The death of Henry W. Grady is a very much greater national loss than the public will at first concede; and while his death will be regretted, not only by the Democracy of the country, but by all patriotic citizens, few will recognize that he was one of the few prominent young men, who were children during the War, who labored to obliterate absolutely the animosity it engendered. We believe that if the circumstance of his prominent position had not silenced Jefferson Davis, who died almost simultaneously with this youth, he, too, would have been found advocating the truth that the Union of these States is homogeneous, and that Union is worth all the sacrifices it cost.
The young Atlanta editor has, during the past few years, done as much as any other public man toward the accomplishment of perfect reunion and for the prosperity of his State and section. His later addresses had been specially characterized by a broad grasp of political and industrial problems that entitled him to high rank as an accomplished and far-sighted statesman.
There have been few more interesting personalities in the life of the country in the past decade, and there was no man of his years with brighter prospects than Grady at the time of his last visit to the North, which will be memorable as the occasion of his most comprehensive and effective address on his constant theme of American prosperity through fraternity.
AN APOSTLE OF THE NEW FAITH.
From the “New York Times.”
Few men who have never entered the public service were more widely known throughout the country than Henry W. Grady, who died at Atlanta, and the death of only a few even of those who have won the honors and the prominence of public life would be more sincerely deplored. Ten years ago Mr. Grady had made himself known in the South by the fervency of his devotion to her interests and by the unusual ability he displayed in his newspaper work, and the people of the South met his devotion with characteristic warmth of affection and generosity of praise. A little later he was recognized in the North as an eloquent interpreter of the new spirit which had awakened and possessed the South. His speech at the dinner of the New England Society three years ago was only an expression from a more conspicuous platform of the sentiments which had long inspired his daily writing. And it was not merely as an interpreter of Southern feeling that Mr. Grady was entitled to recognition. In a large measure he was the creator of the spirit that now animates the South. He was an apostle of the new faith. He exhorted the people of the Southern States to concern themselves no longer about what they had lost, but to busy themselves with what they might find to do, to consecrate the memories of the war if they would, but to put the whole strength of their minds and bodies into the building up of the New South. To his teaching and his example, as much as to any other single influence perhaps, the South owes the impulses of material advancement, of downright hard work, and that well-nigh complete reconciliation to the conditions and duties of the present and the future that distinguish her to-day.