FROM
DISTINGUISHED PERSONS.
HON. CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW.
New York, Dec. 23.—The New England Society celebrated to-night its 84th anniversary and the 469th of the landing of the Pilgrim Fathers with a dinner.
Mr. Depew spoke to the toast of “Unsolved Problems,” and in the course of his remarks he referred to the death of Henry W. Grady. He said:
“Thirty years ago, Robert Toombs, of Georgia, one of the ablest and most brilliant defenders of slavery, said in his place in the United States Senate that he would yet call the roll of his bondmen at the foot of Bunker Hill monument. To-day his slaves are citizens and voters. Within a few days a younger Georgian, possessed of equal genius, but imbued with sentiments so leavened that the great Senator would have held him an enemy to the State, was the guest of Boston. With a power of presentation and a fervor of declaration worthy of the best days and noblest efforts of eloquence, he stood beneath the shadow of Bunker Hill and uttered opinions justifying the suppression of the negro vote, which were hostile to the views of every man in his audience, and yet they gave to his argument an eager and candid hearing, and to his oratory unstinted and generous applause. It was triumphant of Puritan principles and Puritan pluck. They know we know that no system of suffrage can survive the intimidation of the voter or the falsification of the courts. Public conscience, by the approval of fraud upon the ballot and the intelligence of a community, will soon be indifferent to the extensions of those methods by the present office-holders to continue in power, and the arbitrary reversing of the will of the majority will end in anarchy and despotism.
“This is a burning question, not only in Georgia, but in New York. It is that the government for the people shall be by the people. No matter how grave the questions which absorb the people’s attention or engross their time, the permanence of their solution rests upon a pure ballot.
“The telegraph brings us this evening the announcement of the death of Henry W. Grady, and we forget all differences of opinion and remember only his chivalry, patriotism, and his genius. He was the leader of the New South, and died in the great work of impressing its marvelous growth and national inspirations upon the willing ears of the North. Upon this platform, and before this audience, two years ago, he commanded the attention of the country and won universal fame. His death, in the meridian of his powers and the hopefulness of his mission, at a critical period of the removal forever of all misunderstanding and differences between all sections of the Republic, is a national calamity. New York mingles her tears with those of his kindred, and offers to his memory a tribute of her profoundest admiration.”