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_From the “Baltimore Sun.”_
THE death yesterday at Atlanta of Henry W. Grady, editor of the
_Constitution_ of that city, is a distressing shock to the thousands
North and South who had learned to admire his vigorous and impressive
utterances on public subjects. Young, enterprising, industrious and
devoted to the material advancement of his State and section, he was a
type of the progressive Southern man of our day. In the face of the
greatest possible difficulties and discouragements he achieved success,
intellectual and financial, of a most substantial character. Mr. Grady’s
career was brief and meteoric, but it was also a useful career. His
strong grasp of present facts enabled him to guide and stimulate the
energies of those about him into profitable channels. Full of ideas,
which his intense, nervous nature fused into sentiment, he exerted an
influence which greatly promoted the progress and prosperity of his
section. Outside his own State Mr. Grady will be best known, however, as
a brilliant and eloquent speaker. For some years past his speeches at
social gatherings of a semi-public character in Northern cities have
attracted a great deal of attention North and South. His earlier
utterances were a trifle effusive, conceding overmuch, perhaps, under
the inspiration of the moment, to the prejudices of his audience. In
discussing fiscal measures he was sometimes at fault, political economy
not being his strongest point, but as regards the relations of the
sections, and especially as regards the so-called Southern problem, he
was a beacon of light to his Northern auditors. His last speech at
Boston the other day—the delivery of which may be said to have brought
about his death—is a fitting monument of his genius and impassioned
eloquence. It thrilled the country with its assertion of the right of
the white race of the South to intelligent government and its
determination never again to submit to the misrule of the African. Mr.
Grady’s speech on this occasion was remarkable not only for its fervor
and frankness—which conciliated his most unrelenting political
opponents—but also for its wealth of recent fact, concisely stated and
conclusive upon the point he had in view. Is the full vote, as shown by
the census, not always cast in Southern elections? Neither is it cast in
Northern States, Mr. Grady showed, appealing to the facts of the
elections of November last. “When,” President Harrison asked in his last
message, referring to the colored voter of the South—“when is he to have
those full civic rights which have so long been his in law?” He will
have them, Mr. Grady answered, when the poor, ignorant, and dependent
employé everywhere gets his. The colored voter of the South cannot be
reasonably expected, he pointed out, to exercise his civil rights to a
greater extent than such rights are exercised by persons in his position
in the North and West. The point of view here taken was new to Mr.
Grady’s audience and new to the Northern press. The effect of his
speech, as a whole, upon Northern opinion has been, it is believed, most
beneficial. In the South it was welcomed as an effort to put the
Northern partisan in a position to see in their true light the hardship
and danger with which the South is perpetually confronted. In some
remarks made later at the Bay State Club, in Boston, Mr. Grady adverted
to a larger problem—one that confronts the whole country. “It seems to
me,” he said, “that the great struggle in this country is a fight
against the consolidation of power, the concentration of capital, the
domination of local sovereignty and the dwarfing of the individual
citizen. It is the democratic doctrine that the citizen is master, and
that he is best fitted to carry out the diversified interests of the
country. It is the pride, I believe, of the South that her simple and
sturdy faith, the homogeneous nature of her people, elevate her citizens
above party. We teach the man that his best guide is the consciousness
of his sovereignty; that he may not ask the national government for
anything the State can do for him, and not ask anything of the State
that he can do for himself.” These views mark the breadth of the
speaker’s statesmanship, and show that it embraced interests wider than
those of his own section—as wide, in fact, as the continent itself. Mr.
Grady died of pneumonia, complicated with nervous prostration. His early
death, at the outset of a most promising career, is a warning to others
of our public men who are under a constant nervous tension. Attempting
too much, they work under excessive pressure, and when, owing to some
accident, they need a margin of strength, there is none.
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