Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen: The silver cord is loosed,
the golden bowl is broken, and the most brilliant light in
American journalism is veiled in darkness. The crystal spirit
has returned to the bright realm from whence it came, as an
evangel of peace, hope and mercy.
The star was rapidly ascending to the zenith of its greatest
brilliancy and magnitude when suddenly it disappeared below the
horizon, but across the journalistic firmament of the country it
has left an effulgent track whose reflection illuminates the
world.
Henry Grady’s sun-bright intellect shone with a splendor that
dazzled the eyes of men, and made luminous the pages traced by
his magnetic pen. The cold type sparkled with the fires of his
genius. His writings breathed a spirit of sweetness and
good-will. They were inspired by lofty purposes and earnest
endeavor, free from all suspicion of selfishness or insincerity.
No shadow of doubt fell across the sunshine of his truth.
Wherever a sunbeam wandered, or a tear-drop glistened; wherever
a perishing life trod upon the ebbing tide; wherever beauty sat
garlanded, or grief repined, there Grady was, singing his loves
and binding rainbow hopes around the darkest despair. His harp
was strung in harmony with the chords of the human heart.
When God in his eternal council conceived the thought of man’s
creation, he called to him the three ministers who wait
constantly upon the throne, Justice, Truth, and Mercy, and thus
addressed them: “Shall we make man?” Then said Justice: “O God,
make him not, for he will trample upon the laws.” Truth made
answer also: “O God, make him not, for he will pollute the
sanctuaries.” But Mercy, dropping upon her knees, and looking up
through her tears, exclaimed: “O God, make him—and I will watch
over him with my care through all the dark paths which he may
have to tread!” Then God made man, and said to him: “O man, thou
art the child of Mercy; go and deal with thy brother.”
So, Henry Grady, a ministering angel of mercy on earth,
faithfully tried, throughout his life, in his conduct toward his
fellow-man, to follow the Divine injunction given at man’s
creation morn. His pen was never dipped in malice or bitterness,
but was always lifted in behalf of charity, love and kindness;
in behalf of progress, industry and enterprise; in behalf of the
South and her institutions—his State and her people.
For every heart he had a tone,
Could make its pulses all his own.
Some men burst to shatters by their own furious notion, others
in the course of nature simply cease to shine; some dart through
the period of their existence like meteors through the sky,
leaving as little impression behind and having with it a
connection equally as slight, while others enter it so
thoroughly that the time becomes identified with them. To this
latter class belonged Henry Grady.
His pen improved the agriculture of the South; it advanced the
material interest and substantial growth of Georgia; it
advocated industrial training for the youths and maidens of the
land; it developed the poetry of the State; it elevated the
morals of men and purified their character; it created noble
aspirations in the human heart; it implanted seeds of
benevolence, charity and liberality; it taught the lesson of
self-abnegation and forgiveness; it inculcated principles of
patriotism and love of country; it softened animosities between
the North and South, and clasped the hands of the two sections
in fraternal greeting. His pen built Atlanta, it aided in
building up Georgia; it established expositions that were a
credit to the State and a glory to her people; it accumulated by
one editorial $85,000 for the erection of a Y. M. C. A.
building; it collected the fund for the erection of the
Confederate soldiers’ home, which will ever stand as a monument
to his patriotism and fidelity. When winter clasped Atlanta in
its icy embrace, and the poor were suffering from hunger and
cold, his pleading pen made the God-favored people of that city,
who sat within places of wealth and comfort, by glowing fires
and bountifully laden tables, hear the wail of the orphan and
the cry of the widow; purse-strings were unfastened, cold hearts
thawed under the magnetic warmth of his melting pathos, and in a
few hours there was not an empty larder or a fireless home among
the poor of Georgia’s great capital. Whether engaged in making
governors and senators, or preparing a Christmas dinner for
newsboys, whether occupied in building a church or forming a
Chautauqua; whether constructing a railroad or erecting some
eleemosynary institution, his pen was powerful and his influence
potent. It has left its impress upon the tablets of the world’s
memory, and the name of Henry Grady, the great pacificator, will
live in song and story until the sundown of time.
According to a contemporary, Henry Grady, while a beardless
student at college, wrote a letter to the Atlanta
_Constitution_, which was his first newspaper experience. The
sparkle and dash of the communication so pleased the editor of
the paper, that when the first press convention after the war
was tendered a ride over the State road, the editor telegraphed
his boyish correspondent, who had then returned to his home in
Athens, that he wished to have him represent the _Constitution_
on that trip, and write up the country and its resources along
the line of the road. Mr. Grady accepted the commission, and of
all the hundreds of letters written on the occasion, his, over
the signature of “King Hans,” were most popular and most widely
copied. He became editor and one of the proprietors of the Rome
_Daily Commercial_, a sprightly, newsy, and enterprising
journal. Rome, however, was at that time too small to support a
daily paper on such a scale, and in 1872 Mr. Grady purchased an
interest in the Atlanta _Herald_. Here he found room and
opportunity for his soaring wings, and the _Herald_ became one
of the most brilliant papers ever published in Georgia. In 1876
he became connected with the _Constitution_. By this time his
editorial abilities had made him many friends at home and
abroad, and James Gordon Bennett at once made him the Southern
representative of the New York _Herald_. On this journal Mr.
Grady did some of the best work of his life. He rapidly regained
all that he had lost in his ventures, and in 1880 purchased a
fourth interest in the _Constitution_, taking the position of
managing editor, which he held at the time of his death. His
career in that capacity is a matter of proud and brilliant
history. He had just commenced an interesting series of valuable
letters to the _New York Ledger_ when he was stricken down with
fatal sickness, even while the plaudits of the admiring
multitude were ringing in his ears and the press of the country
was singing his praises.
The last editorial Grady wrote was the beautiful and soulful
tribute on the death of Jefferson Davis; and on the eve of Mr.
Grady’s departure from Atlanta for Boston he sounded the
bugle-call for funds to help erect a monument to the peerless
champion of the “Lost Cause.” How strange, indeed, that the
illustrious leader and sage of the Old South and the brilliant
and fearless apostle of the New South, should pass away so near
together. Ben Hill died, and his place has never been supplied
in Georgia. Mr. Grady approached nearer to it than any other
man. Now Grady is gone, and his duplicate cannot be found in the
State. Society was blessed by his living and his State advanced
by his usefulness and excellence.
Like the great Cicero, who, when quitting Rome, took from among
his domestic divinities the ivory statue of Minerva, the
protectress of Rome, and consecrated it in the temple, to render
it inviolable to the spoilers, so Henry Grady, when leaving his
college halls to enter upon a brilliant life in the journalistic
world, took with him to the oracles the statue of pure thought,
and after its consecration, to protect and preserve it in his
bosom, it became to him a shield and buckler. Thus armed he went
forward to the battle of life, determined to do his whole duty
to his country, his God and truth. How well he succeeded, the
voice of admiring humanity proclaims, and the angels of heaven
have recorded. He vanquished all opposition and waved his
triumphant banner over every field of conflict.
His thoughts were sparks struck from the mind of Deity, immortal
in their character and duration. They were active, energizing,
beautiful, and refined. His mind was like a precious bulb,
putting forth its shoots and blooming its flowers, warmed by the
sunshine and watered by the showers. It was like a beautiful
blade, burnished and brightened, and as it flashed in the
sunlight it mirrored his kingly soul and knightly spirit.
Looking back at the ages that have rolled by in the revolutions
of time, what have we remaining of the past but the thoughts of
men? Where is magnificent Babylon with her palaces, her
artificial lakes and hanging gardens that were the pride and
luxury of her vicious inhabitants; where is majestic Nineveh,
that proud mistress of the East with her monuments of commercial
enterprise and prosperity? Alas! they are no more. Tyre, that
great city, into whose lap the treasures of the world were
poured, she too is no more. The waves of the sea now roll where
once stood the immense and sumptuous palaces of Tyrian wealth.
Temples, arches and columns may crumble to pieces and be swept
into the sea of oblivion; nature may decay and races of men come
and go like the mists of the morning before the rising sun, but
the proud monuments of Henry Grady’s mind will survive the
wrecks of matter and the shocks of time.
On the Piedmont heights peacefully sleeps the freshness of the
heart of the New South, cut down in the grandeur of his fame and
in the meridian of his powers, in the glory of his life and in
the richest prime of his royal manhood. His brow is wreathed
with laurel. Costly marble will mark the place of his head, and
beautiful flowers bloom at his feet. There the birds will carol
their vespers, and gentle breezes breathe fragrance o’er his
grave. The sun in his dying splendor, ere sinking to rest amid
the clouds that veil the “golden gate,” will linger to kiss the
majestic monument reared by loving hearts, and with a flood of
beauty bathe it in heavenly glory. And then the blush fades,
even as it fades from the face of a beautiful woman. Shadows
begin to climb the hillside, and nature sleeps, lulled by the
soft music of the singing wind. The stars, the bright
forget-me-nots of the angels, come out to keep their vigils o’er
the sleeping dust of him whose soul hath gone
To that fair land upon whose strand
No wind of winter moans.
* * * * *
Major J. F. Hanson, as the representative of the Chamber of Commerce,
said: