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ORDINARILY, it is not a difficult matter to write a biographical sketch.
Here are the dates, one in faded ink in an old Bible, the other
glistening under the morning sun, or the evening stars, on the cold
gravestone. Here is the business, the occupation, the profession,
success or failure—a little scrap of paper here and there, and beyond
and above everything, the fact of death; of death that, in a pitiful
way, becomes as perfunctory as any other fact or event. Ordinarily,
there is no difficulty in grouping these things, throwing in a word of
eulogy here and there, and sympathizing in a formal way with the friends
and relatives and the community in general.
But to give adequate shape to even the slightest sketch of the unique
personality and the phenomenal career of Henry Woodfin Grady, who died,
as it were, but yesterday, is well-nigh impossible; for here was a life
that has no parallel in our history, productive as our institutions have
been of individuality. A great many Americans have achieved fame in
their chosen professions,—have won distinction and commanded the popular
approval, but here is a career which is so unusual as to have no
precedent. In recalling to mind the names of those who have been most
conspicuously successful in touching the popular heart, one fact
invariably presents itself—the fact of office. It is not, perhaps, an
American fact peculiarly, but it seems to be so, since the proud and the
humble, the great and the small, all seem willing to surrender to its
influence. It is the natural order of things that an American who is
ambitious—who is willing, as the phrase goes, to serve the people (and
it is a pretty as well as a popular phrase)—should have an eye on some
official position, more or less important, which he would be willing to
accept even at a sacrifice if necessary. This is the American plan, and
it has been so sanctified by history and custom that the modern
reformers, who propose to apply a test of fitness to the office-seekers,
are hooted at as Pharisees. After our long and promiscuous career of
office-seeking and office-holding, a test of fitness seems to be a
monarchical invention which has for its purpose the destruction of our
republican institutions.
It is true that some of the purest and best men in our history have held
office, and have sought it, and this fact gives additional emphasis to
one feature of Henry Grady’s career. He never sought office, and he was
prompt to refuse it whenever it was brought within his reach. On one
occasion a tremendous effort was made to induce him to become a
candidate for Congress in the Atlanta district. The most prominent
people in the district urged him, his friends implored him, and a
petition largely signed was presented to him. Never before in Georgia
has a citizen been formally petitioned by so large a number of his
fellow-citizens to accept so important an office. Mr. Grady regarded the
petition with great curiosity. He turned it over in his mind and played
with it in a certain boyish and impulsive way that belonged to
everything he did and that was one of the most charming elements of his
character. His response to the petition is worth giving here. He was, as
he said, strongly tempted to improve a most flattering opportunity. He
then goes on to read a lesson to the young men of the South that is
still timely, though it was written in 1882. He says:
When I was eighteen years of age, I adopted journalism as my
profession. After thirteen years of service, in which I have had
various fortunes, I can say that I have never seen a day when I
regretted my choice. On the contrary, I have seen the field of
journalism so enlarged, its possibilities so widened, and its
influence so extended, that I have come to believe earnestly
that no man, no matter what his calling, his elevation, or his
opportunity, can equal in dignity, honor and usefulness the
journalist who comprehends his position, fairly measures his
duties, and gives himself entirely and unselfishly to his work.
But journalism is a jealous profession, and demands the fullest
allegiance of those who seek its honors or emoluments. Least of
all things can it be made the aid of the demagogue, or the
handmaid of the politician. The man who uses his journal to
subserve his political ambition, or writes with a sinister or
personal purpose, soon loses his power, and had best abandon a
profession he has betrayed. Within my memory there are frequent
and striking examples of men who have sacrificed the one
profession, only to be sacrificed in the other. History has not
recorded the name of a single man who has been great enough to
succeed in both. Therefore, devoted as I am to my profession,
believing as I do that there is more of honor and usefulness for
me along its way than in another path, and that my duty is clear
and unmistakable, I am constrained to reaffirm in my own mind
and to declare to you the resolution I made when I entered
journalism, namely, that as long as I remain in its ranks I will
never become a candidate for any political office, or draw a
dollar from any public treasury. This rule I have never broken,
and I hope I never shall. As a matter of course, every young man
of health and spirit must have ambition, I think it has been the
curse of the South that our young men have considered little
else than political preferment worthy of an ambitious thought.
There is a fascination about the applause of the hustings that
is hard to withstand. Really, there is no career that brings so
much of unhappiness and discontent—so much of subservience,
sacrifice, and uncertainty as that of the politician. Never did
the South offer so little to her young men in the direction of
politics as she does at present. Never did she offer so much in
other directions. As for me, my ambition is a simple one. I
shall be satisfied with the labors of my life if, when those
labors are over, my son, looking abroad upon a better and
grander Georgia—a Georgia that has filled the destiny God
intended her for—when her towns and cities are hives of
industry, and her country-side the exhaustless fields from which
their stores are drawn—when every stream dances on its way to
the music of spindles, and every forest echoes back the roar of
the passing train—when her valleys smile with abundant harvests,
and from her hillsides come the tinkling of bells as her herds
and flocks go forth from their folds—when more than two million
people proclaim her perfect independence, and bless her with
their love—I shall be more than content, I say, if my son,
looking upon such scenes as these, can stand up and say:
“My father bore a part in this work, and his name lives in the
memory of this people.”
While I am forced, therefore, to decline to allow the use of my
name as you request, I cannot dismiss your testimonial,
unprecedented, I believe, in its character and compass, without
renewing my thanks for the generous motives that inspired it.
Life can bring me no sweeter satisfaction than comes from this
expression of confidence and esteem from the people with whom I
live, and among whom I expect to die. You have been pleased to
commend the work I may have done for the old State we love so
well. Rest assured that you have to-day repaid me amply for the
past, and have strengthened me for whatever duty may lie ahead.
Brief as it is, this is a complete summary of Mr. Grady’s purpose so far
as politics were concerned. It is the key-note of his career. He was
ambitious—he was fired with that “noble discontent,” born of genius,
that spurs men to action, but he lacked the selfishness that leads to
office-seeking. It is not to be supposed, however, that he scorned
politics. He had unbounded faith in the end and aim of certain
principles of government, and he had unlimited confidence in the honesty
and justice of the people and in the destiny of the American Union—in
the future of the Republic.
What was the secret of his popularity? By what methods did he win the
affections of people who never saw his face or heard his voice? His
aversion to office was not generally known—indeed, men who regarded him
in the light of rivalry, and who had access to publications neither
friendly nor appreciative, had advertised to the contrary. By them it
was hinted that he was continually seeking office and employing for that
purpose all the secret arts of the demagogue. Yet, in the face of these
sinister intimations, he died the best beloved and the most deeply
lamented man that Georgia has ever produced, and, to crown it all, he
died a private citizen, sacrificing his life in behalf of a purpose that
was neither personal nor sectional, but grandly national in its aims.
In the last intimate conversation he had with the writer of this, Mr.
Grady regretted that there were people in Georgia who misunderstood his
motives and intentions. We were on the train going from Macon to
Eatonton, where he was to speak.
“I am going to Eatonton solely because you seem to have your heart set
on it,” he said. “There are people who will say that I am making a
campaign in my own behalf, and you will hear it hinted that I am going
about the State drumming up popularity for the purpose of running for
some office.”
The idea seemed to oppress him, and though he never bore malice against
a human being, he was keenly hurt at any interpretation of his motives
that included selfishness or self-seeking among them. In this way, he
was often deeply wounded by men who ought to have held up his hands.
When he died, those who had wronged him, perhaps unintentionally, by
attributing to him a selfish ambition that he never had, were among the
first to do justice to his motives. Their haste in this matter (there
are two instances in my mind) has led me to believe that their instinct
at the last was superior to their judgment. I have recently read again
nearly all the political editorials contributed to the _Constitution_ by
Mr. Grady during the last half-dozen years. Taken together, they make a
remarkable showing. They manifest an extraordinary growth, not in style
or expression—for all the graces of composition were fully developed in
Mr. Grady’s earliest writings—but in lofty aim, in the high and
patriotic purpose that is to be found at its culmination in his Boston
speech. I mention the Boston speech because it is the last serious
effort he made. Reference might just as well have been made to the New
England speech, or to the Elberton speech, or to the little speech he
delivered at Eatonton, and which was never reported. In each and all of
these there is to be found the qualities that are greater than literary
nimbleness or rhetorical fluency—the qualities that kindle the fires of
patriotism and revive and restore the love of country.
In his Eatonton speech, Mr. Grady was particularly happy in his
references to a restored Union and a common country, and his earnestness
and his eloquence were as conscientious there as if he were speaking to
the largest and most distinguished audience in the world, and as if his
address were to be printed in all the newspapers of the land. I am
dwelling on these things in order to show that there was nothing
affected or perfunctory in Mr. Grady’s attitude. He had political
enemies in the State—men who, at some turn in their career, had felt the
touch and influence of his hand, or thought they did—and these men were
always ready, through their small organs and mouthpieces, to belittle
his efforts and to dash their stale small beer across the path of this
prophet of the New South, who strove to impress his people with his own
brightness and to lead them into the sunshine that warmed his own life
and made it beautiful. Perhaps these things should not be mentioned in a
sketch that can only be general in its nature; and yet they afford a key
to Mr. Grady’s character; they supply the means of getting an intimate
glimpse of his motives. That the thoughtless and ill-tempered criticisms
of his contemporaries wounded him is beyond question. They troubled him
greatly, and he used to talk about them to his co-workers with the
utmost freedom. But they never made him malicious. He always had some
excuse to offer for those who misinterpreted him, and no attack, however
bitter, was ever made on his motives, that he could not find a
reasonable excuse for in some genial and graceful way.
The great point about this man was that he never bore malice. His heart
was too tender and his nature too generous. The small jealousies, and
rivalries, and envies that appertain to life, and, indeed, are a
definite part of it, never touched him in the slightest degree. He was
conscious of the growth of his powers, and he watched their development
with the curiosity and enthusiasm of a boy, but the egotism that is
based on arrogance or self-esteem he had no knowledge of. The
consciousness of the purity of his motives gave him strength and power
in a direction where most other public men are weak. This same
consciousness gave a breadth, an ardor, and an impulsiveness to his
actions and utterances that seem to be wholly lacking in the lives of
other public men who have won the applause of the public. The secret of
this it would be difficult to define. When his companions in the office
insisted that it was his duty to prepare at least an outline of his
speeches so that the newspapers could have the benefit of such a basis,
the suggestion fretted him. His speech at the annual banquet of the New
England Society, which created such a tremendous sensation, was an
impromptu effort from beginning to end. It was the creature of the
occasion. Fortunately, a reporter of the New York _Tribune_ was present,
and he has preserved for us something of the flavor and finish of the
words which the young Southerner uttered on his first introduction to a
Northern audience. The tremendous impression that he made, however, has
never been recorded. There was a faint echo of it in the newspapers, a
buzz and a stir in the hotel lobbies, but all that was said was
inadequate to explain why these sons of New England, accustomed as they
were to eloquence of the rarer kind, as the volumes of their proceedings
show, rose to their feet and shouted themselves hoarse over the simple
and impromptu effort of this young Georgian.
Mr. Grady attended the New England banquet for the purpose of making a
mere formal response to the toast of “The South,” but, as he said
afterwards, there was something in the scene that was inspiring. Near
him sat General Tecumseh Sherman, who marched through Georgia with fire
and sword, and all around him were the fat and jocund sons of New
England who had prospered by the results of the war while his own people
had had the direst poverty for their portion. “When I found myself on my
feet,” he said, describing the scene on his return, “every nerve in my
body was strung as tight as a fiddle-string, and all tingling. I knew
then that I had a message for that assemblage, and as soon as I opened
my mouth it came rushing out.”
That speech, as we all know, was an achievement in its way. It stirred
the whole country from one end to the other, and made Mr. Grady famous.
Invitations to speak poured in upon him from all quarters, and he at
last decided to deliver an address at Dallas, Texas. His friends advised
him to prepare the speech in advance, especially as many of the
newspapers of the country would be glad to have proofs of it to be used
when it was delivered. He saw how essential this would be, but the
preparation of a speech in cold blood (as he phrased it) was irksome to
him, and failed to meet the approval of his methods, which were as
responsive to the occasion as the report of the thunder-clap is to the
lightning’s flash. He knew that he could depend on these methods in all
emergencies and under all circumstances, and he felt that only by
depending on them could he do himself justice before an audience. The
one characteristic of all his speeches, as natural to his mind as it was
surprising to the minds of others, was the ease and felicity with which
he seized on suggestions born of the moment and growing out of his
immediate surroundings. It might be some incident occurring to the
audience, some failure in the programme, some remark of the speaker
introducing him, or some unlooked-for event; but, whatever it was, he
seized it and compelled it to do duty in pointing a beautiful moral, or
he made it the basis of that swift and genial humor that was a feature
not only of his speeches, but of his daily life.
He was prevailed on, however, to prepare his Dallas speech in advance.
It was put in type in the _Constitution_ office, carefully revised, and
proof slips sent out to a number of newspapers. Mr. Grady’s journey from
Atlanta to Dallas, which was undertaken in a special car, was in the
nature of an ovation. He was met at every station by large crowds, and
his appearance created an enthusiasm that is indescribable. No such
tribute as this has ever before been paid, under any circumstances, to
any private American citizen, and it is to be doubted whether even any
public official, no matter how exalted his station, has ever been
greeted with such hearty and spontaneous enthusiasm. His reception in
Dallas was the culmination of the series of ovations through which he
had passed. Some sort of programme had been arranged by a committee, but
the crowds trampled on this, and the affair took the shape of an
American hullaballoo, so to speak, and, as such, it was greatly enjoyed
by Mr. Grady.
Meanwhile, the programme that had been arranged for the speech-making
was fully carried out. The young editor completely captured the vast
crowd that had assembled to hear him. This information had been promptly
carried to the _Constitution_ office by private telegrams, and
everything was made ready for giving the speech to the public the next
morning; but during the afternoon this telegram came:
“_Suppress speech: It has been entirely changed. Notify other
papers._”
At the last moment, his mind full of the suggestions of his
surroundings, he felt that the prepared speech could not be depended on,
and he threw it away. It was a great relief to him, he told me
afterward, to be able to do this. Whatever in the prepared speech seemed
to be timely he used, but he departed entirely from the line of it at
every point, and the address that the Texans heard was mainly an
impromptu one. It created immense enthusiasm, and confirmed the promise
of the speech before the New England Society.
The speech before the University of Virginia was also prepared
beforehand, but Mr. Grady made a plaything of the preparation before his
audience. “I was never so thoroughly convinced of Mr. Grady’s power,”
said the Hon. Guyton McLendon, of Thomasville, to the writer, “as when I
heard him deliver this speech.” Mr. McLendon had accompanied him on his
journey to Charlottesville. “We spent a day in Washington,” said Mr.
McLendon, recalling the incidents of the trip. “The rest of the party
rode around the capital looking at the sights, but Mr. Grady, myself,
and one or two others remained in the car. While we were waiting there,
Mr. Grady read me the printed slips of his speech, and I remember that
it made a great impression on me. I thought it was good enough for any
occasion, but Mr. Grady seemed to have his doubts about it. He examined
it critically two or three times, and made some alterations. Finally he
laid it away. When he did come to deliver the speech, I was perhaps the
most astonished person you ever saw. I expected to hear again the speech
that had been read to me in the Pullman coach, but I heard a vastly
different and a vastly better one. He used the old speech only where it
was most timely and most convenient. The incident of delivering the
prize to a young student who had won it on a literary exercise of some
sort, started Mr. Grady off in a new vein and on a new line, and after
that he used the printed speech merely to fill out with here and there.
It was wonderful how he could break away from it and come back to it,
fitting the old with the new in a beautiful and harmonious mosaic. If
anybody had told me that the human mind was capable of such a
performance as this on the wing and in the air, so to speak, I shouldn’t
have believed it. To me it was a wonderful manifestation of genius, and
I knew then, for the first time, that there was no limit to Mr. Grady’s
power and versatility as a speaker.”
In his speeches in the country towns of Georgia and before the farmers,
Mr. Grady made no pretense of preparation. His private secretary, Mr.
James R. Holliday, caught and wrote out the pregnant paragraphs that go
to make up his Elberton speech, which was the skeleton and outline on
which he based his speeches to the farmers. Each speech, as might be
supposed, was a beautiful variation of this rural theme to which he was
wedded, but the essential part of the Elberton speech was the bone and
marrow of all. I think there is no passage in our modern literature
equal in its effectiveness and pathos to his picture of a Southern
farmer’s home. It was a matter on which his mind dwelt. There was that
in his nature to which both sun and soil appealed. The rain falling on a
fallow field, the sun shining on the bristling and waving corn, and the
gentle winds of heaven blowing over all—he was never tired of talking of
these, and his talk always took the shape of a series of picturesque
descriptions. He appreciated their spiritual essence as well as their
material meaning, and he surrendered himself entirely to all the
wholesome suggestions that spring from the contemplation of rural
scenes.
I suppose it is true that all men—except those who are brought in daily
contact with the practical and prosy side of it—have a longing for a
country life. Mr. Grady’s longing in that direction took the shape of a
passion that was none the less serious and earnest because he knew it
was altogether romantic. In the Spring of 1889, the matter engaged his
attention to such an extent, that he commissioned a compositor in the
_Constitution_ office to purchase a suburban farm. He planned it all out
beforehand, and knew just where the profits were to come in. His
descriptions of his imaginary farm were inimitable, and the details, as
he gave them out, were marked by the rare humor with which he treated
the most serious matters. There was to be an old-fashioned spring in a
clump of large oak-trees on the place, meadows of orchard grass and
clover, through which mild-eyed Jerseys were to wander at will, and in
front of the house there was to be a barley patch gloriously green, and
a colt frolicking and capering in it. The farm was of course a dream,
but it was a very beautiful one while it lasted, and he dwelt on it with
an earnestness that was quite engaging to those who enjoyed his
companionship. The farm was a dream, but he no doubt got more enjoyment
and profit out of it than a great many prosy people get out of the farms
that are real. Insubstantial as it was, Mr. Grady’s farm served to
relieve the tension of a mind that was always busy with the larger
affairs of this busy and stirring age, and many a time when he grew
tired of the incessant demands made on his time and patience he would
close the door of his room with a bang and instruct the office-boy to
tell all callers that he had “gone to his farm.” The fat cows that
grazed there lowed their welcome, the chickens cackled to see him come,
and the colt capered nimbly in the green expanse of barley—children of
his dreams all, but all grateful and restful to a busy mind.