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NEW YORK, Dec. 23.—The New England Society celebrated to-night its 84th
anniversary and the 469th of the landing of the Pilgrim Fathers with a
dinner.
Mr. Depew spoke to the toast of “Unsolved Problems,” and in the course
of his remarks he referred to the death of Henry W. Grady. He said:
“Thirty years ago, Robert Toombs, of Georgia, one of the ablest and most
brilliant defenders of slavery, said in his place in the United States
Senate that he would yet call the roll of his bondmen at the foot of
Bunker Hill monument. To-day his slaves are citizens and voters. Within
a few days a younger Georgian, possessed of equal genius, but imbued
with sentiments so leavened that the great Senator would have held him
an enemy to the State, was the guest of Boston. With a power of
presentation and a fervor of declaration worthy of the best days and
noblest efforts of eloquence, he stood beneath the shadow of Bunker Hill
and uttered opinions justifying the suppression of the negro vote, which
were hostile to the views of every man in his audience, and yet they
gave to his argument an eager and candid hearing, and to his oratory
unstinted and generous applause. It was triumphant of Puritan principles
and Puritan pluck. They know we know that no system of suffrage can
survive the intimidation of the voter or the falsification of the
courts. Public conscience, by the approval of fraud upon the ballot and
the intelligence of a community, will soon be indifferent to the
extensions of those methods by the present office-holders to continue in
power, and the arbitrary reversing of the will of the majority will end
in anarchy and despotism.
“This is a burning question, not only in Georgia, but in New York. It is
that the government for the people shall be by the people. No matter how
grave the questions which absorb the people’s attention or engross their
time, the permanence of their solution rests upon a pure ballot.
“The telegraph brings us this evening the announcement of the death of
Henry W. Grady, and we forget all differences of opinion and remember
only his chivalry, patriotism, and his genius. He was the leader of the
New South, and died in the great work of impressing its marvelous growth
and national inspirations upon the willing ears of the North. Upon this
platform, and before this audience, two years ago, he commanded the
attention of the country and won universal fame. His death, in the
meridian of his powers and the hopefulness of his mission, at a critical
period of the removal forever of all misunderstanding and differences
between all sections of the Republic, is a national calamity. New York
mingles her tears with those of his kindred, and offers to his memory a
tribute of her profoundest admiration.”
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