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_From the “Buffalo, N.Y., Express.”_
THE death of no other man than Henry Woodfin Grady could have plunged
Georgia into such deep mourning as darkens all her borders to-day.
Atlanta is the center of Georgia life, and Grady was the incarnation of
Atlanta vitality. His was a personality difficult to associate with the
idea of death. He was so thoroughly alive, bodily and mentally, he was
so young, the fibers of his being reached out and were embedded in so
many of the living interests of Georgia and the whole South, that no
thought of his possible sudden end would rise in the minds of any who
knew him. And his friends were legion. Everybody called him Henry.
In ten years he rose from obscurity to a prominence that made him the
foremost figure of his day in the South, and had already linked his name
with the second office in the gift of the American people. As an orator
he was the pride of the South, as Chauncey M. Depew is of the North. As
a journalist no Northern man bears the relation to his section that
Grady did to the South. As a public-spirited citizen it seemed only
necessary for Grady to espouse a project for it to succeed beyond all
expectations. Yet but a few years ago he started three newspapers in
succession and they all failed! Failure was the alphabet of his success.
When Mr. Grady bought a quarter interest in the Atlanta _Constitution_
he had had but slender training in journalism. He had written a great
deal, which is quite another thing. Though the _Constitution_ has
remained intensely provincial in its methods ever since, he has given it
an influence in the South unrivalled by any other paper, with possibly
one exception. Under his inspiration the _Constitution_ viewed
everything Georgian, and especially Atlantian, as better than similar
things elsewhere. It backed up local enterprises with a warmth that
shames the public spirit of most Northern cities. It boasted of local
achievements with a vehemence that was admirable while it sometimes was
amusing. Florid in his own speech and writing, Mr. Grady gathered about
him on the _Constitution_ men of similar gifts, who often wrote with
pens dipped, as it were, in parti-colored inks, and filled its columns
with ornate verbal illuminations. Yet amid much that was over-done and
under-done there often appeared work of genuine merit. For the
_Constitution_ under Grady has been the vehicle by which some of the
most talented of the late Southern writers have become familiar to the
public. Grady was proud of them, and of his paper. “I have the brightest
staff and the best newspaper in the United States,” he once remarked to
this writer. And Mr. Grady firmly believed what he said.
It was as a speech-maker that Grady was best known at the North. Echoes
of his eloquence had been heard here from time to time, but soon after
the Charleston earthquake he made the address on “The New South,” before
the New England Society at New York, that won for him the applause of
the entire country, and must now stand as the greatest effort of his
life. His recent speech in Boston is too fresh in mind to need attention
here. Mr. Grady’s style was too florid to be wholly pleasing to admirers
of strong and simple English. He dealt liberally in tropes and figures.
He was by turns fervid and pathetic. He made his speeches, as he
conducted his newspaper, in a manner quite his own. It pleased the
people in Georgia, and even when he and his partner, Capt. Howell, ran
the _Constitution_ on both sides of the Prohibition question it was
regarded as a brilliant stroke of journalistic genius.
Personally Mr. Grady was one of the most companionable and lovable of
men. His hand and his purse were always open. His last act in Atlanta,
when waiting at the depot for the train that bore him to the Boston
banquet, was to head a subscription to send the Gate City Guard to
attend Jefferson Davis’s funeral. His swarthy face was lighted by a
bright, moist, black eye that flashed forth the keen, active spirit
within. The impression left upon the mind after meeting him was of his
remarkable alertness.
He will be a sad loss to Georgia, and to the South. There is none to
take his place. His qualities and his usefulness must be divided
henceforth among a number. No one man possesses them all.
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