T is only a few times in a century that some unselfish soul, coupled with a towering genius of mind, rises in grandeur and goodness so far above his fellows as to command their almost worshipful admiration and love. Such a man was Henry W. Grady. No written memorial can indicate the strong hold he had upon the Southern people, nor portray that peerless personality which gave him his marvelous power among all men with whom he came into contact.
Grady was, perhaps, above all other prominent political leaders of his times, devoid of sectional animosities, and did more, by voice and pen, than any other man, during the decade of his prominence, to bridge the bloody chasm between the North and South, which designing politicians on both sides were endeavoring to keep open. Notwithstanding the fact that his father was a Southern slaveholder, and lost his life in fighting for the cause of secession, young Grady recognized the providence of God in the failure of that cause, and rejoiced in the liberation of the black man, though with his fallen shackles lay the wrecked fortune of himself, his widowed mother and his beloved Southland. The Union was the pride of Grady’s life. Daniel Webster was not more loyal to its Constitution or bolder in defending its principles. In writing or speaking on any subject to which he was moved by an inspiring sense of patriotism or conviction of duty, he was always eloquent, logical, aggressive and unanswerable. It was with logic, earnest honesty of conviction and a tongue of tender pathos and burning eloquence, together with a personal magnetism that always accompanies a great orator, that he literally mastered his audiences, regardless of their character, chaining them to the train of his thought, and carrying them captive to his convictions. Such a man could not be held within the narrow limits of any section. Wherever he went the power of his individuality quickly made him known, and his splendid genius needed only an opportunity to make him famous.
Like Patrick Henry, his great fame as an orator rested principally upon three speeches. One was made before the New England Society, at a banquet held in New York, in 1889, in which his theme was “The New South” and its message to the North. Another was at the State Fair at Dallas, Texas; but the most magnificent and eloquent effort of his life was delivered in Boston, December 13, 1889, just ten days before he died. The theme of this address was “The Race Problem,” and it is accorded by all who heard it, or have read it, as the most soul-stirring speech, and, withal, the fairest and most practical discussion of this vexed subject which has yet been presented by any man.
Henry Woodfin Grady was born in Atlanta, Georgia, May 17, 1851, and died there December 23, 1889. His father was a merchant in that city before the war, and Henry was the oldest of a family of three children. His mother, whose maiden name was Gartrell, was a woman of strong mind, quick intelligence, deep religious convictions, sweetness of disposition, and force of character happily blended. Grady was a boy of promise, and his youth was a fair index of his after-life. He was always brilliant, industrious, patriotic, enterprising, conscientious, and devoted to his parents to a marked degree. The tragic death of his father, when the boy was fourteen, profoundly affected him, but it, perhaps, hastened his own precocious growth by leaving him as the mainstay of his mother in providing for the family.
At the age of seventeen Henry Grady was graduated at the University of Georgia (1868); but he subsequently attended the University of Virginia, where he took his degree before he was twenty years old, and in less than a year was married to the sweetheart of his youth. His majority found him occupying the position of editor and part owner of the Rome (Georgia) “Commercial.” This failed, and cost the young editor nearly all his savings. Soon after this he removed to Atlanta, and connected himself with the Atlanta “Herald,” the columns of which he made the brightest in the South; but misfortune overtook its financial management and consumed all the remainder of Grady’s fortune. Thus, at twenty-three years of age, he had failed twice and was almost despairing when the old adage, “A friend in need is a friend indeed,” was now verified to him. Cyrus W. Field loaned the penniless young man twenty thousand dollars to buy a controlling interest in the Atlanta “Constitution.” He made it the greatest paper in the South.
Besides the editorial work on his own paper, Mr. Grady contributed much to others, among them the New York “Ledger,” to which he contributed a series of articles on “The New South,” the last of which was published only a few days before his death. When his brilliant and beneficent career was cut short at the early age of thirty-eight, the whole country had become interested in his work, and joined in common mourning over his loss. A fund of over twenty thousand dollars, contributed from all parts of the country, was quickly collected to build a monument to his memory. It was erected in Atlanta, Georgia, and unveiled with imposing ceremonies on October 21, 1891.
One who knew Henry W. Grady well thus writes of him: “He had a matchless grace of soul that made him an unfailing winner of hearts. His translucent mind pulsated with the light of truth and beautified all thought. He grew flowers in the garden of his heart and sweetened the world with the perfume of his spirit. His endowments are so superior, and his purposes so unselfish that he seemed to combine all the best elements of genius and live under the influence of an almost divine inspiration. When building an aircastle over the framework of his fancy, or when pouring out his soul in some romantic dream, or when sounding the depths of human feeling by an appeal for sweet charity’s sake, his command of language was as boundless as the realm of thought, his ideas as beautiful as pictures in the sky, and his pathos as deep as the well of tears.”
THE NEW SOUTH.[¹]