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_From the “Austin, Tex., Statesman.”_
WHEN an old man, full of years, and smitten with the decrepitude they
bring, goes down to the grave, the world, though saddened, bows its
acquiescence. It is recognized that lonely journey is a thing foredoomed
from the foundation of the world—it is the way of all things mortal. But
when a young man, full of the vigor of a sturdy life growing into its
prime, is suddenly stricken from the number of the quick, a nation is
startled and, resentful of the stroke, would rebel, but that such
decrees come from a Power that earth cannot reach, and which, though
working beyond the ken of fallible understanding, yet doeth all things
well.
For the second time within the past two weeks the South has been called
upon to mourn the demise of a chosen and well-beloved son. The two men
may be classified according to an analysis first of all instituted by
him whose funeral to-day takes place in Atlanta. Jefferson Davis was
typical of the Old South—Henry W. Grady of the New. And by this we mean
not that the South has put away those things that, as a chosen and proud
people, they have cherished since first there was a State government in
the South. They have the same noble type of manhood, the same chivalrous
ambitions, the same love of home and state and country, they are as
determined in purpose, as unswerving in the application of principle.
But what is meant is that the material conditions of the South have
changed, the economics of an empire of territory have been radically
altered. Not only has a new class of field labor taken the place of the
long-accustomed slave help, but industries unknown in the South before
the war have invaded our fair lands, and the rush and whir of
manufactories are all around us. It is in this that the South has
changed. Jefferson Davis, in his declining years ushered into the reign
of peace, was never truly identified with the actualities of the living
present, in the sense of a man who, from the present, was for himself
carving out a future. His life was past, and for him the past contained
the most of earthly life—his was an existence of history, not of
activity—he was the personification of the Old South.
Mr. Grady was too young to have participated in the Civil War. He was
then but a boy, and has grown into manhood and power since the time when
the issues that gave birth to that war were settled. His has been a life
of the realistic present. He brought to a study of the changes that were
going on around him a keenly perceptive and a well-trained mind—he
studied the problems that surrounded him thoroughly and conscientiously,
and his conclusions were almost invariably the soundest. He realized the
importance and responsibility of his position as the editor of a widely
circulating newspaper, and he was unfaltering in his zeal to discharge
his every duty with credit to himself and profit to his people. He was
the champion of the Southern people through the columns of his paper and
upon the rostrum—and when he fell beneath the unexpected stroke of the
grim reaper, the South lost a true and valiant friend, the ablest
defender with pen and word retort this generation has known.
As two weeks ago the South bowed in sorrow over the last leaf that had
fluttered down from the tree of the past, so to-day, as the mortal
remains of Henry W. Grady are lowered into the tomb, she should cease
from the merriment of the gladsome holiday season, and drop a tear upon
the grave of him who, though so young in years, had in such brilliant
paragraphs bidden defiance to ancient prejudice, scoffed at partisan
bigotry, and proudly invited the closest scrutiny and criticism of the
South. That South in him has lost a warm-hearted friend whom manhood
bids us mourn.
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