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_Front the “St. Louis Globe-Democrat.”_
THE sudden and lamentable death of Henry W. Grady will eclipse the
gayety of the Christmas season in the South. He was a popular favorite
throughout that section, and his loss is a general calamity. His public
career was yet in its beginning. He had distinguished himself as an
editor and as an orator, and high political honors awaited him quite as
a matter of course. His qualities of head and heart fitted him admirably
for the service of the people, and they trusted and loved him as they
did no other of the younger Southern leaders. He believed in the new
order of things, and was anxious to see the South redeemed from the
blunders and superstitions of the past, and started on a career of
rational and substantial progress. In the nature of things, he was
obliged now and then to humor sectional prejudice, but he did it always
in a graceful way, and set an example of moderation and good temper that
was greatly to his credit. Without sacrificing in the least his honor or
his sincerity as a devoted son of the South, he gave candid and
appreciative recognition to the virtues of the North, and made himself
at home in Boston the same as in Atlanta. The war was over with him in
the best sense. He looked to the future, and all his aspirations were
generous and wholesome.
If the political affairs of the South were in the control of men of the
Grady pattern, a vast improvement would soon be made. He did not
hesitate to denounce the methods which have so often brought deserved
reproach upon the Southern people. He was not in sympathy with the
theory that violence and fraud may be properly invoked to decide
elections and shape the course of legislation. His impulses as a
partisan stopped short of the feeling that everything is fair in
politics. He did much to mollify and elevate the tone of public
sentiment; and he would have done a great deal more if he had been
spared to continue his salutary work. His loss is one of that kind which
makes the decrees of fate so hard to understand. There was every reason
why he should live and prosper. His opportunities of usefulness were
abundant; his State and his country needed him; there was certain
distinction in store for him. Under such circumstances death comes not
as a logical result, but as an arbitrary interference with reasonable
conditions and conceptions. We are bound to believe that the mystery has
been made plain to the man himself; but here it is insoluble. The lesson
of his sterling integrity, his patriotism and his cheerfulness is left,
however, for his countrymen to study and enforce. Let us hope that in
the South particularly it will not be neglected.
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