HIS NAME A HOUSEHOLD POSSESSION.
From the “Independence, Mo., Sentinel.”
A few years ago there shot athwart the sky of Southern journalism a meteor of unusual brilliancy. From its first flash to its last expiring spark it was glorious, beautiful, strong. It gave light where there had been darkness, strength where there had been weakness, hope where there had been despair. To the faint-hearted it had given cheer, to the timid courage, to the weary vigor and energy.
The electric wires yesterday must have trembled with emotion while flashing to the outside world the startling intelligence that Henry W. Grady, the editor of the Atlanta Constitution, was dead. It was only last week this same world was reading the touching and pathetic tribute his pen had paid to the dead Southern chief; or less than a week, listening with pleased and attentive ears to the silver tones of his oratory at the base of Plymouth Rock, as he plead for fair play for the people of his own sunny Southland.
Henry W. Grady was one of the foremost journalists of the day. He was still numbered among the young men of the Republic, yet his name and fame had already become a household possession in every part of the Union. Not only was he a writer of remarkable vigor, but he was also a finished orator and a skillful diplomat. As a writer he combined the finish of a Prentiss with the strength and vigor of a Greeley. Not so profuse, possibly, as Watterson, he was yet more solid and consistent. By force of genius he had trodden difficulty and failure under foot and had climbed to the highest rung of the ladder.
By his own people he was idolized—by those of other sections highly esteemed. Whenever he wrote all classes read. When he spoke, all people listened.
He was a genuine product of the South, yet he was thoroughly National in his views. The vision of his intelligence took in not only Georgia and Alabama, but all the States; for he believed in the Republic and was glad the South was a part of it.
His death is not only a loss to Atlanta and Georgia, to the South and the North, but a calamity to journalism.