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_From the “Valdosta Times.”_
HENRY W. GRADY is dead. His great soul has passed from this mundane
sphere. Truly “a silver tongue is hushed and a golden pen is broken.”
Matchless orator, brilliant journalist, able statesman, patriotic
citizen, noble man—shall we see your like again!
When Stonewall Jackson fell fighting for the land he loved, the
Confederacy lost her great right arm, and never recovered from the blow.
So, in these post-bellum days—in times of comparative peace—but under
anomalous and trying conditions—the South loses her ablest leader, and
at a time when his services seem most needed, and when he was doing that
service so nobly and well. The death of Mr. Grady in ’89 compares only,
in the Southern estimate, with the loss of Jackson in ’63. Viewed from
the natural side of human wisdom, his death, in the words of the great
Republican orator of New York, is a national calamity.
This young man, from obscurity and poverty, by the sheer force of his
genius, sprang easily and early to a national celebrity which few dare
hope for, and fewer still attain in the generations of men. He was both
brilliant and practical, both gentle and wise. He would build a factory
or a railroad, or found a great exposition, as easily as he would
deliver a bright oration. He would counsel with statesmen with the same
tact and ease that he would go gunning with the young men of the town.
When he touched a man he made a friend.
The writer, who would pay this short and poor tribute, knew him for
eighteen years. He has seen him from many points of view—mostly as an
opponent in State politics, but always as a friend. In his office at
work—at his private board—in the political caucus—on an angling or
gunning expedition—his transcendent genius always shown with a rare and
radiant light. To these who have known him well he has long been the man
the world has recently found him to be—one of the greatest men of his
time; to such his loss is felt as a personal bereavement. Each one, when
his name is heard, will recall some word or deed to cherish as a
fragrance from the tomb. Such memories will be treasured in the hearts
of many, from Grover Cleveland to the saucy newsboys who cry the
_Constitution_ on the streets of Atlanta.
But to abler pens, and to those who have known him longer and better,
the task is left to pronounce a fitting eulogy.
Of his life and his death, much space is ungrudgingly given elsewhere in
this issue of the _Times_. Let the young men of the country read, and
learn of him who has passed away at thirty-eight years of age and left
the impress of his genius upon the greatest Nation of the earth.
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“MAYBE HIS WORK IS FINISHED.”
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_From the “Dalton Argus.”_
HENRY WOODFIN GRADY died Monday morning, December 23, 1889, from
bronchial and other troubles, irritated by his recent visit to Boston,
where he made his last and greatest speech in behalf of the section and
people he loved so well.
Since England lost her Wellington, and America her Lincoln, no greater
calamity has moved a people to sympathetic tears than the death of Henry
Grady. His life was the fulfillment of a noble man, and his grand
impulses touched every phase of humanity. No man was ever better known
to his country by an unbroken chain of rarer virtues, nobler purposes,
and more powerful capacities. His work, in whatever field, was the
impetuosity of patriotism. His successes stand as a mark of indomitable
energy. Possessing an extraordinary faculty of grasping opportunities at
the full flood tide, he illustrated the perfect patriot in forgetting
self for common good, the genuine friend in bestowing his own advantages
to others. Only he that worthily lives, in death enshrines himself in
the hearts of his people, and not a wire in all the network of
commercial arteries but that has given, in messages of love, cadences of
a country’s sorrow. When poets and patriots are met at the bier by the
hushed voices of the rabble, and commerce pauses to pay tribute,
Heaven-blest must be the spirit that gives flight from earth. In all the
walks of life Henry Grady has left remembrances that suggest homage to
his worth.
But his name shall occupy a space in history, filling the brightest
niche of an illustrious age, that his life shall stand out boldly in the
perfect beauty of its accomplishment.
There is a touching coincidence in his death, following so closely after
that of Jefferson Davis, that the funeral dirge of one almost blends
into the decadence of the other, giving figure to an illustration as
true as it is sublime.
Who can refute the suggestion that it was a wise decree of Providence,
staying the relentless demands of Time that sectional prejudice might
lose its forceful resentment, lending ear to the vigorous mind of Davis,
through the very nobility of his after life; and giving communion of
perfect sympathy through the pleading of Henry Grady, caught up as if
from the living embers of the old, a fair type of that historic period,
imbued with all the demands of the present, his patriotic ardor glowing
with fire of eloquence, his dying speech giving tumult of enthusiasm in
voice of advocacy, expounding reason indorsed by every Southern man?
No man better knew the temper of his people, or gave thought with riper
philosophy to the issues which surround them; or was less fearless to
speak the truth.
As a common country gave applause to the logic of the living, may we not
trust in the prophecy of the mourning mother, that the work for which he
gave his life, in unmurmuring sacrifice, is truly accomplished?
There is such pathos in the incident of this last grand effort to break
the cordons of estrangement between the sections as may justify the
hope.
The South, undemonstrative, unprejudiced, unyielding furthermore, pleads
for no fairer basis.
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