Mr. Grady’s death will be deeply and justly regretted all over the country. He had, though still a young man, made for himself a national reputation, and by his steadfast counsels for peace and good will, and by his intelligent devotion to the development of his State and of the South, had won the good will of North and South alike.
It is seldom that so good a journalist is at the same time so brilliant and effective an orator as Mr. Grady was. The reason probably is that when he spoke he had something to say, and that he was of so cheerful and hopeful a spirit that he was able to affect his hearers with his own optimism. In that he was a thorough American, for, as one of the shrewdest New Yorkers once said, “This is a bull country, and the bears have the wrong philosophy for the American people.”
For that training which made him not only a brilliant and successful, but, what is better, a broadly intelligent and useful journalist, the Herald claims a not inconsiderable share of credit, which Mr. Grady himself was accustomed to give it. The Herald was his early and best school. As a correspondent of this journal he first made his mark by the fearless accuracy of his reports of some exciting scenes in the reconstruction period. He showed in those days so keen an eye as an observer, united with such rapid and just judgment of the bearings of facts, that his reports in the Herald attracted general attention and were recognized freely, even by those whom they inconvenienced, as the clearest, the most truthful, and the most just reports made of those events. He was then still a very young man; but he quickly saw that the province of a newspaper, and of a reporter of events for it, is to tell the exact truth, to tell it simply and straightforwardly, and without fear, favor or prejudice. This is what he learned from his connection with the Herald, and this lesson he carried into his own able journal, the Atlanta Constitution.
It does not often happen that so young a man as Mr. Grady was makes so great and widespread a reputation, and this without any of the tricks of self-puffery which are the cheap resort of too many young men ambitious of fame, or what they mistake for fame—notoriety.
In Mr. Grady’s untimely death the country loses one of its foremost and most clear-headed journalists, and his State one of its most eminent and justly admired citizens.
A LOSS TO THE WHOLE COUNTRY.
From the “New York Tribune.”
The death of Henry Grady is a loss to the whole country, but there is some consolation in the general recognition of this fact. During his brief career as a public man he has said many things that it was profitable for both North and South to hear, and he has said them in such a way as to enhance their significance. As editor of one of the few widely influential papers of the South, he possessed an opportunity, which he had also in great measure created, of impressing his opinions upon Southern society, but it was to a few occasional addresses in Northern cities that he chiefly owed his national reputation. His rhetorical gifts were not of the highest order, but he had command of a style of speaking which was most effective for his purposes. It was marked by the Celtic characteristic of exuberance, but it was so agreeable and inspiring that he was able to command at will audiences at home and abroad. When so endowed he has also a significant message to deliver, and is, moreover, animated by a sincere desire to serve his generation to the full measure of his ability, the loss which his death inflicts is not easily repaired. The whole country will unite in deploring the sudden extinction of a faithful life. Mr. Grady’s zeal, activity and patriotism were fully recognized in the North, as we have said, but yet it was pre-eminently to his own people that he was an example and inspiration. His loyalty to the cause in which his father fell was untinged with bitterness, and he never permitted himself to imagine that vain regrets were more sacred than present obligations. He was an admirable illustration of that sagacious and progressive spirit which is gradually, but surely, renewing the South, and which, though it still lacks something of being altogether equal to its opportunities, does nevertheless recognize the fact that “new occasions teach new duties, time makes ancient good uncouth.”