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_From the Albany, N.Y., “Argus.”_
ALL who admire true patriotism, brilliant talents, golden eloquence and
ripe judgment, will regret the untimely taking off of the gifted
Southern journalist and orator, Henry W. Grady, in the very zenith of
his powers and fame. His eloquent address at the annual banquet of the
Boston Merchants’ Association is still fresh in the minds of those who
listened to him or read his glowing words in the columns of the press.
It was the last and grandest effort of the brilliant young Southerner.
It was the defense of his beloved South against the calumnies cast upon
her, and the most lucid, convincing exposition of the race question ever
presented at a public assemblage. Impassioned and heartfelt was his plea
for Union and the abandonment of all sectionalism. These closing words
of his address might fitly be inscribed upon his tomb: “Let us resolve
to crown the miracles of our past with the spectacle of a Republic,
compact, united, indissoluble in the bonds of love—loving from the Lakes
to the Gulf—the wounds of war healed in every heart as on every
hill—serene and resplendent at the summit of human achievement and
earthly glory—blazing out the path, and making clear the way up which
all the nations of the earth must come in God’s appointed time.” The
words were all the more emphatic and convincing because they were spoken
in the presence of an ex-president whose entire administration had been
consecrated to such a Union of all sections, and who accomplished more
in the grand work of obliterating the last traces of sectional strife
and division than any other man who sat in the national executive chair.
Well may the South mourn over this fervid advocate of her honor, her
rights, her interests, and regard his death a public calamity. Eloquence
such as his is rarely given to men, and it was devoted wholly to his
beloved land. It has done more to break down the barriers of prejudice
and passion than a decade of homilies, dry arguments and elaborate
statistics could effect. His was a most glorious mission, the bringing
together in the closest bonds of fraternal love and confidence the
sections which partisan malice, political selfishness and unconscionable
malignity would keep apart. Whenever he spoke, the earnestness of his
convictions, expressed in the noblest language, impressed itself upon
the intelligence of his hearers. His last appeal, made, as he described
it, “within touch of Plymouth Rock and Bunker Hill, where Webster
thundered and Longfellow sang, and Emerson thought and Channing
preached,” melted away the most hardened prejudice and enkindled in the
New England heart the spirit of respect and sympathy for the brave,
single-minded people of the South, who are so patiently and determinedly
working out their destiny to make their beautiful land the abode of
unalloyed peace and prosperity. Journalism will also mourn the loss of
one of its brightest representatives. Henry W. Grady shone in the
columns of his newspaper, the Atlanta _Constitution_, with no less
brilliancy than he did as an orator. Under his guidance that paper has
become one of the brightest in the land. It will be difficult for the
South to supply his place as patriot, journalist and orator. He was an
effective foil to the Eliza Pinkston class of statesmen in and out of
Congress.
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