It was natural, under the circumstances, that his home in Atlanta should be the center of the social life of the city. He kept open house, and, aided by his lovely wife and two beautiful children, dispensed the most charming hospitality. There was nothing more delightful than his home-life. Whatever air or attitude he had to assume in business, at home he was a rollicking and romping boy. He put aside all dignity there, and his most distinguished guest was never distinguished enough to put on the airs of formality that are commonly supposed to be a part of social life. His home was a typical one,—the center of his affections and the fountain of all his joys—and he managed to make all his friends feel what a sacred place it was. It was the headquarters of all that is best and brightest in the social and intellectual life of Atlanta, and many of the most distinguished men of the country have enjoyed the dispensation of his hospitality, which was simple and homelike, having about it something of the flavor and ripeness of the old Southern life.
In writing of the life and career of a man as busy in so many directions as Mr. Grady, one finds it difficult to pursue the ordinary methods of biographical writing. One finds it necessary, in order to give a clear idea of his methods, which were his own in all respects, to be continually harking back to some earlier period of his career. I have alluded to his distaste for the routine of reportorial work. The daily grind—the treadmill of trivial affairs—was not attractive to him; but when there was a sensation in the air—when something of unusual importance was happening or about to happen—he was in his element. His energy at such times was phenomenal. He had the faculty of grasping all the details of an event, and the imagination to group them properly so as to give them their full force and effect. The result of this is shown very clearly in his telegrams to the New York Herald and the Constitution from Florida during the disputed count going on there in 1876 and the early part of 1877. Mr. Tilden selected Senator Joseph E. Brown, among other prominent Democrats, to proceed to Florida, and look after the Democratic case there. Mr. Grady went as the special correspondent of the New York Herald and the Atlanta Constitution, and though he had for his competitors some of the most famous special writers of the country, he easily led them all in the brilliancy of his style, in the character of his work, and in his knack of grouping together gossip and fact. He was always proud of his work there; he was on his mettle, as the saying is, and I think there is no question that, from a journalist’s point of view, his letters and telegrams, covering the history of what is known politically as the Florida fraud, have no equal in the newspaper literature of the day. There is no phase of that important case that his reports do not cover, and they represent a vast amount of rapid and accurate work—work in which the individuality of the man is as prominent as his accuracy and impartiality. One of the results of Mr. Grady’s visit to Florida, and his association with the prominent politicians gathered there, was to develop a confidence in his own powers and resources that was exceedingly valuable to him when he came afterwards to the management of the leading daily paper in the South. He discovered that the men who had been successful in business and in politics had no advantage over him in any of the mental qualities and attributes that appertain to success, and this discovery gave purpose and determination to his ambition.
Another fruitful fact in his career, which he used to dwell on with great pleasure, was his association while in Florida with Senator Brown—an association that amounted to intimacy. Mr. Grady always had a very great admiration for Senator Brown, but in Florida he had the opportunity of working side by side with the Senator and of studying the methods by which he managed men and brought them within the circle of his powerful influence. Mr. Grady often said that it was one of the most instructive lessons of his life to observe the influence which Senator Brown, feeble as he was in body, exerted on men who were almost total strangers. The contest between the politicians for the electoral vote of Florida was in the nature of a still hunt, where prudence, judgment, skill, and large knowledge of human nature were absolutely essential. In such a contest as this, Senator Brown was absolutely master of the situation, and Mr. Grady took great delight in studying his methods, and in describing them afterwards.
Busy as Mr. Grady was in Florida with the politicians and with his newspaper correspondence, he nevertheless found time to make an exhaustive study of the material resources of the State, and the result of this appeared in the columns of the Constitution at a later date in the shape of a series of letters that attracted unusual attention throughout the country. This subject, the material resources of the South, and the development of the section, was always a favorite one with Mr. Grady. He touched it freely from every side and point of view, and made a feature of it in his newspaper work. To his mind there was something more practical in this direction than in the heat and fury of partisan politics. Whatever would aid the South in a material way, develop her resources and add to her capital, population, and industries, found in him not only a ready, but an enthusiastic and a tireless champion. He took great interest in politics, too, and often made his genius for the management of men and issues felt in the affairs of the State; but the routine of politics—the discussion that goes on, like Tennyson’s brook, forever and forever—were of far less importance in his mind than the practical development of the South. This seemed to be the burthen of his speeches, as it was of all his later writings. He never tired of this subject, and he discussed it with a brilliancy, a fervor, a versatility, and a fluency marvelous enough to have made the reputation of half a dozen men. Out of his contemplation of it grew the lofty and patriotic purpose which drew attention to his wonderful eloquence, and made him famous throughout the country—the purpose to draw the two sections together in closer bonds of union, fraternity, harmony, and good-will. The real strength and symmetry of his career can only be properly appreciated by those who take into consideration the unselfishness with which he devoted himself to this patriotic purpose. Instinctively the country seemed to understand something of this, and it was this instinctive understanding that caused him to be regarded with affectionate interest and appreciation from one end of the country to the other by people of all parties, classes, and interests. It was this instinctive understanding that made him at the close of his brief career one of the most conspicuous Americans of modern times, and threw the whole country into mourning at his death.
III.
When in 1880 Mr. Grady bought a fourth interest in the Constitution, he gave up, for the most part, all outside newspaper work, and proceeded to devote his time and attention to his duties as managing editor, for which he was peculiarly well fitted. His methods were entirely his own. He borrowed from no one. Every movement he made in the field of journalism was stamped with the seal of his genius. He followed no precedent. He provided for every emergency as it arose, and some of his strokes of enterprise were as bold as they were startling. He had a rapid faculty of organization. This was shown on one occasion when he determined to print official reports of the returns of the congressional election in the seventh Georgia district. Great interest was felt in the result all over the State. An independent candidate was running against the Democratic nominee, and the campaign was one of the liveliest ever had in Georgia. Yet it is a district that lies in the mountains and winds around and over them. Ordinarily, it was sometimes a fortnight and frequently a month before the waiting newspapers and the public knew the official returns. Mr. Grady arranged for couriers with relays of horses at all the remote precincts, and the majority of them are remote from the lines of communication, and his orders to these were to spare neither horse-flesh nor money in getting the returns to the telegraph stations. At important points, he had placed members of the Constitution’s editorial and reportorial staff, who were to give the night couriers the assistance and directions which their interest and training would suggest. It was a tough piece of work, but all the details and plans had been so perfectly arranged that there was no miscarriage anywhere. One of the couriers rode forty miles over the mountains, fording rushing streams and galloping wildly over the rough roads. It was a rough job, but he had been selected by Mr. Grady especially for this piece of work; he was a tough man and he had tough horses under him, and he reached the telegraph station on time. This sort of thing was going on all over the district, and the next morning the whole State had the official returns. Other feats of modern newspaper enterprise have been more costly and as successful, but there is none that I can recall to mind showing a more comprehensive grasp of the situation or betraying a more daring spirit. It was a feat that appealed to the imagination, and therefore on the Napoleonic order.
And yet it is a singular fact that all his early journalistic ventures were in the nature of failures. The Rome Commercial, which he edited before he had attained his majority, was a bright paper, but not financially successful. Mr. Grady did some remarkably bold and brilliant work on the Atlanta Daily Herald, but it was expensive work, too, and the Herald died for lack of funds. Mr. Marion J. Verdery, in his admirable memorial of Mr. Grady, prepared for the Southern Society of New York (which I have taken the liberty of embodying in this volume) alludes to these failures of Mr. Grady, and a great many of his admirers have been mystified by them. I think the explanation is very simple. Mr. Grady was a new and a surprising element in the field of journalism, and his methods were beyond the comprehension of those who had grown gray watching the dull and commonplace politicians wielding their heavy pens as editors, and getting the news accidentally, if at all. There are a great many people in this world of ours—let us say the average people, in order to be mathematically exact—who have to be educated up to an appreciation of what is bright and beautiful, or bold and interesting. Some of Mr. Grady’s methods were new even in American journalism, and it is no wonder that his dashing experiments with the Daily Herald were failures, or that commonplace people regarded them as crude and reckless manifestations of a purpose and a desire to create a sensation. Moreover, it should be borne in mind that when the Daily Herald was running its special locomotives up and down the railroads of the State, the field of journalism in Atlanta was exceedingly narrow and provincial. The town had been rescued from the village shape, but neither its population nor its progress warranted the experiments on the Herald. They were mistakes of time and place, but they were not mistakes of conception and execution. They helped to educate and enlighten the public, and to give that dull, clumsy, and slow-moving body a taste of the spirit and purpose of modern journalism. The public liked the taste that it got, and smacked its lips over it and remembered it, and was always ready after that to respond promptly to the efforts of Mr. Grady to give it the work of his head and hands.
Bright and buoyant as he was, his early failures in journalism dazed and mortified him, but they did not leave him depressed. If he had his hours of depression and gloom he reserved them for himself. Even when all his resources had been exhausted, he was the same genial, witty, and appreciative companion, the center of attraction wherever he went. The year 1876 was the turning-point in his career in more ways than one. In the fall of that year, Captain Evan P. Howell bought a controlling interest in the Constitution. The day after the purchase was made, Captain Howell met Mr. Grady, who was on his way to the passenger station.
“I was just hunting for you,” said Captain Howell. “I want to have a talk with you.”
“Well, you’ll have to talk mighty fast,” said Mr. Grady. “Atlanta’s either too big for me, or I am too big for Atlanta.”