From the “Elmira, N.Y., Advertiser.”
Throughout the entire North as well as in the South will there be heartfelt and sincere mourning over the death of this most distinguished editor on the other side of Mason and Dixon’s line. It was only ten days ago that he came North and delivered an address at the annual dinner of the Merchant’s Club of Boston, following it on the next evening with a speech before the Bay State Club, a Democratic organization. While on this trip Mr. Grady contracted a severe cold which was the immediate cause of his death yesterday morning.
The dead editor was a man of large brain and large heart. His hope was in the future of the South and he worked for the results which his prophetic ken perceived ahead of its present with great earnestness and great judgment. Since he became the editor of the Atlanta Constitution he has labored unceasingly to remedy the unfortunate conditions which operated against the progress and development of the South. Under his inspiring leadership and wise counsel many enterprises have been started and encouraged. There is no other one man to whom the New South owes so much as to Henry W. Grady. When he came to New York City two years ago, and in a notable address there told the people what this New South had done and was trying to do, the public was astonished at his statistics. The speech was so eloquent, so earnest, so broadly American in tone and spirit that it attracted wide attention and sent a thrill of admiration to the heart of every gratified reader. It made him not only famous but popular all through the North. This fame and popularity were increased by his recent excellent addresses in Boston. The Advertiser published, on Thursday last, on the fourth page, an extract from one of these speeches, entitled “The Hope of the Republic,” and we can do the dead man no better honor than to recommend to our readers that they turn back and read that extract again. It expresses the purest sentiment and highest appreciation of the foundation principles of the Republic.
Mr. Grady was a Democrat and a Southern Democrat. Yet he was a protectionist and believed that the development of the South depended upon the maintenance of the protective tariff. Under it the iron manufactures and various products of the soil in that section of our country have been increased to a wonderful extent while the general business interests have strengthened to a remarkable degree. Mr. Grady has encouraged the incoming of Northern laborers and capitalists and aided every legitimate enterprise. He has been a politician, always true to his party’s candidates, though he has been somewhat at variance with his party’s tariff policy. He has been a good man, a noble, true Christian gentleman, an earnest, faithful editor and a model laborer for the promotion of his people’s interests.
THE MODEL CITIZEN.
From the “Boston Globe.”
Henry W. Grady dead? It seems almost impossible.
Only ten days ago his fervid oratory rang out in a Boston banquet hall, and enchanted the hundreds of Boston’s business men who heard it. Only nine days ago the newspapers carried his glowing words and great thoughts into millions of homes. And now he lies in the South he loved so well—dead!