ELECTRIFIED THE WHOLE COUNTRY.
From the “Pittsburgh Dispatch.”
The Christmas holidays, North and South, are saddened by the death of Henry W. Grady, the interesting young journalist of Atlanta, whose words of patriotism and of manly hope and encouragement for all sections, have more than once within a few years electrified the whole country. Mr. Grady won fame early, and in an uncommon manner. Though locally known in the South as a capable newspaper man, his name was not familiar to the general public until a few years ago, when, by a single speech at a banquet in a northern city, he attracted universal attention. Since then his utterances have carried weight, and scarcely a man speaking or writing on public topics has been more respectfully heard.
The key-note of Mr. Grady’s speeches on the South was that the past belief of its people in the “Lost Cause,” and their continued personal admiration for their leaders, should not and did not prevent them from accepting fully and in perfect good faith the results as they stand. He argued that the best elements, including the new generation, were only too willing and anxious to treat of the past as a condition wholly and irrevocably past—and, at that, a past which they would not recall if they could. From the North he asked a recognition of this new feeling, and the magnanimous consideration which would not assume that the South was still disloyal or rebellious merely because it refused to condemn itself and its leaders for the mistakes which brought it disaster.
The efforts of the deceased were to promote patriotic devotion to the Union in the South, and to induce the North to believe that the feeling existed. His evident sincerity and his eloquence in presenting the situation won cordial approval in the North, while in his own section he was applauded with equal warmth. His death will be very widely and deeply regretted, as that of a man of high and generous feeling whose influence, had he lived, promised to make for whatever was noble and good.