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_From the “Pittsburgh Dispatch.”_
THE Christmas holidays, North and South, are saddened by the death of
Henry W. Grady, the interesting young journalist of Atlanta, whose words
of patriotism and of manly hope and encouragement for all sections, have
more than once within a few years electrified the whole country. Mr.
Grady won fame early, and in an uncommon manner. Though locally known in
the South as a capable newspaper man, his name was not familiar to the
general public until a few years ago, when, by a single speech at a
banquet in a northern city, he attracted universal attention. Since then
his utterances have carried weight, and scarcely a man speaking or
writing on public topics has been more respectfully heard.
The key-note of Mr. Grady’s speeches on the South was that the past
belief of its people in the “Lost Cause,” and their continued personal
admiration for their leaders, should not and did not prevent them from
accepting fully and in perfect good faith the results as they stand. He
argued that the best elements, including the new generation, were only
too willing and anxious to treat of the past as a condition wholly and
irrevocably past—and, at that, a past which they would not recall if
they could. From the North he asked a recognition of this new feeling,
and the magnanimous consideration which would not assume that the South
was still disloyal or rebellious merely because it refused to condemn
itself and its leaders for the mistakes which brought it disaster.
The efforts of the deceased were to promote patriotic devotion to the
Union in the South, and to induce the North to believe that the feeling
existed. His evident sincerity and his eloquence in presenting the
situation won cordial approval in the North, while in his own section he
was applauded with equal warmth. His death will be very widely and
deeply regretted, as that of a man of high and generous feeling whose
influence, had he lived, promised to make for whatever was noble and
good.
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