A TYPE OF CHRISTIAN PATRIOTISM.
Again, I remark that Henry W. Grady stood for Christian patriotism irrespective of political spoils. He declined all official reward. He could have been Governor of Georgia, but refused it. He could have been Senator of the United States, but declined it. He remained plain Henry Grady. Nearly all the other orators of the political arena, as soon as the elections are over, go to Washington, or Albany, or Harrisburg, or Atlanta, to get in city or state or national office, reward for their services, and not getting what they want spend the rest of the time of that administration in pouting about the management of public affairs or cursing Harrison or Cleveland. When the great political campaigns were over Mr. Grady went home to his newspaper. He demonstrated that it is possible to toil for principles which he thought to be right, simply because they were right. Christian patriotism is too rare a commodity in this country. Surely the joy of living under such free institutions as those established here ought to be enough reward for political fidelity. Among all the great writers that stood at the last Presidential election on Democratic and Republican platforms, you cannot recall in your mind ten who were not themselves looking for remunerative appointments. Aye, you can count them all on the fingers of one hand. The most illustrious specimen of that style of man for the last ten years was Henry W. Grady.
Again, Mr. Grady stood for the New South, and was just what we want to meet three other men, one to speak for the New North, another for the New East, and another for the New West. The bravest speech made for the last quarter of a century was that made by Mr. Grady at the New England dinner in New York about two or three years ago. I sat with him that evening and know something of his anxieties, for he was to tread on dangerous ground, and might by one misspoken word have antagonized both sections. His speech was a victory that thrilled all of us who heard him and all who read him. That speech, great for wisdom, great for kindness, great for pacification, great for bravery, will go down to the generations with Webster’s speech at Bunker Hill, William Wirt’s speech at the arraignment of Aaron Burr, Edmund Burke’s speech on Warren Hastings, Robert Emmett’s speech for his own vindication.
Who will in conspicuous action represent the New North as he did the New South? Who will come forth for the New East and who for the New West? Let old political issues be buried, let old grudges die. Let new theories be launched. With the coming in of a new nation at the gates of Castle Garden every year, and the wheat bin and corn crib of our land enlarged with every harvest, and a vast multitude of our population still plunged in illiteracy to be educated, and moral questions abroad involving the very existence of our Republic, let the old political platforms that are worm-eaten be dropped, and platforms that shall be made of two planks, the one the Ten Commandments, and the other the Sermon on the Mount, lifted for all of us to stand on. But there is a lot of old politicians grumbling all around the sky who don’t want a New South, a New North, a New East, or a New West. They have some old war speeches that they prepared in 1861, that in all our autumnal elections they feel called upon to inflict upon the country. They growl louder and louder in proportion as they are pushed back further and further and the Henry W. Gradys come to the front. But the mandate, I think, has gone forth from the throne of God that a new American Nation shall take the place of the old, and the new has been baptized for God and liberty, and justice and peace and morality and religion.