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_From the “Independence, Mo., Sentinel.”_
A FEW years ago there shot athwart the sky of Southern journalism a
meteor of unusual brilliancy. From its first flash to its last expiring
spark it was glorious, beautiful, strong. It gave light where there had
been darkness, strength where there had been weakness, hope where there
had been despair. To the faint-hearted it had given cheer, to the timid
courage, to the weary vigor and energy.
The electric wires yesterday must have trembled with emotion while
flashing to the outside world the startling intelligence that Henry W.
Grady, the editor of the Atlanta _Constitution_, was dead. It was only
last week this same world was reading the touching and pathetic tribute
his pen had paid to the dead Southern chief; or less than a week,
listening with pleased and attentive ears to the silver tones of his
oratory at the base of Plymouth Rock, as he plead for fair play for the
people of his own sunny Southland.
Henry W. Grady was one of the foremost journalists of the day. He was
still numbered among the young men of the Republic, yet his name and
fame had already become a household possession in every part of the
Union. Not only was he a writer of remarkable vigor, but he was also a
finished orator and a skillful diplomat. As a writer he combined the
finish of a Prentiss with the strength and vigor of a Greeley. Not so
profuse, possibly, as Watterson, he was yet more solid and consistent.
By force of genius he had trodden difficulty and failure under foot and
had climbed to the highest rung of the ladder.
By his own people he was idolized—by those of other sections highly
esteemed. Whenever he wrote all classes read. When he spoke, all people
listened.
He was a genuine product of the South, yet he was thoroughly National in
his views. The vision of his intelligence took in not only Georgia and
Alabama, but all the States; for he believed in the Republic and was
glad the South was a part of it.
His death is not only a loss to Atlanta and Georgia, to the South and
the North, but a calamity to journalism.
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