our loss is greatest.

His brilliancy, dash and originality had made the great journal, of which he was the head, easily the foremost newspaper of the South. His eloquent tongue and matchless pen had made him par excellence the exemplar and apostle of this grand and growing section.

But the end has come. Only He who has smitten can know whether such another prophet shall rise in the wilderness to lead us forward to the glorious destiny which his prophetic eye foresaw, and to which his throbbing, loyal heart gave itself and died.

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A GREAT SOUL.

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_From the “Baxley Banner.”_

A GREAT soul has passed away.

After a life brief but brilliant, he is lost to the country that loved and honored him, and which his lofty eloquence and pure patriotism have illustrated and adorned.

As the lightning that comes out of the South, and flashes from horizon to horizon, so was his short life in its bright, swift passage, illuminating the earth.

In the death of Henry Grady, his city, his State, the South, the whole country has suffered a great loss. His voice was ever the ringing, stirring herald-tones that announced the promise of fairer days and a happier people. He was no low-browed, latter-day prophet of evil; but preached here and everywhere the new and bright evangel of hope. He was the voice of his city, heard ringing through Georgia and the Union; the voice of his State, heard clarion-like from ocean to ocean, and the golden-mouthed messenger from the South to the North, proclaiming a brotherhood of love that the shock of war had not destroyed. And thus his death will be mourned, not in Atlanta or in Georgia only, but wherever an American heart is, that heart will mourn his death.

Particularly is Mr. Grady’s death a loss to journalism. He stood the peer of any in the world, and was the greatest journalist in the South. His pen was as eloquent as his tongue, and from the closet as well as from the platform his words came with vivifying power, refreshing and inspiring.

Death struck him down from the lofty pinnacle of fame, to which his eloquence had so swiftly upborne him. A young man, he had already reached a height that would have dazzled a weaker soul, and he has fallen in the midst of his triumph, while yet the plaudits of tens of thousands from every part of this country rang fainter and fainter on his dying ear. It was something worth to have such heartfelt approbations sounding around him as he sunk to his last sleep. It was the crowning of a life well lived, and spent with lavish patriotism for his country’s weal.

He burned his life to the socket like a swift devouring flame. His energy was tremendous, and almost feverish in its eagerness to do something worth the doing. He returned to his city and his home with death upon him, stricken even in his great triumph. The glow of fever followed hard upon the glow of victory, and so, after a brief and burning life—a life crowded thick with triumphs, “God’s finger touched him and he slept”—the sleep He giveth to His beloved.

Of his private life all may speak. We know it well. It is familiar to us all as household words, though his charity and his kindness were without ostentation. He was generous without stint, and whether it was as the boy making up a fund to buy a poor schoolmate a handsome suit to graduate in, or as the man lending a helping hand to lift or guide the needy, self was forgotten in his kindness to others. In thousands of homes he will be

Named softly as the household name
Of one whom God has taken.

His city, his State, and his country will build for him a shaft, but his greatest monument will be in the hearts that mourn his death.

A great and loving soul has passed.

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IN MEMORIAM.

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_From the “Henry County Times.”_

THE public heart, still quivering and aching from the shock occasioned by the death of its venerated and talented leader, Jefferson Davis, had its cup of woe and grief filled to overflowing by those words of doom—“Henry Grady is dead.” In the natural course of events, the first catastrophe was one that might have happened any time in the past ten years, as the great Confederate chief had long since passed the limit of three-score-and-ten, the average limit attached by Biblical authority to human life. Mr. Davis descended to his grave full of years and honors, and while he was universally and sincerely mourned in the South, still, it did not fall upon us with that electric suddenness which so shocked and agonized the Southern heart as when our young Demosthenes became a victim to the fell destroyer.

So universal is this sorrow, that a separate and personal bereavement could not have more completely shrouded in grief the public mind than did the announcement of his death. The advent of the dark angel into each and every household could not have more completely paralyzed the public mind than did the untimely taking off of this superbly gifted son of Georgia. Never since the angel of the Lord smote the first-born of Egyptian households for lack of mystic symbols on the door, has a people’s sorrow been so deep, so universal, and so sincere. Had the end of such a man come in the proper course of nature, heralded by such physical changes as indicate the approach of death, it might have been better borne, but would still have been an event of national misfortune that would have taxed to the uttermost the endurance of hearts already lacerated by freshly opened wounds. Had we been in the possession of such warnings as it was in the power of Omnipotence to have granted us, still the blow would have been unutterably painful and overpowering. But that he, who was conceded to be the intellectual peer of any in the nation; who was without a superior as an orator in the present generation; that he who was in an especial manner fitted to be the champion of the South in her appeal for justice at the bar of public opinion, both in Europe and America; that he, who was so richly endowed should suddenly and without warning, as it were, become the victim of death, and have all the bright and brilliant promise of a life whose sun had risen so gloriously, quenched in death and darkness, might well move a people to tears, and clothe a nation in sackcloth and ashes.

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A PEOPLE MOURN.

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_From the “Warrenton Clipper.”_

THE people of the Southland are wrapped in grief and a nation mourns in sympathy. While all nature beams with beauteous smiles and December luxuriates in the balmy breezes of spring, he whom we had learned to love and to whom his people turned for hope and encouragement, lies wrapped in earth’s cold embrace. Henry W. Grady is dead. Early Monday morning his brave spirit forsook its earthly tenement and sought Him who had given it being. The electric words which flashed the sad news through the length and breadth of the country carried mourning into thousands of homes and millions of hearts. The friend of the people was dead, and one universal sense of sorrow pervaded the minds of all.

Mr. Grady had just returned from Boston, where he had delivered one of the grandest addresses of his life, before the Boston Merchants’ Association, upon the Southern question. The speech was thoroughly Southern in its character, and a grand defense of the course of his people in national politics and their dealings with the colored race. Exposure in the raw New England atmosphere caused him to contract a severe cold which rapidly grew worse. He was very ill when he returned to Atlanta and pneumonia in its worst form soon developed. He lay ill at his beautiful home in Atlanta for a few days only, gradually growing worse, until the end came Monday morning.

Though his dangerous situation was known, the probability of his death did not seem to occur to the people. That the youthful, magnetic, beloved Grady could die seemed impossible. When the blow had fallen its effect was to stun, and had we been told that it was a dream, a mistake, we would really have believed it and sought out some new evidence of his popularity. Dead! Is it possible! Before he had reached the prime of his manhood or the zenith of his fame! Did Death but waylay to seize him just as we were learning his worth? Of the many mysteries of life death is the greatest.

Nothing shows more the high estimation in which the man was held than the widespread sources from which came the words of sympathy and condolence; from field and fireside, from town and hamlet, from city street and mansion, from every source in which his noble words have found an echo, poured forth the gentle words of sympathy and sorrow. Statesmen and soldiers hastened to proffer their sympathy and great men of every rank condoled with the bereaved ones. Not a prominent Northern journal but devoted considerable space to his memory. Party and creed were alike forgotten. Not a whisper of depreciation was heard from any source.

There never died a man within the history of the State whose fame was so recent, who was so generally loved and admired in life and so universally regretted in death. On Christmas, the day of joy and peace, we laid our hero to rest. Not the less a hero because his were the victories of peace. No victor, fresh from the bloody field of battle, was ever more deserving of his laurel wreaths than he of the chaplets we can only lay upon his grave. The lips that pleaded so eloquently for peace and union are stilled in death, and the hand that penned so many beautiful words for the encouragement of his people moves no more. A sense of peculiar personal loss is upon us. The old men have lost a son, the young men a brother. Atlanta mourns her foremost citizen, the State a devoted son, the South an able defender and the Nation an honored citizen. Our matchless Grady is no more.

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HENRY W. GRADY IS NO MORE.

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_From the “Valdosta Times.”_

HENRY W. GRADY is dead. His great soul has passed from this mundane sphere. Truly “a silver tongue is hushed and a golden pen is broken.” Matchless orator, brilliant journalist, able statesman, patriotic citizen, noble man—shall we see your like again!

When Stonewall Jackson fell fighting for the land he loved, the Confederacy lost her great right arm, and never recovered from the blow. So, in these post-bellum days—in times of comparative peace—but under anomalous and trying conditions—the South loses her ablest leader, and at a time when his services seem most needed, and when he was doing that service so nobly and well. The death of Mr. Grady in ’89 compares only, in the Southern estimate, with the loss of Jackson in ’63. Viewed from the natural side of human wisdom, his death, in the words of the great Republican orator of New York, is a national calamity.

This young man, from obscurity and poverty, by the sheer force of his genius, sprang easily and early to a national celebrity which few dare hope for, and fewer still attain in the generations of men. He was both brilliant and practical, both gentle and wise. He would build a factory or a railroad, or found a great exposition, as easily as he would deliver a bright oration. He would counsel with statesmen with the same tact and ease that he would go gunning with the young men of the town. When he touched a man he made a friend.

The writer, who would pay this short and poor tribute, knew him for eighteen years. He has seen him from many points of view—mostly as an opponent in State politics, but always as a friend. In his office at work—at his private board—in the political caucus—on an angling or gunning expedition—his transcendent genius always shown with a rare and radiant light. To these who have known him well he has long been the man the world has recently found him to be—one of the greatest men of his time; to such his loss is felt as a personal bereavement. Each one, when his name is heard, will recall some word or deed to cherish as a fragrance from the tomb. Such memories will be treasured in the hearts of many, from Grover Cleveland to the saucy newsboys who cry the _Constitution_ on the streets of Atlanta.

But to abler pens, and to those who have known him longer and better, the task is left to pronounce a fitting eulogy.

Of his life and his death, much space is ungrudgingly given elsewhere in this issue of the _Times_. Let the young men of the country read, and learn of him who has passed away at thirty-eight years of age and left the impress of his genius upon the greatest Nation of the earth.

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“MAYBE HIS WORK IS FINISHED.”

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_From the “Dalton Argus.”_

HENRY WOODFIN GRADY died Monday morning, December 23, 1889, from bronchial and other troubles, irritated by his recent visit to Boston, where he made his last and greatest speech in behalf of the section and people he loved so well.

Since England lost her Wellington, and America her Lincoln, no greater calamity has moved a people to sympathetic tears than the death of Henry Grady. His life was the fulfillment of a noble man, and his grand impulses touched every phase of humanity. No man was ever better known to his country by an unbroken chain of rarer virtues, nobler purposes, and more powerful capacities. His work, in whatever field, was the impetuosity of patriotism. His successes stand as a mark of indomitable energy. Possessing an extraordinary faculty of grasping opportunities at the full flood tide, he illustrated the perfect patriot in forgetting self for common good, the genuine friend in bestowing his own advantages to others. Only he that worthily lives, in death enshrines himself in the hearts of his people, and not a wire in all the network of commercial arteries but that has given, in messages of love, cadences of a country’s sorrow. When poets and patriots are met at the bier by the hushed voices of the rabble, and commerce pauses to pay tribute, Heaven-blest must be the spirit that gives flight from earth. In all the walks of life Henry Grady has left remembrances that suggest homage to his worth.

But his name shall occupy a space in history, filling the brightest niche of an illustrious age, that his life shall stand out boldly in the perfect beauty of its accomplishment.

There is a touching coincidence in his death, following so closely after that of Jefferson Davis, that the funeral dirge of one almost blends into the decadence of the other, giving figure to an illustration as true as it is sublime.

Who can refute the suggestion that it was a wise decree of Providence, staying the relentless demands of Time that sectional prejudice might lose its forceful resentment, lending ear to the vigorous mind of Davis, through the very nobility of his after life; and giving communion of perfect sympathy through the pleading of Henry Grady, caught up as if from the living embers of the old, a fair type of that historic period, imbued with all the demands of the present, his patriotic ardor glowing with fire of eloquence, his dying speech giving tumult of enthusiasm in voice of advocacy, expounding reason indorsed by every Southern man?

No man better knew the temper of his people, or gave thought with riper philosophy to the issues which surround them; or was less fearless to speak the truth.

As a common country gave applause to the logic of the living, may we not trust in the prophecy of the mourning mother, that the work for which he gave his life, in unmurmuring sacrifice, is truly accomplished?

There is such pathos in the incident of this last grand effort to break the cordons of estrangement between the sections as may justify the hope.

The South, undemonstrative, unprejudiced, unyielding furthermore, pleads for no fairer basis.

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HE NEVER OFFENDED.

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_From the “Washington Chronicle.”_

HE died peacefully at his home in Atlanta on Monday morning at forty minutes past three o’clock. As the news flashed over the wires it imparted a thrill of anguish to every Southern heart. For he was a great favorite at the South. And at the North he had cause to be proud of his reputation. It would be impossible to compare Mr. Grady with any man who has lived. His character was unique and so was his work. It is idle and senseless talk to conjecture what his future might have been if he had lived. His course is run and his life is finished, as completely finished as if he had lived an hundred years and died. What was that life? Grady was a big-hearted, whole-souled fellow, a man of the people, a statesman and a patriot. His intellectual attainments and all fitted him for the grand and brilliant position which he reached. True as steel to his native South, he was able to conciliate the North. A man of noble impulses, he never offended. In sober truth he was a great man, and accomplished a great work which will live after him and glorify his name.

Were a star quenched on high,
Forever would its light,
Still traveling downward from the sky,
Shine on our mortal sight.

So when a great man dies,
Ages beyond our ken,
The light he leaves behind him lies
Upon the paths of men.

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THE SOUTH IN MOURNING.

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_From the “Elberton Star.”_

HENRY W. GRADY, the peerless orator and true patriot, has been called to join the silent majority. This sad intelligence reached Elberton last Monday morning, by private telegram, and there was a gloom cast over the community unequaled in the history of the town. Henry Grady was loved and admired all over the South, but nowhere more dearly than in this section.

It seems hard that this brilliant young statesman should have been cut off just before he had gained the goal, just prior to when he would have written his name among that galaxy of eminent men who have gone before and made the world better for having lived in it. If Grady had lived he would have carried to a happy ultimatum the purpose he had just commenced in solving the vexatious race problem, and in doing this he would have had a place with the names of Jefferson, Washington, Clay, Calhoun, and Webster.

Grady was a great man. He was not only an orator of Hill-like ability, but he was a statesman. His writings and speeches for years were well able and well panoplied to grapple with and treat the most intricate and complicated questions in a masterly manner.

His recent speech in Boston, at which time he contracted the cold that terminated in his premature death, was particularly and singularly forcible. The press and people, both North and South, with one accord pronounced it one of the ablest papers of the nineteenth century, and with this great work begun, and the great architect thereof dead, it is difficult to conjecture who will or can come to the front and finish the grand and noble undertaking.

Grady’s first and greatest love was Atlanta. He was like an inexhaustible gold mine to that town, and the Gate City has sustained an irreparable loss. But Atlanta’s confines were too contracted for a heart and brain like his. He loved Georgia, almost like he loved his mother, and for Georgia’s weal, he would have sacrificed his all.

Georgia’s loss, the South’s loss, cannot be estimated.

At his bier we bow our heads in profound sorrow, and were it so that we could, we would cull the whitest flower in the whole world and place it on the grave of this the truest, noblest Georgian of them all.

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STRICKEN AT ITS ZENITH.

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_From the “Greenesboro Herald and Journal.”_

ON the mild Christmas morning the heart of Georgia is bowed in sorrow over the death of her favorite son. It seems, indeed, a mockery that amidst the joys and festivities of the Christmas time, the dark shadow of the relentless foe of man should intrude his presence and take from our land one who was its brightest hope, its strongest support!

And yet it is true. Henry Grady is dead! The orator, the journalist, the poet by nature, the man of the people, is dead! We cannot realize it. So bright in his strong young manhood but one short week ago, now folded in the arms of death! A greater shock, a keener sorrow was never crushed upon a people!

This is not the time, in the shadow of the grave but in the brightness of his glory, to speak fully of him that is gone! Our pen fails, and all it can say is “Thou has stricken Thy people, O God! and in Thy wisdom Thou hast given us bitterness to drain! Let not our hearts rebel against Thee, our Lord and our God!”

The death which has come to Georgia to-day cannot be measured in its irreparable loss. A week ago the South was in mourning over the death of her great leader! But he belonged to the past, and while the sorrow fell deep, yet we realize that a life had ended which had filled its fullest mission. But in the death of Henry Grady the South has lost a leader of to-day—an active, earnest, true man, whose heart, bound up in the advancement of his people, was but laying brighter and fresher and truer plans for their prosperity. To every heart in the South the question comes “Who will lead us now? Who will defend our principles now that he is taken from us?” And out of the blackness of our desolation it seems that no star shines to guide us!

It is, perhaps, well that the last effort of Mr. Grady was in defense of our institutions and in support of the principles, motives and ambitions of his people. He died with the gathering halo of a people’s love clustering about him! He went to death with a defense of that people clinging to his lips and to his heart! In the zenith of his usefulness he was cut down! Why? God in His infinite wisdom knows best!

We can pay no tribute to the memory of Henry Grady greater than the love which weeps at his bier this morning. And yet the writer would lay, amidst the offerings which fall from the overflowing hearts of thousands to-day, a tiny tribute to his memory. He was our friend, wise and true and earnest in his counsels—pointing out that the true end of the journalist is the defense and advancement of his people. As a journalist, perhaps, has his greatest work been done, and upon the heart of every man of the pen he left an impression that his vocation is ennobled and is the grander that Henry Grady made it his love. And, in the shadow of death will come this consoling thought. That the press, which was his power, and which remains as the bulwark of the people, is the purer, and the better, and the stronger from the principles which Henry Grady inculcated in it. To carry out that work, which has fallen from his hands in death, should move the heart of every journalist, and when its fullest fruition has come, then will the crown upon the fame of Henry Grady shine the brighter!

Peace to the great man gathered to his reward! The future will crown his memory with the bright flowers which will come as the fruition of his hopes and of his life-work!

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THE SOUTHLAND MOURNS.

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_From the “Griffin Morning Call.”_

THE brilliant young editor of the Atlanta _Constitution_ entered into rest eternal and closed an earth-life remarkable for splendor at 3:40 o’clock yesterday morning. His brief career reflects not only glory upon his name, but also crowns with unique distinction the high profession of journalism. A noble representative of the grand old State of Georgia, the lustre of his life-work was reflected upon the commonwealth he served and to whose honor he consecrated the ripeness of his learning, his eloquence and his patriotism.

His harp hangs now mute upon the willows! No more shall the soul and intellect of the thoughtful North or South, in New York, New England, Texas or Georgia, be stirred to the depths by his impassioned words or impressed by his unanswerable logic. “The silver cord is loosed, the golden bowl is broken.” But the music his harp evoked is not dead and shall long linger a sweet song in many hearts, and his works do follow him.

He was born in Athens, Ga., in 1851, and though a man of well ripened powers, had not reached that prime when a strong man’s capacity for labor is most highly tested.

He was educated at the State University, and afterward pursued a post graduate course at the University of Virginia, where so many noble characters have been molded.

Here the orator and scholar grew and nature’s rare gifts were fused and refined in the crucible of mental discipline. The studies which specially attracted him and in which he excelled, were Greek, Anglo-Saxon, history and belles-letters. Thus, evidently a most copious vocabulary was created and the mind stored with fertile illustrations in the department of history and general literature. In the happy use of words, in graceful rhetoric he was not surpassed by any American of his day. Roscoe Conkling or Col. Ingersoll might be compared to him, but the former had not Grady’s tact, neither his full vocabulary, and never treated the difficult and delicate topics Grady handled. And Ingersoll, though having remarkable power of language and an accomplished rhetorician, had not the logical mind of the brilliant young Georgian, and tinges his best efforts with bitterness and cant.

Grady was natural, even-tempered, generous, warm-hearted. His end came after the greatest effort of his life. His Boston speech will do an inestimable benefit to the South at a time when, under President Harrison, the bitter and partisan spirit of the Republicans was leavening much of the thought of the North. Mr. Grady addressed Northern people from the home of Phillips and Sumner, and his words have rung from Boston to San Francisco. His great speech was susceptible to no criticism for taste, for loyalty to our convictions, for impressive oratory or convincing argument. His facts and his logic are as strong as his word painting.

His beautiful tribute to the land which “lies far South” is a literary gem not destined alone to stir the hearts at the time of its utterance. It will live for its poetry, its tender sentiment and its reality.

If our friends across Dixie’s mythical line are but moved to do justice to a long suffering people, and trust us for loyalty to settle our peculiar problems, Grady has not lived in vain and will be the great apostle of his age.

Lay him gently to rest then, Georgians, in this sweet Christmas time, while the bells are chiming the notes of his Savior’s birth, and cover his grave with holly, mistletoe, and ivy, until the Master comes in glorious majesty to judge the world, and earth and sea give up their dead.

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THE “CONSTITUTION”

_AND ITS WORK_

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ATLANTA CONSTITUTION BUILDING.
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THE “CONSTITUTION” AND ITS WORK.

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THE Atlanta _Constitution_ came into being in the seething chaos of reconstruction. The name suggests the issue of which it was born and the cause which gave it life and strength at the beginning of its career. Georgia was being reconstructed under military supervision, against the will of a vast majority of the people, and there was no journal published in Atlanta which gave adequate expression to the sentiment of a million people. The old _Intelligencer_, which had been the clarion of war times, was no longer equal to the emergency. It had bravely breasted the storm of war, dodging about between bomb-shells and issuing forth defiant, one day in one town and one day in another, sometimes even setting up its press in a box car. But for the more trying times of reconstruction it was not adequate. The fiery tone and dauntless attitude were gone and it began to counsel for the things that were. While the people were idolizing Ben Hill for his superb defiance and applauding the unreconstructed and unterrified Toombs, there was no paper to voice the deep and unconquerable sentiment against reconstruction and for the re-establishment of the State constitution.

It was then that the _Constitution_ appeared. When Messrs. W. A. Hemphill and J. H. Anderson bought a little sheet called _Public Opinion_, and put Colonel Carey Styles in charge as editor, he named it _The Constitution_, and the name became its shibboleth and its issue. The editor was a bold and fearless writer and a fiery and impetuous orator. His editorials glowed with defiance of the reconstructionists, and his speeches were iridescent with burning denunciation. Writing and speaking on the side of the people, he made the paper immensely popular, and the enterprise of the proprietors kept it rolling on the crest of the tide.

From the first the _Constitution_ was a more enterprising news-gatherer than any of its contemporaries. It was the first to employ special correspondents in all parts of the State and the South. The system which has since become comprehensive and well-nigh perfect was then in its beginning, but it was something new in Georgia, and attracted attention. It was in this way that Mr. Grady was employed to go with the press excursion which passed through North Georgia, looking and writing to the development of the resources of the State, and his “King Hans” letters on that trip gave the first news from the important points of the excursion.

In those early days the _Constitution_ was not without literary attractions. The associate editor with Colonel Styles was Mayor J. R. Barrick, a genial gentleman, much beloved by his acquaintances and known to the public as a scholar and poet. He had been a _protégé_ of George D. Prentice, who had recognized in the young man literary talent of no common order.

In those days editorials were of the first importance. The State was being reconstituted, and great questions that went down to the foundations of government were being discussed. The orators of the day were Ben Hill, Toombs, Alexander Stephens, and scores of lesser but not inconsiderable lights. Speeches were matters of vital importance to newspapers and the public, and the leading orators were always stenographically reported. The modern synopsis would not then suffice. There were giants in those days, and the people hung upon their words; their utterances must be given in full. Editorials must rise to the same level, and great questions must be handled with the same dignity and earnestness. Men were not too busy to think and read, and they demanded mental pabulum that was strong and rich. Talent was at a premium, and its services easily commanded good pay. The owners of the _Constitution_ were the first to realize the priceless value of Mr. Grady’s genius, and when he was yet a college boy under age, Mr. Hemphill, who had lived in Athens, where Mr. Grady grew up, made his guardian a proposition to buy an interest in the _Constitution_ for Mr. Grady on condition that he should take the position of managing editor. From then until Captain Howell employed him in 1876, the _Constitution_ never lost sight of Mr. Grady. While attending the University of Virginia he contributed to the paper, and on his return he was engaged by the editor to represent the _Constitution_ on the press excursion referred to above.

The mechanical appliances of Southern newspapers at that time were vastly out of proportion to the matter then carried. The _Constitution_ was born and swaddled in a store-room on Alabama Street. It was a long room with a skylight, and printer’s cases were arranged along the wall on either side. In front was the business office, and in one corner a little room was partitioned off for the editors. There was a freemasonry between printers and editors, and the whole force glowed with enthusiasm for the cause which was epitomized in the paper’s name.

After reconstruction became a fact the State swarmed with aliens, and the people were goaded to fury under negro and carpet-bag government. The Capitol was infested with unknown men suddenly thrust into power, and they carried extravagant measures with a high hand. A Republican Governor was in office, and the venerable Secretary of State, Colonel N.C. Barnet, lately deceased, had gone out, carrying with him the great seal of the State, which he refused to allow affixed to any official act of men ushered into office by the military authorities. The State was involved in lottery schemes and loaded down with railroad bonds on which Treasurer Angier, a sturdy Republican, had refused to put his signature. The sessions of the Legislature were held in a great opera house sold to the State by private parties for an enormous price. In the building was a restaurant, confectionery shop, and velocipede rink. It was a scene decried, and the proceedings of the Legislature were daily denounced by the press and people. Among the boldest and most scathing critics of those disgraceful transactions was the _Constitution_, and its editor in his public speeches smote the participants hip and thigh. The fight was on for the redemption of the State, and it was waged without ceasing till the yoke was thrown off and a Democratic Governor was elected in 1872. In all that fight the _Constitution_ was the leading newspaper, and from the beginning the battle was waged with the uncompromising fervor that had characterized its opposition to the reconstructionists. In both these contests it was with the people, and in its columns they found free and full expression. The bitterness of those days has died out, and many of the sturdiest opponents have become friends; differences of judgment have long since been allowed admissible, but the friendships cemented in the heat of those contests are deep and abiding, and for its gallant services then the _Constitution_ is still endeared to the people of Georgia.

With the redemption of the State from negro and carpet-bag rule, there was no local political issue of transcendent importance. The State was safe, and people began to look about and take account of what was left from the wreck of war and reconstruction. The country was in a deplorable condition, and its rehabilitation almost a work of despair. In the midst Atlanta had begun to rise out of the ashes, and the brave spirits that gathered here had already made a name for the new city, which began to be looked upon as something more than a Phoenix; but all around was desolation. The plantations were in a deplorable condition, fences were rotting, and houses were going to decay. The first flush times of peace and greenbacks had passed, and the panic of 1873 left every interest depressed. It was then that the effects of war and waste were fully felt, and then that the stoutest hearts were tried. Labor was restless and hard to control, the planter was out of funds and interest was high, real estate outside a few favored localities was depreciating, and the farmers were almost at the point of desperation.

In all this hopelessness there were a few hopeful spirits, here and there one that could chirp. The hot days of politics were past and the newspapers must look to other fields. The _Constitution_ was the first to look to the development of the State’s resources as the new opportunity for journalistic enterprise. This was a reconstruction in which the people could take part; the _Constitution_ had fought the one, it would lead the other. From that time until now development has been the _Constitution’s_ most important mission, and in that field its most earnest efforts have been put forth. Constructive journalism was a new thing, and the _Constitution_ became the pioneer. Men might differ on matters of public policy, but no one could afford to differ with a newspaper devoted to building up its environment, its city, State, and section.

Here in Atlanta the effect of this new policy was first felt, and here are its richest results; but helpfulness is contagious, and everywhere the _Constitution_ touched there was a better feeling, and on account of that feeling it touched farther and farther. Coupling with this constructive policy a news system of unprecedented thoroughness, the _Constitution_ became inseparably connected with the life of the people. It was in touch with them everywhere in Georgia and the surrounding States, and finally its beneficent influence spread throughout the whole South, inspiring, encouraging, building up. While some old statesmen were conducting in its columns a discussion as to whether Georgia was growing richer or poorer, the policy of repair was unremittingly pursued; and before the death of Alexander Stephens, who had cried out that the State was going to decay, the signs of new life had already appeared and people began to talk about a New South.

The New South sprang from the scions of the old, and everywhere Confederate soldiers were leaders in this upbuilding. While they cherished the relics of by-gone valor and continued to keep the graves of their dead comrades green, they looked hopefully to the future and strove to lay the foundations of new greatness and future influence in the restored Union. This was the key-note of the most enlightened press, led by the _Constitution_, whose editor, Capt. Howell, was a Confederate soldier.

There came an interesting period of rivalry in this good work when Mr. Grady dashed into the arena. With the impulsive Alston he took charge of the Atlanta _Herald_ in 1873, and for two years it was warm in Atlanta. Colonel J. W. Avery, who succeeded Barrick as editor of the _Constitution_, had gone over to the _Herald_, and Colonel E. Y. Clarke, who had bought out Mr. Anderson, was editor of the _Constitution_, while Mr. Hemphill remained business manager, a position he has filled without intermission since the birth of the paper. He and Colonel Clarke had already built the old _Constitution_ building on Broad Street. Mr. Grady was making the _Herald_ one of the brightest papers ever published in Atlanta, and there were several other dailies in the field. The old _Intelligencer_ had passed away, and in its place had come the _Sun_, a Democratic paper edited by Alexander Stephens. _The New Era_, a scholarly Republican paper, was edited by Colonel William L. Scruggs, now Minister Plenipotentiary to Venezuela, and _The True Georgian_, another Republican paper, was edited by Sam Bard, a rugged product of those times. When the _Herald_ came into this field there were five morning dailies in Atlanta. From the first the contest for supremacy was between the _Constitution_ and the _Herald_. With Georgia Republicanism, the Republican papers passed out of existence, and the _Sun_ soon followed, leaving only the _Constitution_ and the _Herald_. In 1875 the fight between the two papers became desperate. There was no morning train on the Macon and Western road, and both papers wanted to reach middle Georgia. The result was that both ran special engines every morning from Atlanta to Macon, a distance of 104 miles. The expense of these engines absorbed the entire receipts of both papers, and left them to borrow money to pay ordinary expenses. The engines carried not over a thousand papers.

During the month that this fight for existence endured there were many exciting scenes. Both papers went to press about four o’clock, and it was a race to the depot every morning. The paper which got there first was given the main line first, and the day’s sales depended largely on the quickness of the cart-boys.

The contest was spirited but short. Both papers were heavily involved, and it was a question of endurance. The _Constitution_ had almost reached the end of its row when a mortgage was foreclosed on the _Herald_. The _Constitution_ survived with a heavy debt. In 1872 Mr. N. P. T. Finch had bought an interest in the paper, and after the failure of the _Herald_ Mr. Clarke retired and Mr. Finch became editor. In 1876 Captain E. P. Howell, who had had some experience in journalism as city editor of the _Intelligencer_ in its most vigorous days, and had since accumulated some property in the practice of law, bought with his brother Albert a half interest in the _Constitution_, and took the position of editor-in-chief, which he has held ever since. About the first thing Captain Howell did was to employ Mr. Grady, and the next day he secured Joel Chandler Harris. With this incomparable trio, associated with Mr. Finch, the paper began editorially a new life. The remnant of debts incurred in the fight with the _Herald_ was soon wiped out, and from that day the _Constitution_ has enjoyed unbroken prosperity.

Strongly equipped all around, the _Constitution_ enlarged and intensified its operations. The campaign of 1876 was on, and Mr. Grady was sent to Florida, where he unearthed and exposed the ugly transaction by which the electoral vote of that State was given to Hayes. The whole nation hung upon the result with breathless interest, and newspapers were willing to pay any price for the news. The _Constitution_ and the New York _Herald_ were the first to unearth the fraud. On such occasions the _Constitution_ always had the news, and soon came to be looked upon as the most enterprising paper in the South.

With the inauguration of Hayes the South turned away from politics in disgust, and then it was that the _Constitution_ gave a new cue to the efforts of the people and turned their slumbering energy to the development of Georgia and the South.

Mr. Grady, whose Washington letters had made him a national reputation, turned his energies and his heart to development. He went about among the people looking into their concerns and making much of every incipient enterprise. In the agricultural regions he wrote letters that were pastoral poems in prose, strangely mixed with an intoxicating combination of facts and figures. When he wrote about Irish potatoes his city editor, Josiah Carter, now editor of the Atlanta _Journal_, planted several acres as a speculation; when he told of the profits in truck farming there was a furore in the rural districts; and when he got out on the stock farms and described the mild-eyed Jerseys, the stockmen went wild, and the herds were increased, while calves sold for fabulous prices.

Wherever he went his pen touched on industry, and as if by magic it grew and prospered. Fruits, melons, farms, minerals, everything that was in sight, he wrote about; and everything he wrote about became famous. It was in this way that the _Constitution’s_ work was done. The people were wooed into enterprises of every sort, and most of them prospered.