At forty minutes past three o’clock on Monday morning Henry W. Grady, the distinguished editor of the Atlanta Constitution, died at his home of pneumonia. No announcement of the death of any leading man of the South has ever created a more profound impression, or caused more genuine and universal sorrow than will the sad news of the demise of this brilliant young Georgian, coming as it does when he was at the very zenith of his fame and usefulness. The death of Mr. Grady is a public calamity that will be mourned by the entire country. It is no exaggeration to say that no orator in the United States since the days of S. S. Prentiss has had such wonderful power over his audiences as Henry W. Grady. This fact has been most forcibly illustrated by his two memorable speeches at the North, the first in New York something over a year ago, the second recently delivered in Boston and with the praises of which the country is still ringing. Sad, sad indeed to human perception that such a brilliant light should have been extinguished when it was shining the brightest and doing the most to dispel the mists of prejudice. But an All-wise Providence knows best. His servant had run his course, he had fulfilled his destiny. The heart of the South has been made sad to overflowing in a short space of time. Davis—Grady, types of the past and the present, two noble representatives of the highest order of Southern manhood and intelligence, representing two notable eras, have passed away and left a brilliant mark on the pages of history.
Henry W. Grady was a native Georgian. He was born in Athens in 1851, and consequently was too young to participate in the late war, but his father lost his life in defense of the Confederate cause, and the son was an ardent lover of the South. At an early age he developed remarkable talent for journalism and entered the profession as the editor of the Rome, Ga., Commercial. After conducting this paper for several years he moved to Atlanta, and established the Daily Herald. When Mr. Grady came to the Constitution in 1880 he soon became famous as a correspondent, and his letters were read far and wide, and when he assumed editorial control of the Constitution, the paper at once felt the impulse of his genius, and from that day has pushed steadily forward in popular favor and in influence until both it and its brilliant editor gained national reputation. No agencies have been more potent for the advancement of Atlanta than Grady and the Constitution, the three indissolubly linked together, and either of the three names suggests the other.
As a type of the vigorous young Southerner of the so-called New South Mr. Grady has won the admiration of the country and gone far to the front, but he has been the soul of loyalty to his section, and has ever struck downright and powerful blows for the Democratic cause and for the rule of intelligence in the South. From the Potomac to the Rio Grande all over our beautiful Southland to-day, there will be mourning and sympathy with Georgia for the loss of her gifted son.
GRIEF TEMPERS TO-DAY’S JOY.
From the “Austin, Tex., Statesman.”
When an old man, full of years, and smitten with the decrepitude they bring, goes down to the grave, the world, though saddened, bows its acquiescence. It is recognized that lonely journey is a thing foredoomed from the foundation of the world—it is the way of all things mortal. But when a young man, full of the vigor of a sturdy life growing into its prime, is suddenly stricken from the number of the quick, a nation is startled and, resentful of the stroke, would rebel, but that such decrees come from a Power that earth cannot reach, and which, though working beyond the ken of fallible understanding, yet doeth all things well.
For the second time within the past two weeks the South has been called upon to mourn the demise of a chosen and well-beloved son. The two men may be classified according to an analysis first of all instituted by him whose funeral to-day takes place in Atlanta. Jefferson Davis was typical of the Old South—Henry W. Grady of the New. And by this we mean not that the South has put away those things that, as a chosen and proud people, they have cherished since first there was a State government in the South. They have the same noble type of manhood, the same chivalrous ambitions, the same love of home and state and country, they are as determined in purpose, as unswerving in the application of principle. But what is meant is that the material conditions of the South have changed, the economics of an empire of territory have been radically altered. Not only has a new class of field labor taken the place of the long-accustomed slave help, but industries unknown in the South before the war have invaded our fair lands, and the rush and whir of manufactories are all around us. It is in this that the South has changed. Jefferson Davis, in his declining years ushered into the reign of peace, was never truly identified with the actualities of the living present, in the sense of a man who, from the present, was for himself carving out a future. His life was past, and for him the past contained the most of earthly life—his was an existence of history, not of activity—he was the personification of the Old South.
Mr. Grady was too young to have participated in the Civil War. He was then but a boy, and has grown into manhood and power since the time when the issues that gave birth to that war were settled. His has been a life of the realistic present. He brought to a study of the changes that were going on around him a keenly perceptive and a well-trained mind—he studied the problems that surrounded him thoroughly and conscientiously, and his conclusions were almost invariably the soundest. He realized the importance and responsibility of his position as the editor of a widely circulating newspaper, and he was unfaltering in his zeal to discharge his every duty with credit to himself and profit to his people. He was the champion of the Southern people through the columns of his paper and upon the rostrum—and when he fell beneath the unexpected stroke of the grim reaper, the South lost a true and valiant friend, the ablest defender with pen and word retort this generation has known.