The New South sprang from the scions of the old, and everywhere Confederate soldiers were leaders in this upbuilding. While they cherished the relics of by-gone valor and continued to keep the graves of their dead comrades green, they looked hopefully to the future and strove to lay the foundations of new greatness and future influence in the restored Union. This was the key-note of the most enlightened press, led by the Constitution, whose editor, Capt. Howell, was a Confederate soldier.
There came an interesting period of rivalry in this good work when Mr. Grady dashed into the arena. With the impulsive Alston he took charge of the Atlanta Herald in 1873, and for two years it was warm in Atlanta. Colonel J. W. Avery, who succeeded Barrick as editor of the Constitution, had gone over to the Herald, and Colonel E. Y. Clarke, who had bought out Mr. Anderson, was editor of the Constitution, while Mr. Hemphill remained business manager, a position he has filled without intermission since the birth of the paper. He and Colonel Clarke had already built the old Constitution building on Broad Street. Mr. Grady was making the Herald one of the brightest papers ever published in Atlanta, and there were several other dailies in the field. The old Intelligencer had passed away, and in its place had come the Sun, a Democratic paper edited by Alexander Stephens. The New Era, a scholarly Republican paper, was edited by Colonel William L. Scruggs, now Minister Plenipotentiary to Venezuela, and The True Georgian, another Republican paper, was edited by Sam Bard, a rugged product of those times. When the Herald came into this field there were five morning dailies in Atlanta. From the first the contest for supremacy was between the Constitution and the Herald. With Georgia Republicanism, the Republican papers passed out of existence, and the Sun soon followed, leaving only the Constitution and the Herald. In 1875 the fight between the two papers became desperate. There was no morning train on the Macon and Western road, and both papers wanted to reach middle Georgia. The result was that both ran special engines every morning from Atlanta to Macon, a distance of 104 miles. The expense of these engines absorbed the entire receipts of both papers, and left them to borrow money to pay ordinary expenses. The engines carried not over a thousand papers.
During the month that this fight for existence endured there were many exciting scenes. Both papers went to press about four o’clock, and it was a race to the depot every morning. The paper which got there first was given the main line first, and the day’s sales depended largely on the quickness of the cart-boys.
The contest was spirited but short. Both papers were heavily involved, and it was a question of endurance. The Constitution had almost reached the end of its row when a mortgage was foreclosed on the Herald. The Constitution survived with a heavy debt. In 1872 Mr. N. P. T. Finch had bought an interest in the paper, and after the failure of the Herald Mr. Clarke retired and Mr. Finch became editor. In 1876 Captain E. P. Howell, who had had some experience in journalism as city editor of the Intelligencer in its most vigorous days, and had since accumulated some property in the practice of law, bought with his brother Albert a half interest in the Constitution, and took the position of editor-in-chief, which he has held ever since. About the first thing Captain Howell did was to employ Mr. Grady, and the next day he secured Joel Chandler Harris. With this incomparable trio, associated with Mr. Finch, the paper began editorially a new life. The remnant of debts incurred in the fight with the Herald was soon wiped out, and from that day the Constitution has enjoyed unbroken prosperity.
Strongly equipped all around, the Constitution enlarged and intensified its operations. The campaign of 1876 was on, and Mr. Grady was sent to Florida, where he unearthed and exposed the ugly transaction by which the electoral vote of that State was given to Hayes. The whole nation hung upon the result with breathless interest, and newspapers were willing to pay any price for the news. The Constitution and the New York Herald were the first to unearth the fraud. On such occasions the Constitution always had the news, and soon came to be looked upon as the most enterprising paper in the South.
With the inauguration of Hayes the South turned away from politics in disgust, and then it was that the Constitution gave a new cue to the efforts of the people and turned their slumbering energy to the development of Georgia and the South.
Mr. Grady, whose Washington letters had made him a national reputation, turned his energies and his heart to development. He went about among the people looking into their concerns and making much of every incipient enterprise. In the agricultural regions he wrote letters that were pastoral poems in prose, strangely mixed with an intoxicating combination of facts and figures. When he wrote about Irish potatoes his city editor, Josiah Carter, now editor of the Atlanta Journal, planted several acres as a speculation; when he told of the profits in truck farming there was a furore in the rural districts; and when he got out on the stock farms and described the mild-eyed Jerseys, the stockmen went wild, and the herds were increased, while calves sold for fabulous prices.
Wherever he went his pen touched on industry, and as if by magic it grew and prospered. Fruits, melons, farms, minerals, everything that was in sight, he wrote about; and everything he wrote about became famous. It was in this way that the Constitution’s work was done. The people were wooed into enterprises of every sort, and most of them prospered.
Mr. Grady’s work had attracted the attention of prominent men everywhere, and in 1880 Cyrus W. Field, of New York, lent him $20,000 to buy a fourth interest in the Constitution. Mr. Field has stated since Mr. Grady’s death that he never had cause to regret the loan, as it was promptly repaid and had been the means of enlarging Mr. Grady’s work. Mr. Grady bought 250 shares, or $25,000 of the $100,000 of Constitution stock, from Messrs. Howell, Hemphill, and Finch, who had previously purchased the interest of Albert Howell. The stock was then equally owned by Captain E. P. Howell, Mr. W. A. Hemphill, Mr. N. P. T. Finch, and Mr. Grady. The staff was then reorganized, with Captain Howell as editor-in-chief, Mr. Grady, managing editor, and Mr. Finch and Joel Chandler Harris as associate editors. Mr. Wallace P. Reed was added in 1883, and Mr. Clark Howell, now managing editor, came on in 1884 as night editor. When he was promoted to be assistant managing editor in January, 1888, Mr. P. J. Moran, who had been with the Constitution since the suspension of the Sun in the early seventies, succeeded to the position of night editor. In 1886 Mr. Finch retired, and his interest was shared by Messrs. E. P. Howell, Hemphill, Grady, and Clark Howell, and two new proprietors, Messrs. S. M. Inman, of Atlanta, and James Swann. The Constitution has held on its staff at different times many of the most brilliant writers in the country, among them Sam Small, Henry Richardson, editor of the Macon Telegraph, Bill Arp, Betsey Hamilton, T. DeWitt Talmage, and a number of others. The editor of the Atlanta Evening Journal graduated from the city editorship of the Constitution in 1887, and was succeeded by Mr. J. K. Ohl, who still has charge of the city department. Mr. R. A. Hemphill had acquired some stock and was in the business department. The Constitution under the management of Mr. W. J. Campbell has built up a large publishing business and now does the printing for the State. The weekly circulation is in charge of Mr. Edward White, who has an army of agents in all parts of the Union. The western edition in the last month has grown to large proportions.
In 1883 the Constitution had outgrown its three-story building on Broad Street, and the company bought the present site on the corner of Alabama and Forsyth, and began the erection of the new Constitution building. It was completed in August, 1884, at a cost of $60,000 including the site, and the $30,000 perfecting press and other machinery ran the whole cost of the plant up to $125,000. The site is the best for its purpose in the city. In the heart of the town and on an eminence above most other points, the editorial rooms on the fourth and fifth floors overlook the city and the undulating country for miles around. On the north, historic Kennesaw rises, a grim monument of valor, and the white spires at its foot are visible to the naked eye. On the south, Stone Mountain raises its granite dome fifteen miles away, and to the northeast the eye reaches the first foothills of that bracing region of the moonshiners where the Blue Ridge breaks up and makes a Switzerland in Georgia.