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_From the “New York Herald.”_
MR. GRADY’S death will be deeply and justly regretted all over the
country. He had, though still a young man, made for himself a national
reputation, and by his steadfast counsels for peace and good will, and
by his intelligent devotion to the development of his State and of the
South, had won the good will of North and South alike.
It is seldom that so good a journalist is at the same time so brilliant
and effective an orator as Mr. Grady was. The reason probably is that
when he spoke he had something to say, and that he was of so cheerful
and hopeful a spirit that he was able to affect his hearers with his own
optimism. In that he was a thorough American, for, as one of the
shrewdest New Yorkers once said, “This is a bull country, and the bears
have the wrong philosophy for the American people.”
For that training which made him not only a brilliant and successful,
but, what is better, a broadly intelligent and useful journalist, the
_Herald_ claims a not inconsiderable share of credit, which Mr. Grady
himself was accustomed to give it. The _Herald_ was his early and best
school. As a correspondent of this journal he first made his mark by the
fearless accuracy of his reports of some exciting scenes in the
reconstruction period. He showed in those days so keen an eye as an
observer, united with such rapid and just judgment of the bearings of
facts, that his reports in the _Herald_ attracted general attention and
were recognized freely, even by those whom they inconvenienced, as the
clearest, the most truthful, and the most just reports made of those
events. He was then still a very young man; but he quickly saw that the
province of a newspaper, and of a reporter of events for it, is to tell
the exact truth, to tell it simply and straightforwardly, and without
fear, favor or prejudice. This is what he learned from his connection
with the _Herald_, and this lesson he carried into his own able journal,
the Atlanta _Constitution_.
It does not often happen that so young a man as Mr. Grady was makes so
great and widespread a reputation, and this without any of the tricks of
self-puffery which are the cheap resort of too many young men ambitious
of fame, or what they mistake for fame—notoriety.
In Mr. Grady’s untimely death the country loses one of its foremost and
most clear-headed journalists, and his State one of its most eminent and
justly admired citizens.
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