ALUMNI RESOLUTIONS.
It is no ordinary occasion that calls us together. That was no ordinary light that went out in the gray mists of early dawn. It was no ordinary life that has so suddenly and so strangely come down to its close. To those of us who were University students with him, who knew his University career, the story of his splendid accomplishments has more than ordinary significance, and the heart-breaking tragedy of his sudden taking off a profound meaning.
We had a personal sympathy in every stride of his struggling manhood: we carried a personal pride to every wonderful achievement of his growing genius: we hailed with fraternal joy every popular triumph of his intellectual prowess; we joined in every glad shout that told how victoriously his unselfish love was commanding sway over the American heart; and when he is stricken down we bow our heads in sorrow, as only those can who know the sources from which he drew the inspirations of his life.
He came from the University of Georgia in those palmy days from ’66 to ’72, when Lipscomb and Mell and W. L. Brown and Waddell and Rutherford and Charbonnier and Jones and Smead—names that some of us will teach our boys to pronounce tenderly and reverently—were at their greatest and best. In this company gathered here are those who know the meaning and the moulding power of great character builders like these. The great soul of the venerable Chancellor Lipscomb, that grand arch priest of higher learning, made its impress on the soul of the young man at Athens. Some of us can trace that impress, and the impress of the University of those days, through all his after life down to that Boston speech, aye, even to the delirium of that last sickness, when his thought was for others rather than of himself.
Moulded to be generous, broad-minded, tolerant, unselfish, magnanimous, aspiring, noble, who may tell us what climax this divinely gifted, sunny soul might not have reached if his rich and kingly life might have been spared to his race. The education that he received was an evolution of the best and most royal in manhood. It was fashioned on this pattern—the germ thoughts of his life took root in his home and branched out to his friends, overshadowed this city, sent their far-reaching and strengthening arms over every portion of his State, and then towered grandly above his section. Yea, and had began to bear fruit for the healing of the nation, when alas, alas, an inscrutable Providence cuts him down. But, thank God, that matchless tongue, now silent forever, was not hushed till, above Atlanta, above Georgia, above the South, above the whole country, the undying eloquence of that Boston speech rose in majestic waves over city, state, section and country, and sent the far-thrilling echoes into the eternal depths of our common humanity. There it is—from his home, through the university life, through the splendid work in his editorial chair, on the rostrum, in every forward movement of his soul to that last grand plea to the national heart, and down into the delirium of the death chamber, it is the evolution of the noblest and the best. The heart that made the sunniest home in Atlanta warmed everything it touched, from the son of the Puritan on Plymouth Rock, to the grey-haired old freedman that goes with tottering step and slow to join old master and old missus behind the sunset hills.
The University has sent out many sons who have honored her in filling large places in the history of our State and country. Hill and Stephens and Toombs, the Cobbs, and Jacksons, and Lumpkins, and Crawfords, and Gordons, and a long line of immortal names, have illustrated her worth in the professions, in the field, and in the forum. Of the many bright and brightening names of her younger sons, the name of Grady easily led all the rest, and now that he is gone, the almost universal cry is, who among those that are left is great enough to fill his place. In the words of one who had much to do in moulding his intellectual life: “Ulysses is away on his wandering and there is none left in Ithaca strong enough to bend his bow.”
Resolved, That in the death of Henry W. Grady the Alumni of the University of Georgia have lost from their ranks a man who illustrated the best that comes from University education.
Resolved, That his career furnishes to our young men a shining example of one who, choosing his life-work, loved it with an unwavering love, believed in it with an unalterable and tireless devotion and reached success and eminence before he had rounded two-score years.
Resolved, That we recognize and commend the unselfish and generous love of our brother for his own race and for the human race—a love that was so warm and genial that it won men to him as if by magic. Here was the motive power that developed and drove his great brain. Here was the “open sesame” that unlocked for him those treasure-houses of grand thoughts for humanity that are forever barred to cold-hearted and self-seeking men.
Resolved, That we very tenderly and lovingly commend to our Heavenly Father the loved ones about his own hearthstone. We cannot understand this blow, but we bow in submission to the Judge of all the earth, who will do right.
Resolved, That copies of this preamble and resolutions be furnished to his family, and to the Macon and Atlanta papers for publication.
G. R. Glenn, }
W. B. Hill, } Committee.
Washington Dessau, }
These resolutions were also unanimously adopted.
Mr. John T. Boifeuillet, representing the press of Macon, spoke as follows: