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PREPARED BY MARION J. VERDERY, AT THE REQUEST OF THE NEW YORK SOUTHERN
SOCIETY.
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HENRY WOODFIN GRADY was born in Athens, Georgia, May 17, 1851, and died
in Atlanta, Georgia, December 23, 1889.
His father, William S. Grady, was a native of North Carolina, and lived
in that State until about the year 1846, when he moved to Athens,
Georgia. He was a man of vigorous energy, sterling integrity, and great
independence of character. He was not literary by profession, but
devoted himself to mercantile pursuits, and accumulated what was in
those days considered a handsome fortune. Soon after moving to Georgia
to live, he married Miss Gartrell, a woman of rare strength of character
and deep religious nature. Their married life was sanctified by love of
God, and made happy by a consistent devotion to each other.
They had three children, Henry Woodfin, William S., Jr., and Martha.
Henry Grady’s father was an early volunteer in the Confederate Army. He
organized and equipped a company, of which he was unanimously elected
captain, and went at once to Virginia, where he continued in active
service until he lost his life in one of the battles before Petersburg.
During his career as a soldier he bore himself with such conspicuous
valor, that he was accorded the rare distinction of promotion on the
field for gallantry.
He fought in defense of his convictions, and fell “a martyr for
conscience’ sake.”
His widow, bereft of her helpmate, faced alone the grave responsibility
of rearing her three young children.
She led them in the ways of righteousness and truth, and always
sweetened their lives with the tenderness of indulgence, and the beauty
of devotion. Two of them still live to call her blessed.
If memorials were meant only for the day and generation in which they
are written, who would venture upon the task of preparing one to Henry
W. Grady? His death occasioned such wide grief, and induced such
unprecedented demonstrations of sorrow, that nothing can be commensurate
with those impressive evidences of the unrivaled place he held in the
homage of his countrymen.
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 men. 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 were so superior, and his purposes so unselfish,
that he seemed to combine all the best elements of genius, and live
under the influence of Divine inspiration.
As both a writer and a speaker, he was phenomenally gifted. There was no
limit, either to the power or witchery of his pen. In his masterful
hand, it was as he chose, either the mighty instrument which Richelieu
described, or the light wand of a poet striking off the melody of song,
though not to the music of rhyme. In writing a political editorial, or
an article on the industrial development of the South, or anything else
to which he was moved by an inspiring sense of patriotism or conviction
of duty, he was logical, aggressive, and unanswerable. When building an
air-castle over the framework of his fancy, or when pouring out his soul
in some romantic dream, or when sounding the depth of human feeling by
an appeal for 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. As an orator, he had no
equal in the South. He literally mastered his audience regardless of
their character, chaining them to the train of his thought and carrying
them captive to conviction. He moved upon their souls like the Divine
Spirit upon the waters, either lashing them into storms of enthusiasm,
or stilling them into the restful quiet of sympathy. He was like no
other man—he was a veritable magician. He could invest the most trifling
thing with proportions of importance not at all its own. He could
transform a homely thought into an expression of beauty beneath his
wondrous touch. From earliest childhood he possessed that indefinable
quality which compels hero-worship.
In the untimely ending of his brilliant and useful career—an ending too
sudden to be called less than tragic—there came an affliction as broad
as the land he loved, and a grief well-nigh universal. Atlanta lamented
her foremost citizen; Georgia mourned her peerless son; the New South
agonized over the fall of her intrepid leader; and the heart of the
nation was athrob with sorrow when the announcement went forth—“Henry W.
Grady is dead.”
The power of his personality, the vital force of his energy, and the
scope of his genius, had always precluded the thought that death could
touch him, and hence, when he fell a victim to the dread destroyer,
there was a terrible shock felt, and sorrow rolled like a tempest over
the souls of the Southern people.
The swift race he ran, and the lofty heights he attained, harmonized
well with God’s munificent endowment of him. In every field that he
labored, his achievements were so wonderful, that a faithful account of
his career sounds more like the extravagance of eulogy, than like a
record of truth. Of his very early boyhood no account is essential to
the purposes of this sketch. It is unnecessary to give any details of
him prior to the time when he was a student in the University of
Georgia, at Athens. From that institution he was graduated in 1868.
During his college days, he was a boy of bounding spirit, who, by an
inexplicable power over his associates, made for himself an unchallenged
leadership in all things with which he concerned himself. He was not a
close student. He never studied his text-books more than was necessary
to guarantee his rising from class to class, and to finally secure his
diploma. He had no fondness for any department of learning except
belles-lettres. In that branch of study he stood well, simply because it
was to his liking. The sciences, especially mathematics, were really
distasteful to him. He was an omnivorous reader. Every character of
Dickens was as familiar to him as a personal friend. That great novelist
was his favorite author. He read widely of history, and had a great
memory for dates and events. He reveled in poetry as a pastime, but
never found anything that delighted him more than “Lucile.” He learned
that love-song literally by heart.
While at college his best intellectual efforts were made in his literary
and debating society. He aspired to be anniversarian of his society, and
his election seemed a foregone conclusion. He was, however,
over-confident of success in the last days of the canvass, and when the
election came off was beaten by one vote. This was his first
disappointment, and went hard with him. He could not bring himself to
understand how anything toward the accomplishment of which he had bent
his energy could fail. His defeat proved a blessing in disguise, for the
following year a place of higher honor, namely that of “commencement
orator” was instituted at the University, and to that he was elected by
acclamation. This was the year of his graduation, and the speech he made
was the sensation of commencement. His subject was “Castles in Air,” and
in the treatment of his poetic theme he reveled in that wonderful power
of word painting for which he afterwards became so famous. Even in those
early days, he wrote and spoke with a fluency of expression, and
brilliancy of fancy, that were incomparable.
In all the relations of college life he was universally popular. He had
a real genius for putting himself _en rapport_ with all sorts and
conditions of men. His sympathy was quick-flowing and kind. Any sight or
story of suffering would touch his heart and make the tears come. His
generosity, like a great river, ran in ceaseless flow and broadening
course toward the wide ocean of humanity. He lived in the realization of
its being “more blessed to give than to receive.” He never stopped to
consider the worthiness of an object, but insisted that a man was
entitled to some form of selfishness, and said his was the
self-indulgence which he experienced in giving.
There was an old woman in Athens, who was a typical professional beggar.
She wore out everybody’s charity except Grady’s. He never tired helping
her. One day he said, just after giving her some money, “I do hope old
Jane will not die as long as I live in Athens. If she does, my most
unfailing privilege of charity will be cut off.” A princely liberality
marked everything he did. His name never reduced the average of a
subscription list, but eight times out of ten it was down for the
largest amount.
By his marked individuality of character, and evidences of genius, even
as a boy he impressed himself upon all those with whom he came in
contact.
Immediately after his graduation at Athens, he went to the University of
Virginia, not so much with a determination to broaden his scholastic
attainments, as with the idea that in that famous institution he would
be inspired to a higher cultivation of his inborn eloquence. From the
day he entered the University of Virginia, he had only one ambition, and
that was to be “society orator.” He made such a profound impression in
the Washington Society that his right to the honor he craved was
scarcely disputed. In the public debates, he swept all competitors
before him. About two weeks before the Society’s election of its orator,
he had routed every other aspirant from the field, and it seemed he
would be unanimously chosen. However, when election day came, that same
over-confidence which cost him defeat at Athens lost him victory at
Charlottesville. This disappointment nearly broke his heart. He came
back home crestfallen and dispirited, and but for the wonderful buoyancy
of his nature, he might have succumbed permanently to the severe blow
which had been struck at his youthful aspirations and hopes.
It was not long after his return to Georgia before he determined to make
journalism his life-work. At once he began writing newspaper letters on
all sorts of subjects, trusting to his genius to give interest to purely
fanciful topics, which had not the slightest flavor of news. Having thus
felt his way out into the field of his adoption, he soon went regularly
into newspaper business.
Just about this time, and before he had attained his majority, he
married Miss Julia King, of Athens. She was the first sweetheart of his
boyhood, and kept that hallowed place always. Her beauty and grace of
person, united to her charms of character, made her the queen of his
life and the idol of his love. She, with two children (a boy and girl),
survive him.
In his domestic life he was tender and indulgent to his family, and
generously hospitable to his friends. The very best side of him was
always turned toward his hearthstone, and there he dispensed the richest
treasures of his soul. His home was his castle, and in it his friends
were always made happy by the benediction of his welcome.
Soon after marriage he moved to Rome, Georgia, and established himself
in the joint ownership, and editorial management of the Rome
_Commercial_, which paper, instead of prospering, was soon enveloped in
bankruptcy, costing Mr. Grady many thousands of dollars. Shortly after
this he moved to Atlanta, and formed a partnership with Col. Robert
Alliston in founding the Atlanta _Herald_. The conduct of that paper was
a revelation in Georgia journalism. Grady and Alliston combined probably
more genius than any two men who have ever owned a paper together in
that State. They made the columns of the _Herald_ luminous. They also
put into it more push and enterprise than had ever been known in that
section. They sacrificed everything to daily triumph, regardless of cost
or consequences. They went so far as to charter an engine in order that
they might put their morning edition in Macon, Georgia, by breakfast
time. This was a feat never before dreamed of in Georgia. They
accomplished the unprecedented undertaking, but in doing that, and other
things of unwarranted extravagance, it was not long before the Atlanta
_Herald_ went “lock, stock and barrel,” into the wide-open arms of the
Sheriff. In this venture Mr. Grady not only sunk all of his personal
fortune which remained after the Rome wreck, but involved himself
considerably in debt. Thus at twenty-three years of age, he was a victim
to disappointment in the only two pronounced ambitions he had ever had,
and was depressed by the utter failure of the only two business
enterprises in which he had ever engaged.
He made another effort, and started a weekly paper called the _Atlanta
Capital_. This, however, soon went the sorrowing way of his other hopes.
While those failures and disappointments seemed cruel set-backs in that
day, looked at now they may be counted to have been no more than
healthful discipline to him. They served to stir his spirit the deeper,
and fill him with nobler resolve. Bravely he trampled misfortune under
his feet, and climbed to the high place of honor and usefulness for
which he was destined.
In the day of his extreme poverty, instead of despairing he took on new
strength and courage that equipped him well for future triumphs. When it
is remembered that his vast accomplishments and national reputation were
compassed within the next fourteen years, the record is simply amazing.
Fourteen years ago, Henry W. Grady stood in Atlanta, Georgia, bankrupt
and almost broken-hearted. Everything behind him was blotted by failure,
and nothing ahead of him was lighted with promise. In that trying day he
borrowed fifty dollars, and giving twenty of it to his faithful wife,
took the balance and determined to invest it in traveling as far as it
would carry him from the scene of his discouragements. He had one offer
then open to him, namely, the editorial management of the Wilmington
(North Carolina) _Star_, at a salary of twelve hundred dollars a year.
It was the only thing that seemed a guarantee against actual want, and
he had about determined to accept it, when yielding to the influence of
pure presentiment, instead of buying a ticket to Wilmington with his
thirty dollars, he bought one to New York City.
He landed here with three dollars and seventy-five cents, and registered
at the Astor House in order to be in easy reach of Newspaper Row.
He used to tell the story of his experience on that occasion in this
way: “After forcing down my unrelished breakfast on the morning of my
arrival in New York, I went out on the sidewalk in front of the Astor
House, and gave a bootblack twenty-five cents, one-fifth of which was to
pay for shining my shoes, and the balance was a fee for the privilege of
talking to him. I felt that I would die if I did not talk to somebody.
Having stimulated myself at that doubtful fountain of sympathy, I went
across to the _Herald_ office, and the managing editor was good enough
to admit me to his sanctum. It happened that just at that time several
of the Southern States were holding constitutional conventions. The
_Herald_ manager asked me if I knew anything about politics, I replied
that I knew very little about anything else. ‘Well,’ said he, ‘sit at
this desk and write me an article on State conventions in the South.’
With these words he tossed me a pad and left me alone in the room. When
my task-master returned, I had finished the article and was leaning back
in the chair with my feet up on the desk. ‘Why, Mr. Grady, what is the
matter?’ asked the managing editor. ‘Nothing,’ I replied, ‘except that I
am through.’ ‘Very well, leave your copy on the desk, and if it amounts
to anything I will let you hear from me. Where are you stopping?’ ‘I am
at the Astor House.’ Early the next morning before getting out of bed, I
rang for a hall-boy and ordered the _Herald_. I actually had not
strength to get up and dress myself, until I could see whether or not my
article had been used. I opened the _Herald_ with a trembling hand, and
when I saw that ‘State Conventions in the South’ was on the editorial
page, I fell back on the bed, buried my face in the pillow, and cried
like a child. When I went back to the _Herald_ office that day the
managing editor received me cordially and said, ‘You can go back to
Georgia, Mr. Grady, and consider yourself in the employ of the
_Herald_.’”
Almost immediately after his return to Atlanta, he was tendered, and
gladly accepted, a position on the editorial staff of the Atlanta
_Constitution_. He worked vigorously for the New York _Herald_ for five
years as its Southern correspondent, and in that time did some of the
most brilliant work that has ever been done for that excellent journal.
Notable among his achievements were the graphic reports he made of the
South Carolina riots in 1876. But the special work which gave him
greatest fame was his exposure of the election frauds in Florida that
same year. He secured the memorable confession of Dennis and his
associates, and _his_ report of it to the _Herald_ was exclusive. For
that piece of work alone, Mr. Bennett paid him a thousand dollars. His
attachment to the editorial staff of the Atlanta _Constitution_ gave him
an opportunity to impress himself upon the people of Georgia, which he
did with great rapidity and power.
In 1879, he came to New York, partly for recreation and partly for the
purpose of writing a series of topical letters from Gotham. While here
he was introduced by Governor John B. Gordon to Cyrus W. Field. Mr.
Field was instantly impressed by him, and liked him so much that he
loaned him twenty thousand dollars with which to buy one-fourth interest
in the Atlanta _Constitution_. He made the purchase promptly, and that
for which he paid twenty thousand dollars in 1880, was at the time of
his death in 1889 worth at least one hundred and fifty thousand dollars.
The enormous increase in the value of the _Constitution_ during his
identification with it shows nothing more plainly than the value of his
marvelous work in its service.
Securing an interest in the Atlanta _Constitution_ may be said to have
fixed his noble destiny. It emancipated his genius from the bondage of
poverty, quickened his sensitive spirit with a new consciousness of
power for good, and inspired him to untiring service in the widest
fields of usefulness. He saw the hand of God in the favor that had
blessed him, and in acknowledgment of the Divine providence dedicated
his life to the cause of truth, and the uplifting of humanity. Atlanta
was his home altar, and there he poured out the best libations of his
heart. That thriving city to-day has no municipal advantage, no public
improvement, no educational institution, no industrial enterprise which
does not either owe its beginning to his readiness of suggestion, or its
mature development to his sustaining influence. Its streets are paved
with his energy and devotion, its houses are built in the comeliness and
fashion that he inspired, and its vast business interests are
established in the prosperity and strength that he foretold.
Georgia was the pride of his life, and for the increase of her peace and
prosperity, the deepening brotherhood of her people, the development of
her vast mineral resources, and the enrichment of her varied harvests,
he wrote, and talked, and prayed.
The whole South was to him sacred ground, made so both by the heroic
death of his father and the precious birth of his children. By the
former, he felt all the memories and traditions of the Old South to have
been sanctified, and by the latter he felt all the hopes and aspirations
of the New South to have been beautified. And thus with a personality
altogether unique, and a genius thoroughly rare, he stood like a magical
link between the past and the future. Turning toward the days that were
gone, he sealed them with a holy kiss; and then looking toward the time
that had not yet come, he conjured it with a voice of prophecy.
In politics he was an undeniable leader, and yet never held office. High
places were pressed for his acceptance times without number, but he
always resolutely put them away from him, insisting that office had no
charm for him. He could have gone to Congress, as representative from
the State at large, if he would only have consented to serve. His name
was repeatedly suggested for the governorship of Georgia, but he
invariably suppressed the idea promptly, urging his friends to leave him
at peace in his private station.
In spite of his indifference to all political preferment, it is
universally believed in Georgia, that had he lived, he would have soon
been sent to the United States Senate. Although he had no love of office
for himself, he was the incomparable Warwick of his day. He was almost
an absolute dictator in Georgia politics. No man cared to stand for
election to any place, high or low, unless he felt Grady was with him.
He certainly was the most powerful factor in the election of two
Governors, and practically gave more than one United States Senator his
seat. His power extended all over the State.
Such a man could not be held within the narrow limits of local
reputation. It mattered not how far he traveled from home, he made
himself quickly known by the power of his impressive individuality, or
by some splendid exhibition of his genius.
By two speeches, one made at a banquet of the New England Society in New
York City, and the other at a State fair at Dallas, Texas, he achieved
for himself a reputation which spanned the continent. The most
magnificent effort of eloquence which he ever made was the soul-stirring
speech delivered in Boston on “The Race Problem,” just ten days before
he died. These three speeches were enough to confirm and perpetuate his
fame as a surpassing orator.
It is impossible to give any adequate idea of Henry Grady’s largeness of
heart, nobility of soul, and brilliancy of mind. Those three elements
combined in royal abundance to make his princely nature.
When Georgia’s great triumvirate died, their spirits seemed to linger on
earth in the being of Henry W. Grady. While he lived he perpetuated the
political sagacity of Alexander H. Stephens, the consummate genius of
Robert Toombs, and the impassioned eloquence of Benjamin H. Hill.
True greatness is immortal. Real patriotic purposes are never swallowed
up in death. Good works well begun live long after their praiseworthy
originators have ascended in glory. If there is any truth in these
reflections, they are precious and priceless to all who mourn the
untimely taking off of Henry Woodfin Grady.
His sudden death struck grief to all true-hearted American citizens. In
him was combined such breadth of usefulness and brilliancy of genius,
that he illumined the critical period of American history in which he
lived, and set the firmament of our national glory with many a new and
shining star of promise. This century, though old in its last quarter,
has given birth to but one Henry Woodfin Grady, and it will close its
eyes long before his second self is seen.
A hundred years hence, when sweet charity is stemming the tides of
suffering in the world, if truth is not dumb, she will say: This blessed
work is an echo from Henry Grady’s life on earth. A hundred years hence,
when friendship is building high her altars of self-sacrifice in the
name of love and loyalty, if truth is not dumb, she will say: This
beautiful service is going on as a perpetual memorial to Henry Grady’s
life on earth. A hundred years hence, when all the South shall have been
enriched by the development of her vast natural resources, if truth is
not dumb, she will say: This is the legitimate fruit of Henry Grady’s
labor of love while he lived on earth. A hundred years hence, when
patriotism shall have beaten down all sectional and partisan prejudice,
and the burning problems that press upon our national heart to-day shall
have been “solved in patience and fairness,” if truth is not dumb, she
will say: This is the glorious verification of Henry Grady’s prophetic
utterances while on earth. And when in God’s own appointed time this
nation shall lead all other nations of the earth in the triumphal march
of prosperous peoples under perfect governments, if truth is not dumb,
she will say: This is the free, full and complete answer to Henry
Grady’s impassioned prayer while on earth.
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