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_From the “Louisville Post.”_
THE death of Henry W. Grady, of Atlanta, after so brief an illness and
in the very prime of a vigorous young manhood, will startle the whole
country and will be an especial affliction to the South. Mr. Grady was a
brilliant journalist, a man of brain and heart, and by his sensible and
enthusiastic policy has identified himself with the interests of the New
South. In fact, few men have been more largely instrumental in bringing
about that salutary sentiment, now prevailing, that it is best for the
South to look with hope and courage to the future, rather than to live
in sad inactivity amid the ruins of the past. Mr. Grady was a warm and
confident advocate of industrial advancement in the land of his birth.
He wanted to see the South interlaced with railroads, her rich mineral
deposits opened to development, her cities teeming with factories, her
people busy, contented and prosperous. This was his mission as a man and
as a journalist, and his influence has been widespread. Just at this
time his loss will be doubly severe.
One morning Henry Grady, who had possessed little more than a sectional
reputation, woke up to find himself famous throughout the nation. By his
speech at a New York banquet he sounded the key-note of fraternal Union
between North and South, and his appeal for mutual trust and confidence,
with commerce and industry to cement more strongly than ever the two
great sections of the country, met with a response from both sides of
Mason and Dixon’s line more hearty than ever before. Many another man
from the South felt the same sentiments and would have expressed them
gladly. Many a man in the North felt that in the South those sentiments
were sincerely held. But Grady had a peculiar opportunity, and right
well did he improve it. He expressed eloquently and forcibly the
feelings, the purposes, the very spirit of the New South, and in that
very moment he made a reputation that is national. It was his good
fortune to express to the business men as well as to the politicians of
the nation the idea of an indivisible union of interests, of sentiments
and of purposes, as well as of territory.
In Mr. Grady’s own State his death will be most felt. What he has done
for Georgia can only be appreciated by those who compare its present
activity and prosperity with the apathy and discontent which existed
there a few years ago. The dead man will be sincerely mourned, but the
idea which he made the fundamental one of his brief career will continue
to work out the welfare of the New South.
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