The people of the North also heard him because of his candor. He never deceived them about the race problem or the difficulties in the way of the South’s future. He admitted their gravity, and sought a peaceful solution in a just, fair, and honest way. His speech in Boston was a lamentation and an earnest appeal. He cried aloud for sympathetic help, and his cry, sealed with his life, we must believe, will not be heard in vain. God grant that his prayer for Peace and Union may be answered!
Mr. Grady’s most attractive quality was his warm great heartedness. He was generous to a fault. No tale of suffering or poverty was unheeded by him. He had a buoyant spirit and a light heart and deep affections. He was reverent in speech and with pen. He believed in God, had learned the truth of the gospel at his mother’s knee, “The truest altar I have yet found,” he said in his last speech. He was a member of the Methodist church. He had profound convictions, and his eloquent speeches in favor of Prohibition in Atlanta will not be forgotten. No man ever spoke more earnest words for what he conceived to be the safety of the homes of Atlanta than he. They will long be treasured up with fondness by those who mourn that he was cut down in the zenith of what promised the most brilliant career that lay out before any man in America.
Henry W. Grady was a grandson of North Carolina. His father was a native of Macon county, but early in life emigrated to Rome, Georgia, to make his fortune, and he made it. He was one of those men who succeed in every undertaking. Everything he touched seemed to turn to gold. He prospered and made a large estate. When the war came on he had a presentiment that he would be killed. But notwithstanding that idea took possession of him, he raised and equipped at his own expense a regiment of cavalry, and hastened to the front as its captain. His company was attached as company G to the 25th N.C. Regiment, commanded by Col. Thos. L. Clingman. Eventually Capt. Grady was promoted to be major of the regiment. In the first battle he fell mortally wounded, showing how true was his presentiment of death. He was surrounded by his men, some of them brave, sturdy North Carolinians. He left a legacy of honor to his son, who always called North Carolina his grandmother and had a deep affection for its sons.
Mr. Grady graduated with high honors at the University of Georgia in Athens. Then he spent two years at the University of Virginia, where he devoted himself rather to the study of literature and to the work of the societies than to the regular college course. He won high honors there as an orator and as a debater. He was as well equipped and as ready and as effective as a debater as he became later on as an orator and editor. He was regarded there as a universal genius and the most charming of men. Leaving college he established a paper at Rome. Later in connection with Mr. Alston (North Carolina stock) he established the Atlanta Herald. It was a brilliant paper but was not a financial success. Our readers will remember that Mr. Alston was shot in the Capitol by State Treasurer Cox. Upon the failure of the Herald, Mr. Grady went to New York. He was without money and went there looking for something to do. He went into the office of the New York Herald and asked for a position.
“What can you do?” asked the managing editor, when Mr. Grady asked for a position. “Anything,” was the reply of the young Georgian, conscious of his powers and conscious of ability to do any kind of work that was to be done in a great newspaper office. The editor asked him where he was from, and learning that he was from Georgia, said: “Do you know anything about Georgia politics?” Now if there was any subject which he knew all about it was Georgia politics, and he said so. “Then sit down,” said the managing editor, “and write me an article on Georgia politics.” He sat down and dashed off an article of the brightest matter showing thorough insight into the situation in Georgia and thorough knowledge of the leaders in that State. He was always a facile writer, and all his articles were printed without erasing or re-writing. The article was put into the pigeon-hole, and Mr. Grady took his departure. He left the office, so he said, very despondent, thinking the article might be published after several weeks, but fearing that it would never see the light. What was his surprise and joy to see it in the Herald the next morning. He went down to the office and was engaged as correspondent for Georgia and the South. In this capacity he wrote letters upon Southern topics of such brilliancy as have never been surpassed, if equaled, in the history of American journalism. They gained for him a wide reputation, and made him a great favorite in Georgia. The public men of that State recognized his ability, and saw how much he might do to develop the resources and advance the prosperity and fame of Georgia if at the head of a great State paper. The late Alexander H. Stephens interested himself in Mr. Grady and assisted to get him on the staff of the Constitution. From the day he went to Atlanta on the staff of the Constitution until his death his best energies and his great abilities were directed toward making it a great paper, and a powerful factor in developing the resources of Georgia. It became the most successful of Southern newspapers, and is to-day a competitor with the great papers of the North. To have achieved this unprecedented success in journalism were honor enough to win in a life-time. He was confessedly the Gamaliel of Southern journalism, and the best of it all was that he was, as was said of Horace Greeley after his death, “a journalist because he had something to say which he believed mankind would be the better for knowing; not because he wanted something for himself which journalism might secure for him.”
He was a Saul, and stood head and shoulders above all his fellows as an orator as well as an editor. We cannot dwell upon his reputation as an orator, or recount the scenes of his successes. We had heard him only in impromptu efforts and in short introductory speeches, where he easily surpassed any man whom we ever heard. He had a fine physique, a big, round, open, manly face, was thick-set, was pleasing in style, and had a winning and captivating voice. He could rival Senator Vance in telling an anecdote. He could equal Senator Ransom in a polished, graceful oration. He could put Governor Fowle to his best in his classical illustrations. He could equal Waddell in his eloquent flights. In a word he had more talent as a public speaker than any man we ever knew; and added to that he had heart, soul, fire—the essentials of true oratory. We recall four speeches which gave him greatest reputation. One was in Texas at a college commencement, we think; another at the New York banquet on “The New South”; the third at the University of Virginia; and the last—(alas! his last words)—at the Boston banquet just two weeks ago. These speeches, as well as others he has made, deserve to live. The last one—published in last week’s Chronicle—is emphasized by his untimely death. In it he had so ably and eloquently defended the South and so convincingly plead for a united country based upon mutual confidence and sympathy that, in view of his death, his words seem to have been touched by a patriotism and a devoutness akin to inspiration. His broad catholicity and his great patriotism bridged all sectional lines, and he stood before the country the most eloquent advocate of “a Union of Hearts” as well as a “Union of Hands.” As the coming greatest leader of the South, he sounded the key-note of sublimest patriotism. Less profound than Daniel Webster, his burning words for the perpetuity of the Union, with mutual trust and no sectional antagonism, were not less thrilling nor impressive. The Southern people ought to read and re-read this great speech, which, doubtless, cost him his life, and make it the lamp to their feet. If we heed his words and bury sectionalism, it will be written of him that “though dead, he yet speaketh.”
Star of the South!
To thee all eyes and hearts were turned,
As round thy path, from plain to sea,
The glory of thy greatness burned.