Joel Chandler Harris' life of Henry W. Grady including his writings and speeches (2024)

Press W. L. Mershon & Co.,

Rahway, N. J.

IT is within the bounds of entire accuracy to say thatthe death of no man ever created a deeper and moreuniversal sorrow than that which responded to the announcementthat Henry Woodfin Grady had paid hisfinal debt of nature, and was gone to his last account. Thesense of grief and regret attained the dignity of a nationalbereavement, and was at one and the same time both publicand personal. The young and gifted Georgian hadmade a great impression upon his country and his time;blending an individuality, picturesque, strong and attractive,and an eloquence as rarely solid as it was rhetoricallyfine, into a character of the first order of eminence andbrilliancy. In every section of the Union, the people feltthat a noble nature and a splendid intellect had been subtractedfrom the nation’s stock of wisdom and virtue. Thisfeeling was intensified the nearer it approached the regionwhere he was best known and honored: but it reached thefarthest limits of the land, and was expressed by all classesand parties with an homage equally ungrudging and sincere.

In Georgia, and throughout the Southern States, it roseto a lamentation. He was, indeed, the hope and expectancyof the young South, the one publicist of the New South,who, inheriting the spirit of the old, yet had realized thepresent, and looked into the future, with the eyes of astatesman and the heart of a patriot. His own future wasfully assured. He had made his place; had won hisspurs; and he possessed the qualities, not merely to holdthem, but greatly to magnify their importance. That he6should be cut down upon the threshold of a career, forwhose magnificent development and broad usefulness allwas prepared, seemed a cruel dispensation of Providenceand aroused a heart-breaking sentiment far beyond thebounds compassed by Mr. Grady’s personality.

Of the details of his life, and of his life-work, othershave spoken in the amplest terms. I shall, in this place,content myself with placing on the record my own remembranceand estimate of the man as he was known to me.Mr. Grady became a writer for the press when but littlemore than a boy, and during the darkest days of the Reconstructionperiod. There was in those days but a singlepolitical issue for the South. Our hand was in the lion’smouth, and we could do nothing, hope for nothing, untilwe got it out. The young Georgian was ardent, impetuous,the son of a father slain in battle, the offspring of asection, the child of a province; yet he rose to the situationwith uncommon faculties of courage and perception;caught the spirit of the struggle against reaction with perfectreach; and threw himself into the liberal and progressivemovements of the time with the genius of a man bornfor both oratory and affairs. At first, his sphere of workwas confined to the newspapers of the South. But, notunreasonably or unnaturally, he wished a wider field ofduty, and went East, carrying letters in which he was commendedin terms which might have seemed extravagantthen, but which he more than vindicated. His final settlementin the capital of his native State, and in a positionwhere he could speak directly and responsibly, gave himthe opportunity he had sought to make a name and famefor himself, and an audience of his own. Here he carriedthe policy with which he had early identified himself toits finest conclusions; coming at once to the front as achampion of a free South and a united country, second tonone in efficiency, equaled by none in eloquence.

He was eager and aspiring, and, in the heedlessness ofyouth, with its aggressive ambitions, may not have been atall times discriminating and considerate in the objects of7his attacks; but he was generous to a fault, and, as headvanced upon the highway, he broadened with it and toit, and, if he had lived, would have realized the fullestmeasure of his own promise and the hopes of his friends.The scales of error, when error he felt he had committed,were fast falling from his eyes, and he was frank to ownhis changed, or changing, view. The vista of the wayahead was opening before him with its far perspective clearto his mental sight. He had just delivered an utterance ofexceeding weight and value, winning universal applause,and was coming home to be welcomed by his people withopen arms, when the Messenger of Death summoned himto his God. The tidings of the fatal termination of hisdisorder, so startling in their suddenness and unexpectedness,added to the last scene of all a feature of dramaticinterest.

For my own part, I can truly say that I was from thefirst and always proud of him, hailed him as a young disciplewho had surpassed his elders in learning and power,recognized in him a master voice and soul, followed hiscareer with admiring interest, and recorded his triumphswith ever-increasing sympathy and appreciation. We hadbroken a lance or two between us; but there had been nolick below the belt, and no hurt which was other than skin-deep,and during considerably more than a year before hisdeath a most cordial and unreserved correspondence hadpassed between us. The telegram which brought the fatalnews was a grievous shock to me, for it told me that I hadlost a good friend, and the cause of truth a great advocate.It is with a melancholy satisfaction that I indite theselines, thankful for the opportunity afforded me to do so bythe kindness of his associates and family. Such spiritsare not of a generation, but of an epoch; and it will belong before the South will find one to take the place madeconspicuously vacant by his absence.

Henry Watterson.

Louisville, February 9, 1890.

ORDINARILY, it is not a difficult matter to write abiographical sketch. Here are the dates, one infaded ink in an old Bible, the other glistening under themorning sun, or the evening stars, on the cold gravestone.Here is the business, the occupation, the profession, successor failure—a little scrap of paper here and there, andbeyond and above everything, the fact of death; of deaththat, in a pitiful way, becomes as perfunctory as any otherfact or event. Ordinarily, there is no difficulty in groupingthese things, throwing in a word of eulogy here and there,and sympathizing in a formal way with the friends andrelatives and the community in general.

But to give adequate shape to even the slightest sketchof the unique personality and the phenomenal career ofHenry Woodfin Grady, who died, as it were, but yesterday,is well-nigh impossible; for here was a life that has noparallel in our history, productive as our institutions havebeen of individuality. A great many Americans haveachieved fame in their chosen professions,—have wondistinction and commanded the popular approval, but hereis a career which is so unusual as to have no precedent.In recalling to mind the names of those who have beenmost conspicuously successful in touching the popularheart, one fact invariably presents itself—the fact of office.It is not, perhaps, an American fact peculiarly, but it seemsto be so, since the proud and the humble, the great and the10small, all seem willing to surrender to its influence. It isthe natural order of things that an American who is ambitious—whois willing, as the phrase goes, to serve thepeople (and it is a pretty as well as a popular phrase)—shouldhave an eye on some official position, more or lessimportant, which he would be willing to accept even at asacrifice if necessary. This is the American plan, and ithas been so sanctified by history and custom that themodern reformers, who propose to apply a test of fitness tothe office-seekers, are hooted at as Pharisees. After ourlong and promiscuous career of office-seeking and office-holding,a test of fitness seems to be a monarchical inventionwhich has for its purpose the destruction of our republicaninstitutions.

It is true that some of the purest and best men in ourhistory have held office, and have sought it, and this factgives additional emphasis to one feature of Henry Grady’scareer. He never sought office, and he was promptto refuse it whenever it was brought within his reach. Onone occasion a tremendous effort was made to induce himto become a candidate for Congress in the Atlanta district.The most prominent people in the district urged him, hisfriends implored him, and a petition largely signed waspresented to him. Never before in Georgia has a citizenbeen formally petitioned by so large a number of his fellow-citizensto accept so important an office. Mr. Gradyregarded the petition with great curiosity. He turned itover in his mind and played with it in a certain boyish andimpulsive way that belonged to everything he did and thatwas one of the most charming elements of his character.His response to the petition is worth giving here. He was,as he said, strongly tempted to improve a most flatteringopportunity. He then goes on to read a lesson to theyoung men of the South that is still timely, though it waswritten in 1882. He says:

When I was eighteen years of age, I adopted journalism as my profession.After thirteen years of service, in which I have had variousfortunes, I can say that I have never seen a day when I regretted my11choice. On the contrary, I have seen the field of journalism soenlarged, its possibilities so widened, and its influence so extended, thatI have come to believe earnestly that no man, no matter what his calling,his elevation, or his opportunity, can equal in dignity, honor andusefulness the journalist who comprehends his position, fairlymeasures his duties, and gives himself entirely and unselfishly to hiswork. But journalism is a jealous profession, and demands the fullestallegiance of those who seek its honors or emoluments. Least of allthings can it be made the aid of the demagogue, or the handmaid ofthe politician. The man who uses his journal to subserve his politicalambition, or writes with a sinister or personal purpose, soon loses hispower, and had best abandon a profession he has betrayed. Withinmy memory there are frequent and striking examples of men who havesacrificed the one profession, only to be sacrificed in the other. Historyhas not recorded the name of a single man who has been great enoughto succeed in both. Therefore, devoted as I am to my profession,believing as I do that there is more of honor and usefulness for mealong its way than in another path, and that my duty is clear andunmistakable, I am constrained to reaffirm in my own mind and todeclare to you the resolution I made when I entered journalism,namely, that as long as I remain in its ranks I will never become a candidatefor any political office, or draw a dollar from any public treasury.This rule I have never broken, and I hope I never shall. As a matterof course, every young man of health and spirit must have ambition,I think it has been the curse of the South that our young men haveconsidered little else than political preferment worthy of an ambitiousthought. There is a fascination about the applause of the hustingsthat is hard to withstand. Really, there is no career that brings somuch of unhappiness and discontent—so much of subservience, sacrifice,and uncertainty as that of the politician. Never did the Southoffer so little to her young men in the direction of politics as she doesat present. Never did she offer so much in other directions. As forme, my ambition is a simple one. I shall be satisfied with the laborsof my life if, when those labors are over, my son, looking abroad upona better and grander Georgia—a Georgia that has filled the destiny Godintended her for—when her towns and cities are hives of industry, andher country-side the exhaustless fields from which their stores aredrawn—when every stream dances on its way to the music of spindles,and every forest echoes back the roar of the passing train—when hervalleys smile with abundant harvests, and from her hillsides come thetinkling of bells as her herds and flocks go forth from their folds—whenmore than two million people proclaim her perfect independence,and bless her with their love—I shall be more than content, I say, ifmy son, looking upon such scenes as these, can stand up and say:

12“My father bore a part in this work, and his name lives in thememory of this people.”

While I am forced, therefore, to decline to allow the use of myname as you request, I cannot dismiss your testimonial, unprecedented,I believe, in its character and compass, without renewing my thanksfor the generous motives that inspired it. Life can bring me nosweeter satisfaction than comes from this expression of confidence andesteem from the people with whom I live, and among whom I expectto die. You have been pleased to commend the work I may have donefor the old State we love so well. Rest assured that you have to-dayrepaid me amply for the past, and have strengthened me for whateverduty may lie ahead.

Brief as it is, this is a complete summary of Mr.Grady’s purpose so far as politics were concerned. It isthe key-note of his career. He was ambitious—he was firedwith that “noble discontent,” born of genius, that spursmen to action, but he lacked the selfishness that leads tooffice-seeking. It is not to be supposed, however, that hescorned politics. He had unbounded faith in the end andaim of certain principles of government, and he had unlimitedconfidence in the honesty and justice of the peopleand in the destiny of the American Union—in the futureof the Republic.

What was the secret of his popularity? By what methodsdid he win the affections of people who never saw hisface or heard his voice? His aversion to office was notgenerally known—indeed, men who regarded him in thelight of rivalry, and who had access to publications neitherfriendly nor appreciative, had advertised to the contrary.By them it was hinted that he was continually seekingoffice and employing for that purpose all the secret arts ofthe demagogue. Yet, in the face of these sinister intimations,he died the best beloved and the most deeplylamented man that Georgia has ever produced, and, to crownit all, he died a private citizen, sacrificing his life in behalfof a purpose that was neither personal nor sectional, butgrandly national in its aims.

In the last intimate conversation he had with the writerof this, Mr. Grady regretted that there were people in13Georgia who misunderstood his motives and intentions.We were on the train going from Macon to Eatonton, wherehe was to speak.

“I am going to Eatonton solely because you seem tohave your heart set on it,” he said. “There are peoplewho will say that I am making a campaign in my ownbehalf, and you will hear it hinted that I am going aboutthe State drumming up popularity for the purpose of runningfor some office.”

The idea seemed to oppress him, and though he neverbore malice against a human being, he was keenly hurt atany interpretation of his motives that included selfishnessor self-seeking among them. In this way, he was oftendeeply wounded by men who ought to have held up hishands.

When he died, those who had wronged him, perhapsunintentionally, by attributing to him a selfish ambitionthat he never had, were among the first to do justice to hismotives. Their haste in this matter (there are two instancesin my mind) has led me to believe that their instinct atthe last was superior to their judgment. I have recentlyread again nearly all the political editorials contributed tothe Constitution by Mr. Grady during the last half-dozenyears. Taken together, they make a remarkable showing.They manifest an extraordinary growth, not instyle or expression—for all the graces of compositionwere fully developed in Mr. Grady’s earliestwritings—but in lofty aim, in the high and patriotic purposethat is to be found at its culmination in his Bostonspeech. I mention the Boston speech because it is the lastserious effort he made. Reference might just as well havebeen made to the New England speech, or to the Elbertonspeech, or to the little speech he delivered at Eatonton,and which was never reported. In each and all of thesethere is to be found the qualities that are greater than literarynimbleness or rhetorical fluency—the qualities thatkindle the fires of patriotism and revive and restore thelove of country.

14In his Eatonton speech, Mr. Grady was particularlyhappy in his references to a restored Union and a commoncountry, and his earnestness and his eloquence were asconscientious there as if he were speaking to the largestand most distinguished audience in the world, and as if hisaddress were to be printed in all the newspapers of theland. I am dwelling on these things in order to show thatthere was nothing affected or perfunctory in Mr. Grady’sattitude. He had political enemies in the State—men who,at some turn in their career, had felt the touch and influenceof his hand, or thought they did—and these men werealways ready, through their small organs and mouthpieces,to belittle his efforts and to dash their stale small beeracross the path of this prophet of the New South, whostrove to impress his people with his own brightness andto lead them into the sunshine that warmed his own lifeand made it beautiful. Perhaps these things should notbe mentioned in a sketch that can only be general in itsnature; and yet they afford a key to Mr. Grady’s character;they supply the means of getting an intimate glimpseof his motives. That the thoughtless and ill-temperedcriticisms of his contemporaries wounded him is beyondquestion. They troubled him greatly, and he used to talkabout them to his co-workers with the utmost freedom.But they never made him malicious. He always had someexcuse to offer for those who misinterpreted him, and noattack, however bitter, was ever made on his motives, thathe could not find a reasonable excuse for in some genialand graceful way.

The great point about this man was that he never boremalice. His heart was too tender and his nature too generous.The small jealousies, and rivalries, and envies thatappertain to life, and, indeed, are a definite part of it,never touched him in the slightest degree. He was consciousof the growth of his powers, and he watched theirdevelopment with the curiosity and enthusiasm of a boy,but the egotism that is based on arrogance or self-esteemhe had no knowledge of. The consciousness of the purity15of his motives gave him strength and power in a directionwhere most other public men are weak. This same consciousnessgave a breadth, an ardor, and an impulsivenessto his actions and utterances that seem to be wholly lackingin the lives of other public men who have won theapplause of the public. The secret of this it would bedifficult to define. When his companions in the officeinsisted that it was his duty to prepare at least an outlineof his speeches so that the newspapers could have thebenefit of such a basis, the suggestion fretted him. Hisspeech at the annual banquet of the New England Society,which created such a tremendous sensation, was animpromptu effort from beginning to end. It was the creatureof the occasion. Fortunately, a reporter of the New YorkTribune was present, and he has preserved for us somethingof the flavor and finish of the words which the youngSoutherner uttered on his first introduction to a Northernaudience. The tremendous impression that he made, however,has never been recorded. There was a faint echo ofit in the newspapers, a buzz and a stir in the hotel lobbies,but all that was said was inadequate to explain why thesesons of New England, accustomed as they were to eloquenceof the rarer kind, as the volumes of their proceedingsshow, rose to their feet and shouted themselves hoarseover the simple and impromptu effort of this youngGeorgian.

Mr. Grady attended the New England banquet for thepurpose of making a mere formal response to the toast of“The South,” but, as he said afterwards, there was somethingin the scene that was inspiring. Near him sat GeneralTec*mseh Sherman, who marched through Georgiawith fire and sword, and all around him were the fat andjocund sons of New England who had prospered by theresults of the war while his own people had had the direstpoverty for their portion. “When I found myself on myfeet,” he said, describing the scene on his return, “everynerve in my body was strung as tight as a fiddle-string, andall tingling. I knew then that I had a message for that16assemblage, and as soon as I opened my mouth it camerushing out.”

That speech, as we all know, was an achievement inits way. It stirred the whole country from one end to theother, and made Mr. Grady famous. Invitations to speakpoured in upon him from all quarters, and he at last decidedto deliver an address at Dallas, Texas. His friends advisedhim to prepare the speech in advance, especially as many ofthe newspapers of the country would be glad to have proofsof it to be used when it was delivered. He saw how essentialthis would be, but the preparation of a speech in cold blood(as he phrased it) was irksome to him, and failed to meet theapproval of his methods, which were as responsive to theoccasion as the report of the thunder-clap is to the lightning’sflash. He knew that he could depend on thesemethods in all emergencies and under all circ*mstances,and he felt that only by depending on them could he dohimself justice before an audience. The one characteristicof all his speeches, as natural to his mind as it was surprisingto the minds of others, was the ease and felicitywith which he seized on suggestions born of the momentand growing out of his immediate surroundings. It mightbe some incident occurring to the audience, some failure inthe programme, some remark of the speaker introducinghim, or some unlooked-for event; but, whatever it was, heseized it and compelled it to do duty in pointing a beautifulmoral, or he made it the basis of that swift and genialhumor that was a feature not only of his speeches, but ofhis daily life.

He was prevailed on, however, to prepare his Dallasspeech in advance. It was put in type in the Constitutionoffice, carefully revised, and proof slips sent out to a numberof newspapers. Mr. Grady’s journey from Atlanta toDallas, which was undertaken in a special car, was in thenature of an ovation. He was met at every station by largecrowds, and his appearance created an enthusiasm that isindescribable. No such tribute as this has ever before beenpaid, under any circ*mstances, to any private American17citizen, and it is to be doubted whether even any publicofficial, no matter how exalted his station, has ever beengreeted with such hearty and spontaneous enthusiasm.His reception in Dallas was the culmination of the seriesof ovations through which he had passed. Some sort ofprogramme had been arranged by a committee, but thecrowds trampled on this, and the affair took the shape ofan American hullaballoo, so to speak, and, as such, it wasgreatly enjoyed by Mr. Grady.

Meanwhile, the programme that had been arranged forthe speech-making was fully carried out. The young editorcompletely captured the vast crowd that had assembledto hear him. This information had been promptly carriedto the Constitution office by private telegrams, and everythingwas made ready for giving the speech to the publicthe next morning; but during the afternoon this telegramcame:

“Suppress speech: It has been entirely changed.Notify other papers.”

At the last moment, his mind full of the suggestions ofhis surroundings, he felt that the prepared speech couldnot be depended on, and he threw it away. It was a greatrelief to him, he told me afterward, to be able to do this.Whatever in the prepared speech seemed to be timely heused, but he departed entirely from the line of it at everypoint, and the address that the Texans heard was mainlyan impromptu one. It created immense enthusiasm, andconfirmed the promise of the speech before the New EnglandSociety.

The speech before the University of Virginia was alsoprepared beforehand, but Mr. Grady made a plaything ofthe preparation before his audience. “I was never so thoroughlyconvinced of Mr. Grady’s power,” said the Hon.Guyton McLendon, of Thomasville, to the writer, “aswhen I heard him deliver this speech.” Mr. McLendon hadaccompanied him on his journey to Charlottesville. “We18spent a day in Washington,” said Mr. McLendon, recallingthe incidents of the trip. “The rest of the party rodearound the capital looking at the sights, but Mr. Grady,myself, and one or two others remained in the car. Whilewe were waiting there, Mr. Grady read me the printed slipsof his speech, and I remember that it made a great impressionon me. I thought it was good enough for any occasion,but Mr. Grady seemed to have his doubts about it.He examined it critically two or three times, and madesome alterations. Finally he laid it away. When he didcome to deliver the speech, I was perhaps the most astonishedperson you ever saw. I expected to hear again thespeech that had been read to me in the Pullman coach, butI heard a vastly different and a vastly better one. He usedthe old speech only where it was most timely and mostconvenient. The incident of delivering the prize to a youngstudent who had won it on a literary exercise of some sort,started Mr. Grady off in a new vein and on a new line, andafter that he used the printed speech merely to fill out withhere and there. It was wonderful how he could breakaway from it and come back to it, fitting the old with thenew in a beautiful and harmonious mosaic. If anybodyhad told me that the human mind was capable of such aperformance as this on the wing and in the air, so to speak,I shouldn’t have believed it. To me it was a wonderfulmanifestation of genius, and I knew then, for the firsttime, that there was no limit to Mr. Grady’s power andversatility as a speaker.”

In his speeches in the country towns of Georgia andbefore the farmers, Mr. Grady made no pretense of preparation.His private secretary, Mr. James R. Holliday,caught and wrote out the pregnant paragraphs that go tomake up his Elberton speech, which was the skeleton andoutline on which he based his speeches to the farmers.Each speech, as might be supposed, was a beautiful variationof this rural theme to which he was wedded, but theessential part of the Elberton speech was the bone andmarrow of all. I think there is no passage in our modern19literature equal in its effectiveness and pathos to hispicture of a Southern farmer’s home. It was a matter onwhich his mind dwelt. There was that in his nature towhich both sun and soil appealed. The rain falling on afallow field, the sun shining on the bristling and wavingcorn, and the gentle winds of heaven blowing over all—hewas never tired of talking of these, and his talk alwaystook the shape of a series of picturesque descriptions. Heappreciated their spiritual essence as well as their materialmeaning, and he surrendered himself entirely to all thewholesome suggestions that spring from the contemplationof rural scenes.

I suppose it is true that all men—except those whoare brought in daily contact with the practical and prosyside of it—have a longing for a country life. Mr. Grady’slonging in that direction took the shape of a passion thatwas none the less serious and earnest because he knew itwas altogether romantic. In the Spring of 1889, the matterengaged his attention to such an extent, that he commissioneda compositor in the Constitution office to purchasea suburban farm. He planned it all out beforehand, andknew just where the profits were to come in. His descriptionsof his imaginary farm were inimitable, and thedetails, as he gave them out, were marked by the rarehumor with which he treated the most serious matters.There was to be an old-fashioned spring in a clump of largeoak-trees on the place, meadows of orchard grass and clover,through which mild-eyed Jerseys were to wander atwill, and in front of the house there was to be a barleypatch gloriously green, and a colt frolicking and caperingin it. The farm was of course a dream, but it was a verybeautiful one while it lasted, and he dwelt on it with anearnestness that was quite engaging to those who enjoyedhis companionship. The farm was a dream, but he nodoubt got more enjoyment and profit out of it than a greatmany prosy people get out of the farms that are real.Insubstantial as it was, Mr. Grady’s farm served to relievethe tension of a mind that was always busy with the larger20affairs of this busy and stirring age, and many a time whenhe grew tired of the incessant demands made on his timeand patience he would close the door of his room with abang and instruct the office-boy to tell all callers that hehad “gone to his farm.” The fat cows that grazed therelowed their welcome, the chickens cackled to see him come,and the colt capered nimbly in the green expanse of barley—childrenof his dreams all, but all grateful and restfulto a busy mind.

II.

In this hurriedly written sketch, which is throwntogether to meet the modern exigencies of publishing, theround, and full, and complete biography cannot be lookedfor. There is no time here for the selection and arrangementin an orderly way of the details of this busy andbrilliant life. Under the circ*mstances, even the hand ofaffection can only touch it here and there so swiftly and solightly that the random result must be inartistic and unsatisfactory.It was at such moments as these—moments ofhurry and high-pressure—that Mr. Grady was at his best.His hand was never surer,—the machinery of his mind wasnever more responsive to the tremendous demands he madeon it,—than when the huge press of the Constitution waswaiting his orders; when the forms were waiting to beclosed, when the compositors were fretting and fuming forcopy, and when, perhaps, an express train was waiting tenminutes over its time to carry the Constitution to its subscribers.All his faculties were trained to meet emergencies;and he was never happier than when meeting them,whether in a political campaign, in conventions, in localissues, or in the newspaper business as correspondent ormanaging editor. Pressed by the emergency of his death,which to me was paralyzing, and by the necessity of haste,which, at this juncture, is confusing, these reminiscenceshave taken on a disjointed shape sadly at variance withthe demands of literary art. Let me, therefore, somewherein the middle, begin at the beginning.

21Henry Woodfin Grady was born in Athens, Georgia,on the 24th of April, 1850. As a little boy he was theleader of all the little boys of his acquaintance—full ofthat moral audacity that takes the lead in all innocent andhealthy sports. An old gentleman, whose name I haveforgotten, came into the Constitution editorial roomsshortly after Mr. Grady delivered the New England banquetspeech, to say that he knew Henry when a boy. Ilistened with interest, but the memory of what he said isvague. I remember that his reminiscences had a touch ofenthusiasm, going to show that the little boy was attractiveenough to make a deep impression on his elders. He had,even when a child, all those qualities that draw attentionand win approval. It is easy to believe that he was a somewhatboisterous boy. Even after he had a family of hisown, and when he was supposed (as the phrase is) to havesettled down, he still remained a boy to all intents andpurposes. His vitality was inexhaustible, and his flow ofanimal spirits unceasing. In all athletic sports and out-doorexercises he excelled while at school and college, andit is probable that his record as a boxer, wrestler, sprinter,and an all-around athlete is more voluminous than hisrecord for scholarship. To the very last, his enthusiasmfor these sports was, to his intimate friends, one of themost interesting characteristics of this many-sided man.

One of his characteristics as a boy, and it was a characteristicthat clung to him through all his life, was hislove and sympathy for the poor and lowly, for the destituteand the forlorn. This was one of the problems of lifethat he could never understand,—why, in the economy ofProvidence, some human beings should be rich and happy,and others poor and friendless. When a very little childhe began to try to solve the problem in his own way. Itwas a small way, indeed, but if all who are fortunatelysituated should make the same effort charity would causethe whole world to smile, and Heaven could not possiblywithhold the rich promise of its blessings. From his earliestchildhood, Mr. Grady had a fondness for the negro22race. He was fond of the negroes because they weredependent, his heart went out to them because he understoodand appreciated their position. When he was twoyears old, he had a little negro boy named Isaac to wait onhim. He always called this negro “Brother Isaac,” andhe would cry bitterly, if any one told him that Isaac was nothis brother. As he grew older his interest in the negroesand his fondness for them increased. Until he was eightor nine years old he always called his mother “Dearmother,” and when the weather was very cold, he had ahabit of waking in the night and saying: “Dear mother,do you think the servants have enough cover? It’s so cold,and I want them to be warm.” His first thought wasalways for the destitute and the lowly—for those who weredependent on him or on others. At home he always sharedhis lunch with the negro children, and after the slaves werefreed, and were in such a destitute condition, scarcely aweek passed that some forlorn-looking negro boy did notbring his mother a note something like this: “DearMother: Please give this child something to eat. Helooks so hungry. H. W. G.” It need not be said that noone bearing credentials signed by this thoughtful andunselfish boy was ever turned away hungry from the Gradydoor. It may be said, too, that his love and sympathy forthe negroes was fully appreciated by that race. Hismother says that she never had a servant during all hislife that was not devoted to him, and never knew one tobe angry or impatient with him. He could never bear tosee any one angry or unhappy about him. As a child hesought to heal the wounds of the sorrowing, and to thelast, though he was worried by the vast responsibilities hehad taken on his shoulders and disturbed by the thoughtlessdemands made on his time and patience, he suffered morefrom the sorrows of others than from any troubles of hisown. When he went to school, he carried the same qualitiesof sympathy and unselfishness that had made himcharming as a child. If, among his school-mates, therewas to be found a poor or a delicate child, he took that23child under his especial care, and no one was allowed totrouble it in any way.

Shortly after he graduated at the State University, anevent occurred that probably decided Mr. Grady’s futurecareer. In an accidental way he went on one of theannual excursions of the Georgia Press Association as thecorrespondent of the Constitution. His letters describingthe incidents of the trip were written over the signature of“King Hans.”

They were full of that racy humor that has sincebecome identified with a large part of Mr. Grady’s journalisticwork. They had a flavor of audacity about them, andthat sparkling suggestiveness that goes first by one nameand then another, but is chiefly known as individuality.The letters created a sensation among the editors. Therewas not much that was original or interesting in Georgiajournalism in that day and time. The State was in thehands of the carpet-baggers, and the newspapers reflectedin a very large degree the gloom and the hopelessness ofthat direful period. The editors abused the Republicansin their editorial columns day after day, and made noeffort to enlarge their news service, or to increase the scopeof their duties or their influence. Journalism in Georgia,in short, was in a rut, and there it was content to jog.

Though the “King Hans” letters were the productionof a boy, their humor, their aptness, their illuminatingpower (so to say), their light touch, and their suggestiveness,showed that a new star had arisen. They created alively diversion among the gloomy-minded editors for awhile, and then the procession moved sadly forward in theold ruts. But the brief, fleeting, and humorous experiencethat Mr. Grady had as the casual correspondent of theConstitution decided him. Perhaps this was his bentafter all, and that what might be called a happy accidentwas merely a fortunate incident that fate had arranged, forto this beautiful and buoyant nature fate seemed to bealways kind. Into his short life it crowded its best anddearest gifts. All manner of happiness was his—the happiness24of loving and of being beloved—the happiness ofdoing good in directions that only the Recording Angelcould follow—and before he died Fame came and laid awreath of flowers at his feet. Fate or circ*mstance carriedhim into journalism. His “King Hans” letters hadattracted attention to him, and it seemed natural that heshould follow this humorous experiment into a more seriousfield.

He went to Rome not long afterwards, and becameeditor of the Rome Courier. The Courier was theoldest paper in the city, and therefore the most substantial.It was, in fact, a fine piece of property. But thetown was a growing town, and the Courier had rivals, theRome Daily, if my memory serves me, and the Rome Commercial.Just how long Mr. Grady edited the Courier, Ihave no record of; but one fine morning, he thought hediscovered a “ring” of some sort in the village. I do notknow whether it was a political or a financial ring. Wehave had so many of these rings in one shape or anotherthat I will not trust my memory to describe it; but it wasa ring, and probably one of the first that dared to engagein business. Mr. Grady wrote a fine editorial denouncingit, but when the article was submitted to the proprietor,he made some objection. He probably thought that someof his patrons would take offense at the strong languageMr. Grady had used. After some conversation on the subject,the proprietor of the Courier flatly objected to theappearance of the editorial in his paper. Mr. Grady wasabout eighteen years old then, with views and a littlemoney of his own. In the course of a few hours he hadbought out the two opposing papers, consolidated them,and his editorial attack on the ring appeared the nextmorning in the Rome Daily Commercial. It happened onthe same morning that the two papers, the Courier and theDaily Commercial, both appeared with the name of HenryW. Grady as editor. The ring, or whatever it was, wassmashed. Nobody heard anything more of it, and theCommercial was greeted by its esteemed contemporaries as25a most welcome addition to Georgia journalism. It wasbright and lively, and gave Rome a new vision of herself.

It was left to the Commercial to discover that Rome wasa city set on the hills, and that she ought to have an advertisingtorch in her hands. The Commercial, however, wasonly an experiment. It was run, as Mr. Grady told melong afterwards, as an amateur casual. He had money tospend on it, and he gave it a long string to go on. Occasionallyhe would fill it up with his bright fancies, and thenhe would neglect it for days at a time, and it would then beedited by the foreman. It was about this time that I met Mr.Grady. We had had some correspondence. He was appreciative,and whatever struck his fancy he had a quickresponse for. Some foolish paragraph of mine hadappealed to his sense of humor, and he pursued the matterwith a sympathetic letter that made a lasting impression.The result of that letter was that I went to Rome, pulledhim from his flying ponies, and had a most enjoyable visit.From Rome we went to Lookout Mountain, and it is needlessto say that he was the life of the party. He was itsbody, its spirit, and its essence. We found, in our journey,a dissipated person who could play on the zither. Justhow important that person became, those who rememberMr. Grady’s pranks can imagine. The man with the zithertook the shape of a minstrel, and in that guise he wentwith us, always prepared to make music, which he hadoften to do in response to Mr. Grady’s demands.

Rome, however, soon ceased to be large enough for theyoung editor. Atlanta seemed to offer the widest field,and he came here, and entered into partnership with ColonelRobert A. Alston and Alex St. Clair-Abrams. It wasa queer partnership, but there was much that was congenialabout it. Colonel Alston was a typical South Carolinian,and Abrams was a Creole. It would be difficult to gettogether three more impulsive and enterprising partners.Little attention was paid to the business office. The principalidea was to print the best newspaper in the South,and for a time this scheme was carried out in a magnificent26way that could not last. Mr. Grady never bothered himselfabout the finances, and the other editors were notfamiliar with the details of business. The paper they publishedattracted more attention from newspaper men thanit did from the public, and it was finally compelled to suspend.Its good will—and it had more good will than capital—wassold to the Constitution, which had been managedin a more conservative style. It is an interesting fact,however, that Mr. Grady’s experiments in the Herald,which were failures, were successful when tried on theConstitution, whose staff he joined when Captain EvanP. Howell secured a controlling interest. And yet Mr.Grady’s development as a newspaper man was not asrapid as might be supposed. He was employed by theConstitution as a reporter, and his work was intermittent.

One fact was fully developed by Mr. Grady’s early workon the Constitution,—namely, that he was not fitted forthe routine work of a reporter. One day he would fill severalcolumns of the paper with his bright things, and thenfor several days he would stand around in the sunshinetalking to his friends, and entertaining them with his racysayings. I have seen it stated in various shapes in booksand magazines that the art of conversation is dead. If itwas dead before Mr. Grady was born, it was left to him toresurrect it. Charming as his pen was, it could bear noreasonable comparison with his tongue. I am not alludinghere to his eloquence, but to his ordinary conversation.When he had the incentive of sympathetic friends andsurroundings, he was the most fascinating talker I haveever heard. General Toombs had large gifts in thatdirection, but he bore no comparison in any respect toMr. Grady, whose mind was responsive to all suggestionsand to all subjects. The men who have madelarge reputations as talkers have had the habit of selectingtheir own subjects and treating them dogmatically. Weread of Coleridge buttonholing an acquaintance and talkinghim to death on the street, and of Carlyle compellinghimself to be heard by sheer vociferousness. Mr. Grady27could have made the monologue as interesting as he didhis orations, but this was not his way. What he did wasto take up whatever commonplace subject was suggested,and so charge it with his nimble wit and brilliant imaginationas to give it a new importance.

It was natural, under the circ*mstances, that his homein Atlanta should be the center of the social life of the city.He kept open house, and, aided by his lovely wife and twobeautiful children, dispensed the most charming hospitality.There was nothing more delightful than his home-life.Whatever air or attitude he had to assume in business, athome he was a rollicking and romping boy. He put aside alldignity there, and his most distinguished guest was neverdistinguished enough to put on the airs of formality thatare commonly supposed to be a part of social life. Hishome was a typical one,—the center of his affections andthe fountain of all his joys—and he managed to make allhis friends feel what a sacred place it was. It was theheadquarters of all that is best and brightest in the socialand intellectual life of Atlanta, and many of the most distinguishedmen of the country have enjoyed the dispensationof his hospitality, which was simple and homelike,having about it something of the flavor and ripeness of theold Southern life.

In writing of the life and career of a man as busy in somany directions as Mr. Grady, one finds it difficult topursue the ordinary methods of biographical writing. Onefinds it necessary, in order to give a clear idea of hismethods, which were his own in all respects, to be continuallyharking back to some earlier period of his career. Ihave alluded to his distaste for the routine of reportorialwork. The daily grind—the treadmill of trivial affairs—wasnot attractive to him; but when there was a sensationin the air—when something of unusual importance washappening or about to happen—he was in his element. Hisenergy at such times was phenomenal. He had the facultyof grasping all the details of an event, and the imaginationto group them properly so as to give them their full force28and effect. The result of this is shown very clearly in histelegrams to the New York Herald and the Constitutionfrom Florida during the disputed count going on there in1876 and the early part of 1877. Mr. Tilden selected SenatorJoseph E. Brown, among other prominent Democrats,to proceed to Florida, and look after the Democratic casethere. Mr. Grady went as the special correspondent of theNew York Herald and the Atlanta Constitution, andthough he had for his competitors some of the most famousspecial writers of the country, he easily led them all in thebrilliancy of his style, in the character of his work, and inhis knack of grouping together gossip and fact. He wasalways proud of his work there; he was on his mettle, asthe saying is, and I think there is no question that, from ajournalist’s point of view, his letters and telegrams, coveringthe history of what is known politically as the Floridafraud, have no equal in the newspaper literature of the day.There is no phase of that important case that his reportsdo not cover, and they represent a vast amount of rapidand accurate work—work in which the individuality of theman is as prominent as his accuracy and impartiality. Oneof the results of Mr. Grady’s visit to Florida, and his associationwith the prominent politicians gathered there, wasto develop a confidence in his own powers and resourcesthat was exceedingly valuable to him when he came afterwardsto the management of the leading daily paper in theSouth. He discovered that the men who had been successfulin business and in politics had no advantage over himin any of the mental qualities and attributes that appertainto success, and this discovery gave purpose and determinationto his ambition.

Another fruitful fact in his career, which he usedto dwell on with great pleasure, was his association whilein Florida with Senator Brown—an association thatamounted to intimacy. Mr. Grady always had a verygreat admiration for Senator Brown, but in Florida he hadthe opportunity of working side by side with the Senatorand of studying the methods by which he managed29men and brought them within the circle of his powerfulinfluence. Mr. Grady often said that it was one of themost instructive lessons of his life to observe the influencewhich Senator Brown, feeble as he was in body, exerted onmen who were almost total strangers. The contest betweenthe politicians for the electoral vote of Florida was in thenature of a still hunt, where prudence, judgment, skill,and large knowledge of human nature were absolutelyessential. In such a contest as this, Senator Brown wasabsolutely master of the situation, and Mr. Grady tookgreat delight in studying his methods, and in describingthem afterwards.

Busy as Mr. Grady was in Florida with the politiciansand with his newspaper correspondence, he neverthelessfound time to make an exhaustive study of the materialresources of the State, and the result of this appeared inthe columns of the Constitution at a later date in the shapeof a series of letters that attracted unusual attentionthroughout the country. This subject, the materialresources of the South, and the development of the section,was always a favorite one with Mr. Grady. Hetouched it freely from every side and point of view, andmade a feature of it in his newspaper work. To his mindthere was something more practical in this direction thanin the heat and fury of partisan politics. Whatever wouldaid the South in a material way, develop her resources andadd to her capital, population, and industries, found inhim not only a ready, but an enthusiastic and a tirelesschampion. He took great interest in politics, too, andoften made his genius for the management of men andissues felt in the affairs of the State; but the routine ofpolitics—the discussion that goes on, like Tennyson’sbrook, forever and forever—were of far less importance inhis mind than the practical development of the South.This seemed to be the burthen of his speeches, as it was ofall his later writings. He never tired of this subject, andhe discussed it with a brilliancy, a fervor, a versatility, anda fluency marvelous enough to have made the reputation of30half a dozen men. Out of his contemplation of it grew thelofty and patriotic purpose which drew attention to hiswonderful eloquence, and made him famous throughoutthe country—the purpose to draw the two sections togetherin closer bonds of union, fraternity, harmony, and good-will.The real strength and symmetry of his career canonly be properly appreciated by those who take into considerationthe unselfishness with which he devoted himselfto this patriotic purpose. Instinctively the country seemedto understand something of this, and it was this instinctiveunderstanding that caused him to be regarded withaffectionate interest and appreciation from one end of thecountry to the other by people of all parties, classes, andinterests. It was this instinctive understanding that madehim at the close of his brief career one of the most conspicuousAmericans of modern times, and threw the wholecountry into mourning at his death.

III.

When in 1880 Mr. Grady bought a fourth interest in theConstitution, he gave up, for the most part, all outsidenewspaper work, and proceeded to devote his time andattention to his duties as managing editor, for which hewas peculiarly well fitted. His methods were entirely hisown. He borrowed from no one. Every movement hemade in the field of journalism was stamped with the sealof his genius. He followed no precedent. He providedfor every emergency as it arose, and some of his strokes ofenterprise were as bold as they were startling. He had arapid faculty of organization. This was shown on oneoccasion when he determined to print official reports of thereturns of the congressional election in the seventh Georgiadistrict. Great interest was felt in the result all over theState. An independent candidate was running against theDemocratic nominee, and the campaign was one of the liveliestever had in Georgia. Yet it is a district that liesin the mountains and winds around and over them.Ordinarily, it was sometimes a fortnight and frequently a31month before the waiting newspapers and the public knewthe official returns. Mr. Grady arranged for couriers withrelays of horses at all the remote precincts, and the majorityof them are remote from the lines of communication, andhis orders to these were to spare neither horse-flesh normoney in getting the returns to the telegraph stations. Atimportant points, he had placed members of the Constitution’seditorial and reportorial staff, who were to give thenight couriers the assistance and directions which theirinterest and training would suggest. It was a tough pieceof work, but all the details and plans had been so perfectlyarranged that there was no miscarriage anywhere. One ofthe couriers rode forty miles over the mountains, fordingrushing streams and galloping wildly over the rough roads.It was a rough job, but he had been selected by Mr. Gradyespecially for this piece of work; he was a tough man andhe had tough horses under him, and he reached the telegraphstation on time. This sort of thing was going on allover the district, and the next morning the whole Statehad the official returns. Other feats of modern newspaperenterprise have been more costly and as successful, butthere is none that I can recall to mind showing a morecomprehensive grasp of the situation or betraying a moredaring spirit. It was a feat that appealed to the imagination,and therefore on the Napoleonic order.

And yet it is a singular fact that all his early journalisticventures were in the nature of failures. The RomeCommercial, which he edited before he had attained hismajority, was a bright paper, but not financially successful.Mr. Grady did some remarkably bold and brilliantwork on the Atlanta Daily Herald, but it was expensivework, too, and the Herald died for lack of funds. Mr.Marion J. Verdery, in his admirable memorial of Mr.Grady, prepared for the Southern Society of New York(which I have taken the liberty of embodying in this volume)alludes to these failures of Mr. Grady, and a greatmany of his admirers have been mystified by them. Ithink the explanation is very simple. Mr. Grady was a32new and a surprising element in the field of journalism, andhis methods were beyond the comprehension of those whohad grown gray watching the dull and commonplace politicianswielding their heavy pens as editors, and getting thenews accidentally, if at all. There are a great many peoplein this world of ours—let us say the average people, inorder to be mathematically exact—who have to be educatedup to an appreciation of what is bright and beautiful,or bold and interesting. Some of Mr. Grady’s methodswere new even in American journalism, and it is nowonder that his dashing experiments with the Daily Heraldwere failures, or that commonplace people regardedthem as crude and reckless manifestations of a purposeand a desire to create a sensation. Moreover, it should beborne in mind that when the Daily Herald was runningits special locomotives up and down the railroads of theState, the field of journalism in Atlanta was exceedinglynarrow and provincial. The town had been rescued fromthe village shape, but neither its population nor its progresswarranted the experiments on the Herald. They weremistakes of time and place, but they were not mistakes ofconception and execution. They helped to educate andenlighten the public, and to give that dull, clumsy, andslow-moving body a taste of the spirit and purpose ofmodern journalism. The public liked the taste that it got,and smacked its lips over it and remembered it, and wasalways ready after that to respond promptly to the effortsof Mr. Grady to give it the work of his head and hands.

Bright and buoyant as he was, his early failures injournalism dazed and mortified him, but they did not leavehim depressed. If he had his hours of depression andgloom he reserved them for himself. Even when all hisresources had been exhausted, he was the same genial,witty, and appreciative companion, the center of attractionwherever he went. The year 1876 was the turning-pointin his career in more ways than one. In the fall of thatyear, Captain Evan P. Howell bought a controlling interestin the Constitution. The day after the purchase was33made, Captain Howell met Mr. Grady, who was on his wayto the passenger station.

“I was just hunting for you,” said Captain Howell.“I want to have a talk with you.”

“Well, you’ll have to talk mighty fast,” said Mr.Grady. “Atlanta’s either too big for me, or I am too bigfor Atlanta.”

It turned out that the young editor, discomfited inAtlanta, but not discouraged, was on his way to Augustato take charge of the Constitutionalist of that city. CaptainHowell offered him a position at once, which waspromptly accepted. There was no higgling or bargaining;the two men were intimate friends; there was somethingcongenial in their humor, in their temperaments, and in acertain fine audacity in political affairs that made the twomen invincible in Georgia politics from the day they beganworking together. Before the train that was to bear Mr.Grady to Augusta had steamed out of the station, he wason his way to the Constitution office to enter on his duties,and then and there practically began between the two mena partnership as intimate in its relations of both friendshipand business as it was important on its bearings on thewonderful success of the Constitution and on the local historyand politics of Georgia. It was an ideal partnershipin many respects, and covered almost every movement,with one exception, that the two friends made. Thatexception was the prohibition campaign in Atlanta, thatattracted such widespread attention throughout the country.Mr. Grady represented the prohibitionists and CaptainHowell the anti-prohibitionists, and it was one of themost vigorous and amusing campaigns the town has everwitnessed. Each partner was the chief speaker of the sidehe represented, and neither lost an opportunity to tell agood-humored joke at the other’s expense. Thus, whilethe campaign was an earnest one in every respect, and evenembittered to some small extent by the thoughtless utterancesof those who seem to believe that moral issues canbest be settled by a display of fanaticism, the tension was34greatly relieved by the wit, the humor, the good natureand the good sense which the two leaders injected into thecanvas.

The sentimental side of Mr. Grady’s character was morelargely and more practically developed than that of anyother person I have ever seen. In the great majority ofcases sentiment develops into a sentimentality that is sometimesmaudlin, sometimes officious, and frequently offensive.In most people it develops as the weakest and leastattractive side of their character. It was the stronghold ofMr. Grady’s nature. It enveloped his whole career, to useMatthew Arnold’s phrase, in sweetness and light, andmade his life a real dispensation in behalf of the lives ofothers. Wherever he found suffering and sorrow, no matterhow humble—wherever he found misery, no matter howcoarse and degraded, he struck hands with them then andthere, and wrapped them about and strengthened themwith his abundant sympathy. Until he could give themrelief in some shape, he became their partner, and a veryactive and energetic partner he was. I have often thoughtthat his words of courage and cheer, always given with alight and humorous touch to hide his own feelings, wasworth more than the rich man’s grudging gift. It was thisside of Mr. Grady’s nature that caused him to turn withsuch readiness to the festivities of Christmas. He was agreat admirer of Charles Dickens, especially of that writer’sChristmas literature. It was an ideal season with Mr.Grady, and it presented itself to his mind less as a holidaytime than as an opportunity to make others happy—therich as well as the poor. He had a theory that the richwho have become poor by accident or misfortune suffer thestings of poverty more keenly than the poor who havealways been poor, for the reason that they are not qualifiedto fight against conditions that are at once strange andcrushing. Several Christmases ago, I had the pleasure ofwitnessing a little episode in which he illustrated histheory to his own satisfaction as well as to mine.

On that particular Christmas eve, there was living in35Atlanta an old gentleman who had at one time been one ofthe leading citizens of the town. He had in fact been apowerful influence in the politics of the State, but the warswept away his possessions, and along with them all theconditions and surroundings that had enabled him to maintainhimself comfortably. His misfortunes came on himwhen he was too old to begin the struggle with life anewwith any reasonable hope of success. He gave way to adisposition that had been only convivial in his better dayswhen he had hope and pride to sustain him, and he sanklower until he had nearly reached the gutter.

I joined Mr. Grady as he left the office, and we walkedslowly down the street enjoying the kaleidoscopic view ofthe ever-shifting, ever hurrying crowd as it swept along thepavements. In all that restless and hastening throng thereseemed to be but one man bent on no message of enjoymentor pleasure, and he was old and seedy-looking. Hewas gazing about him in an absent-minded way. Theweather was not cold, but a disagreeable drizzle was falling.

“Yonder is the Judge,” said Mr. Grady, pointing tothe seedy-looking old man. “Let’s go and see what he isgoing to have for Christmas.”

I found out long afterwards that the old man had longbeen a pensioner on Mr. Grady’s bounty, but there wasnothing to suggest this in the way in which the youngeditor approached the Judge. His manner was the veryperfection of cordiality and consideration, though therewas just a touch of gentle humor in his bright eyes.

“It isn’t too early to wish you a merry Christmas, Ihope,” said Mr. Grady, shaking hands with the old man.

“No, no,” replied the Judge, straightening himself upwith dignity; “not at all. The same to you, my boy.”

“Well,” remarked Mr. Grady lightly, “you ought tobe fixing up for it. I’m not as old as you are, and I’ve gotlots of stirring around and shopping to do if I have any funat home.”

The eyes of the Judge sought the ground. “No. Iwas—ah—just considering.” Then he looked up into thelaughing but sympathetic eyes of the boyish young fellow,36and his dignity sensibly relaxed. “I was only—ah—Grady,let me see you a moment.”

The two walked to the edge of the pavement, and talkedtogether some little time. I did not overhear the conversation,but learned afterwards that the Judge told Mr.Grady that he had no provisions at home, and no moneyto buy them with, and asked for a small loan.

“I’ll do better than that,” said Mr. Grady. “I’ll gowith you and buy them myself. Come with us,” he remarkedto me with a quizzical smile. “The Judge herehas found a family in distress, and we are going to sendthem something substantial for Christmas.”

We went to a grocery store near at hand, and I saw,as we entered, that the Judge had not only recovered hisnative dignity, but had added a little to suit the occasion.I observed that his bearing was even haughty. Mr. Gradyhad observed it, too, and the humor of the situation sodelighted him that he could hardly control the laughter inhis voice.

“Now, Judge,” said Mr. Grady, as we approached thecounter, “we must be discreet as well as liberal. We mustget what you think this suffering family most needs. Youcall off the articles, the clerk here will check them off, andI will have them sent to the house.”

The Judge leaned against the counter with a carelessdignity quite inimitable, and glanced at the well-filledshelves.

“Well,” said he, thrumming on a paper-box, andsmacking his lips thoughtfully, “we will put down first abottle of chow-chow pickles.”

“Why, of course,” exclaimed Mr. Grady, his face radiantwith mirth; “it is the very thing. What next?”

“Let me see,” said the Judge, closing his eyes reflectively—“twotumblers of strawberry jelly, three pounds ofmince-meat, and two pounds of dates, if you have realgood ones, and—yes—two cans of deviled ham.”

Every article the Judge ordered was something he hadbeen used to in his happier days. The whole episode was37like a scene from one of Dickens’s novels, and I have neverseen Mr. Grady more delighted. He was delighted withthe humor of it, and appreciated in his own quaint andcharming way and to the fullest extent the pathos of it.He dwelt on it then and afterwards, and often said that heenvied the broken-down old man the enjoyment of the luxuriesof which he had so long been deprived.

On a memorable Christmas day not many years after,Mr. Grady stirred Atlanta to its very depths by his eloquentpen, and brought the whole community to theheights of charity and unselfishness on which he alwaysstood. He wrought the most unique manifestation ofprompt and thoughtful benevolence that is to be foundrecorded in modern times. The day before Christmas wasbitter cold, and the night fell still colder, giving promiseof the coldest weather that had been felt in Georgia formany years. The thermometer fell to zero, and it was difficultfor comfortably clad people to keep warm even bythe fires that plenty had provided, and it was certain thatthere would be terrible suffering among the poor of the city.The situation was one that appealed in the strongest mannerto Mr. Grady’s sympathies. It appealed, no doubt, tothe sympathies of all charitably-disposed people; but theshame of modern charity is its lack of activity. Peopleare horrified when starving people are found near theirdoors, when a poor woman wanders about the streets untildeath comes to her relief; they seem to forget that it isthe duty of charity to act as well as to give. Mr. Gradywas a man of action. He did not wait for the organizationof a relief committee, and the meeting of prominent citizensto devise ways and means for dispensing alms. He washis own committee. His plans were instantly formed andpromptly carried out. The organization was complete themoment he determined that the poor of Atlanta should notsuffer for lack of food, clothing, or fuel. He sent hisreporters out into the highways and byways, and into everynook and corner of the city. He took one assignment forhimself, and went about through the cold from house to38house. He had a consultation with the Mayor at midnight,and cases of actual suffering were relieved then and there.The next morning, which was Sunday, the columns of theConstitution teemed with the results of the investigationwhich Mr. Grady and his reporters had made. A stirringappeal was made in the editorial columns for aid for thepoor—such an appeal as only Mr. Grady could make. Theplan of relief was carefully made out. The Constitutionwas prepared to take charge of whatever the charitablydisposed might feel inclined to send to its office—and whateverwas sent should be sent early.

The effect of this appeal was astonishing—magical, infact. It seemed impossible to believe that any humanagency could bring about such a result. By eight o’clockon Christmas morning—the day being Sunday—the streetin front of the Constitution office was jammed with wagons,drays, and vehicles of all kinds, and the office itself wastransformed into a vast depot of supplies. The merchantsand business men had opened their stores as well as theirhearts, and the coal and wood dealers had given the keysof their establishments into the gentle hands of charity.Men who were not in business subscribed money, and thisrose into a considerable sum. When Mr. Grady arrivedon the scene, he gave a shout of delight, and cut up anticsas joyous as those of a schoolboy. Then he proceededto business. He had everything in his head, and he organizedhis relief trains and put them in motion morerapidly than any general ever did. By noon, there wasnot a man, woman, or child, white or black, in the cityof Atlanta that lacked any of the necessaries of life, andto such an extent had the hearts of the people been stirredthat a large reserve of stores was left over after everybodyhad been supplied. It was the happiest Christmas day thepoor of Atlanta ever saw, and the happiest person of allwas Henry Grady.

It is appropriate to his enjoyment of Christmas to givehere a beautiful editorial he wrote on Christmas day a yearbefore he was buried. It is a little prose poem that39attracted attention all over the country. Mr. Gradycalled it

No man or woman now living will see again such a Christmas dayas the one which closed yesterday, when the dying sun piled thewestern skies with gold and purple.

A winter day it was, shot to the core with sunshine. It was enchantingto walk abroad in its prodigal beauty, to breathe its elixir, to reachout the hands and plunge them open-fingered through its pulsingwaves of warmth and freshness. It was June and November weldedand fused into a perfect glory that held the sunshine and snow beneathtender and splendid skies. To have winnowed such a day fromthe teeming winter was to have found an odorous peach on a boughwhipped in the storms of winter. One caught the musk of yellowgrain, the flavor of ripening nuts, the fragrance of strawberries, theexquisite odor of violets, the aroma of all seasons in the wonderful day.The hum of bees underrode the whistling wings of wild geese flyingsouthward. The fires slept in drowsing grates, while the people, marvelingoutdoors, watched the soft winds woo the roses and the lilies.

Truly it was a day of days. Amid its riotous luxury surely life wasworth living to hold up the head and breathe it in as thirsting mendrink water; to put every sense on its gracious excellence; to throwthe hands wide apart and hug whole armfuls of the day close to theheart, till the heart itself is enraptured and illumined. God’s benedictioncame down with the day, slow dropping from the skies. God’ssmile was its light, and all through and through its supernal beautyand stillness, unspoken but appealing to every heart and sanctifyingevery soul, was His invocation and promise, “Peace on earth, goodwill to men.”

IV.

Mr. Grady took great interest in children and youngpeople. It pleased him beyond measure to be able to contributeto their happiness. He knew all the boys in theConstitution office, and there is quite a little army of thememployed there in one way and another; knew all abouttheir conditions, their hopes and their aspirations, andknew their histories. He had favorites among them, buthis heart went out to all. He interested himself in them ina thousand little ways that no one else would have thoughtof. He was never too busy to concern himself with theiraffairs. A year or two before he died he organized a dinner40for the newsboys and carriers. It was at first intendedthat the dinner should be given by the Constitution, butsome of the prominent people heard of it, and insisted inmaking contributions. Then it was decided to accept contributionsfrom all who might desire to send anything, andthe result of it was a dinner of magnificent proportions.The tables were presided over by prominent society ladies,and the occasion was a very happy one in all respects.

This is only one of a thousand instances in which Mr.Grady interested himself in behalf of young people.Wherever he could find boys who were struggling to makea living, with the expectation of making something ofthemselves; wherever he could find boys who were givingtheir earnings to widowed mothers—and he found hundredsof them—he went to their aid as promptly and aseffectually as he carried out all his schemes, whether greator small. It was his delight to give pleasure to all thechildren that he knew, and even those he didn’t know. Hehad the spirit and the manner of a boy, when not engrossedin work, and he enjoyed life with the zest and enthusiasmof a lad of twelve. He was in his element when a circuswas in town, and it was a familiar and an entertainingsight to see him heading a procession of children—sometimesfifty in line—going to the big tents to see the animalsand witness the antics of the clowns. At such times, heconsidered himself on a frolic, and laid his dignity on theshelf. His interest in the young, however, took a moreserious shape, as I have said. When Mr. Clark Howell,the son of Captain Evan Howell, attained his majority, Mr.Grady wrote him a letter, which I give here as one of thekeys to the character of this many-sided man. Apart fromthis, it is worth putting in print for the wholesome adviceit contains. The young man to whom it was written hassucceeded Mr. Grady as managing editor of the Constitution.The letter is as follows:

Atlanta, Ga., Sept. 20, 1884.

My Dear Clark:—I suppose that just about the time I write thisto you—a little after midnight—you are twenty-one years old. If you41were born a little later than this hour it is your mother’s fault (or yourfather’s), and I am not to blame for it. I assume, therefore, that this isyour birthday, and I send you a small remembrance. I send you apen (that you may wear as a cravat-pin) for several reasons. In thefirst place, I have no money, my dear boy, with which to buy yousomething new. In the next place, it is the symbol of the professionto which we both belong, in which each has done some good work, andwill, God being willing, do much more. Take the pen, wear it, andlet it stand as a sign of the affection I have for you.

Somehow or other (as the present is a right neat one I have the rightto bore you a little) I look upon you as my own boy. My son will bejust about your age when you are about mine, and he will enter thepaper when you are about where I am. I have got to looking at youas a sort of prefiguring of what my son may be, and of looking overyou, and rejoicing in your success, as I shall want you to feel towardhim. Let me write to you what I would be willing for you to write tohim.

Never Gamble. Of all the vices that enthrall men, this is the worst,the strongest, and the most insidious. Outside of the morality of it, itis the poorest investment, the poorest business, and the poorest fun.No man is safe who plays at all. It is easiest never to play. I neverknew a man, a gentleman and man of business, who did not regret thetime and money he had wasted in it. A man who plays poker is unfitfor every other business on earth.

Never Drink. I love liquor and I love the fellowship involved indrinking. My safety has been that I never drink at all. It is mucheasier not to drink at all than to drink a little. If I had to attributewhat I have done in life to any one thing, I should attribute it to thefact that I am a teetotaler. As sure as you are born, it is the pleasantest,the easiest, and the safest way.

Marry Early. There is nothing that steadies a young fellow likemarrying a good girl and raising a family. By marrying young yourchildren grow up when they are a pleasure to you. You feel theresponsibility of life, the sweetness of life, and you avoid bad habits.

If you never drink, never gamble, and marry early, there is nolimit to the useful and distinguished life you may live. You will bethe pride of your father’s heart, and the joy of your mother’s.

I don’t know that there is any happiness on earth worth havingoutside of the happiness of knowing that you have done your duty andthat you have tried to do good. You try to build up,—there arealways plenty others who will do all the tearing down that is necessary.You try to live in the sunshine,—men who stay in the shadealways get mildewed.

I will not tell you how much I think of you or how proud I am of42you. We will let that develop gradually. There is only one thing Iam a little disappointed in. You don’t seem to care quite enoughabout base-ball and other sports. Don’t make the mistake of standingaloof from these things and trying to get old too soon. Don’t underrateout-door athletic sports as an element of American civilization andAmerican journalism. I am afraid you inherit this disposition fromyour father, who has never been quite right on this subject, but who isgetting better, and will soon be all right, I think.

Well, I will quit. May God bless you, my boy, and keep youhappy and wholesome at heart, and in health. If He does this, we’lltry and do the rest.

Your friend, H. W. Grady.

Mr. Grady’s own boyishness led him to sympathize witheverything that appertains to boyhood. His love for hisown children led him to take an interest in other children.He wanted to see them enjoy themselves in a boisterous,hearty, health-giving way. The sports that men forgetor forego possessed a freshness for him that he never triedto conceal. His remarks, in the letter just quoted, in regardto out-door sports, are thoroughly characteristic. In allcontests of muscle, strength, endurance and skill he took acontinual and an absorbing interest. At school he excelledin all athletic sports and out-door games. He had a gymnasiumof his own, which was thrown open to his school-mates,and there he used to practice for hours at a time.His tastes in this direction led a great many people, allhis friends, to shake their heads a little, especially as hewas not greatly distinguished for scholarship, either atschool or college. They wondered, too, how, after neglectingthe text-books, he could stand so near the head of hisclasses. He did not neglect his books. During the shorttime he devoted to them each day, his prodigious memoryand his wonderful powers of assimilation enabled him tomaster their contents as thoroughly as boys that had spenthalf the night in study. Even his family were astonishedat his standing in school, knowing how little time hedevoted to his text-books. He found time, however, inspite of his devotion to out-door sports and athletic exercises,to read every book in Athens, and in those daysevery family in town had a library of more or less value.

43He had a large library of his own, and, by exchanginghis books with other boys and borrowing, he managedto get at the pith and marrow of all the Englishliterature to be found in the university town. Not contentwith this, he became, during one of his vacation periods, aclerk in the only bookstore in Athens. The only compensationthat he asked was the privilege of reading whenthere were no customers to be waited on. This was duringhis eleventh year, and by the time he was twelve he wasby far the best-read boy that Athens had ever known.This habit of reading he kept up to the day of his death.He read all the new books as they came out, and nothingpleased him better than to discuss them with some congenialfriend. He had no need to re-read his old favorites—thebooks he loved as boy and man—for these he couldremember almost chapter by chapter. He read with amazingrapidity; it might be said that he literally absorbedwhatever interested him, and his sympathies were so wideand his taste so catholic that it was a poor writer indeedin whom he could not find something to commend. Hewas fond of light literature, but the average modern novelmade no impression on him. He enjoyed it to some extent,and was amazed as well as amused at the immense amountof labor expended on the trivial affairs of life by the writerswho call themselves realists. He was somewhat interestedin Henry James’s “Portrait of a Lady,” mainly, I suspect,because it so cleverly hits off the character of the modernfemale newspaper correspondent in the person of MissHenrietta Stackpole. Yet there was much in the book thatinterested him—the dreariness of parts of it was relievedby Mrs. Touchett. “Dear old Mrs. Touchett!” he usedto say. “Such immense cleverness as hers does credit toMr. James. She refuses to associate with any of theother characters in the book. I should like to meet her,and shake hands with her, and talk the whole matterover.”

When a school-boy, and while devouring all the storiesthat fell in his way, young Grady was found one day reading44Blackstone. His brother asked him if he thought ofstudying law. “No,” was the reply, “but I think everyoneought to read Blackstone. Besides, the book interestsme.” With the light and the humorous he always mixedthe solids. He was fond of history, and was intenselyinterested in all the social questions of the day. He setgreat store by the new literary development that has beengoing on in the South since the war, and sought to promoteit by every means in his power, through his newspaper andby his personal influence. He looked forward to the timewhen the immense literary field, as yet untouched in theSouth, would be as thoroughly worked and developed asthat of New England has been; and he thought that thisdevelopment might reasonably be expected to follow, if itdid not accompany, the progress of the South in otherdirections. This idea was much in his mind, and in thedaily conversations with the members of his editorial staff,he recurred to it time and again. One view that he tookof it was entirely practical, as, indeed, most of his viewswere. He thought that the literature of the South oughtto be developed, not merely in the interest of belles-lettres,but in the interest of American history. He regarded it asin some sort a weapon of defense, and he used to refer interms of the warmest admiration to the oftentimes unconscious,but terribly certain and effective manner in whichNew England had fortified herself by means of the literarygenius of her sons and daughters. He perceived, too, thatall the talk about a distinctive Southern literature, whichhas been in vogue among the contributors of the Lady’sBooks and annuals, was silly in the extreme. He desiredit to be provincial in a large way, for, in this country, provincialityis only another name for the patriotism that hastaken root in the rural regions, but his dearest wish wasthat it should be purely and truly American in its aim andtendency. It was for this reason that he was ready towelcome any effort of a Southern writer that showed aspark of promise. For such he was always ready withwords of praise.

45He was fond, as I have said, of Dickens, but his favoritenovel, above all others, was Victor Hugo’s “Les Misérables.”His own daring imagination fitted somewhat intothe colossal methods of Hugo, and his sympathies enabledhim to see in the character of Jean Valjean a type of thepathetic struggle for life and justice that is going on aroundus every day. Mr. Grady read between the lines and sawbeneath the surface, and he was profoundly impressedwith the strong and vital purpose of Hugo’s book. Itsalmost ferocious protest against injustice, and its indignantarraignment of the inhumanity of society, stirred himdeeply. Not only the character of Jean Valjean, but thewhole book appealed to his sense of the picturesque andartistic. The large lines on which the book is cast, thestupendous nature of the problem it presents, the philanthropy,the tenderness—all these moved him as no otherwork of fiction ever did. Mr. Grady’s pen was too busy toconcern itself with matters merely literary. He rarelyundertook to write what might be termed a literary essay;the affairs of life—the demands of the hour—the pressureof events—precluded this; but all through his lecturesand occasional speeches (that were never reported), thereare allusions to Jean Valjean, and to Victor Hugo. I havebefore me the rough notes of some of his lectures, and inthese appear more than once picturesque allusions toHugo’s hero struggling against fate and circ*mstance.

V.

The home-life of Mr. Grady was peculiarly happy. Hewas blessed, in the first place, with a good mother, and henever grew away from her influence in the smallest particular.When his father was killed in the war, his motherdevoted herself the more assiduously to the training of herchildren. She molded the mind and character of herbrilliant son, and started him forth on a career that has noparallel in our history. To that mother his heart alwaysturned most tenderly. She had made his boyhood bright46and happy, and he was never tired of bringing up recollectionsof those wonderful days. On one occasion, theChristmas before he died, he visited his mother at the oldhome in Athens. He returned brimming over with happiness.To his associates in the Constitution office he toldthe story of his visit, and what he said has been recordedby Mrs. Maude Andrews Ohl, a member of the editorialstaff.

“Well do I remember,” says Mrs. Ohl, “how he spenthis last year’s holiday season, and the little story he toldme of it as I sat in his office one morning after NewYear’s.

“He had visited his mother in Athens Christmas week,and he said: ‘I don’t think I ever felt happier than whenI reached the little home of my boyhood. I got there atnight. She had saved supper for me and she had rememberedall the things I liked. She toasted me some cheese overthe fire. Why, I hadn’t tasted anything like it since I putoff my round jackets. And then she had some home-madecandy, she knew I used to love and bless her heart! Ijust felt sixteen again as we sat and talked, and she toldme how she prayed for me and thought of me always, andwhat a brightness I had been to her life, and how she heardme coming home in every boy that whistled along thestreet. When I went to bed she came and tucked thecovers all around me in the dear old way that none but amother’s hands know, and I felt so happy and so peacefuland so full of tender love and tender memories that I criedhappy, grateful tears until I went to sleep.’

“When he finished his eyes were full of tears and sowere mine. He brushed his hands across his brow swiftlyand said, laughingly: ‘Why, what are you crying about?What do you know about all this sort of feeling!’

“He never seemed brighter than on that day. He hadreceived an ovation of loving admiration from the friendsof his boyhood at his old home, and these honors from thehearts that loved him as a friend were dearer than allothers. It was for these friends, these countrymen of47his own, that his honors were won and his life wassacrificed.”

From the home-life of his boyhood he stepped into thefuller and richer home-life that followed his marriage. Hemarried the sweetheart of his early youth, Miss Julia King,of Athens, and she remained his sweetheart to the last.The first pseudonym that he used in his contributions tothe Constitution, “King Hans,” was a fanciful unionof Miss King’s name with his, and during his service inFlorida, long after he was married, he signed his telegrams“Jule.” In the office not a day passed that he did nothave something to say of his wife and children. Theywere never out of his thoughts, no matter what businessoccupied his mind. In his speeches there are constantallusions to his son, and in his conversation the gentle-eyedmaiden, his daughter, was always tenderly figuring. Hishome-life was in all respects an ideal one; ideal in its surroundings,in its influences, and in its purposes. I thinkthat the very fact of his own happiness gave him a certainrestlessness in behalf of the happiness of others. Hiswritings, his speeches, his lectures—his whole life, in fact—teemwith references to home-happiness and home-content.Over and over again he recurs to these things—alwayswith the same earnestness, always with the sameenthusiasm. He never meets a man on the street, but hewonders if he has a happy home—if he is contented—if hehas children that he loves. To him home was a shrine tobe worshiped at—a temple to be happy in, no matter howhumble, or how near to the brink of poverty.

One of his most successful lectures, and the one that hethought the most of, was entitled “A Patchwork Palace:The story of a Home.” The Patchwork Palace still existsin Atlanta, and the man who built it is living in it to-day.Mr. Grady never wrote out the lecture, and all that can befound of it is a few rough and faded notes scratched onlittle sheets of paper. On one occasion, however, he condensedthe opening of his lecture for the purpose of makinga newspaper sketch of the whole. It is unfinished, but the48following has something of the flavor of the lecture. Hecalled the builder of the Palace Mr. Mortimer Pitts, thoughthat is not his name:

Mr. Mortimer Pitts was a rag-picker. After a patient study of theresponsibility that the statement carries, I do not hesitate to say that hewas the poorest man that ever existed. He lived literally from hand tomouth. His breakfast was a crust; his dinner a question; his suppera regret. His earthly wealth, beyond the rags that covered him, was—acow that I believe gave both butter-milk and sweet-milk—a dog thatgave neither—and a hand-cart in which he wheeled his wares about.His wife had a wash-tub that she held in her own title, a wash-boardsimilarly possessed, and two chairs that came to her as a dowry.

In opposition to this poverty, my poor hero had—first, a name(Mortimer Pitts, Esq.) which his parents, whose noses were in the airwhen they christened him, had saddled upon him aspiringly, but whichfollowed him through life, his condition being put in contrast with itsrich syllables, as a sort of standing sarcasm. Second, a multitude oftow-headed children with shallow-blue eyes. The rag-picker neverlooked above the tow-heads of his brats, nor beyond the faded blue eyesof his wife. His world was very small. The cricket that chirpedbeneath the hearthstone of the hovel in which he might chance to live,and the sunshine that crept through the cracks, filled it with music andlight. Trouble only strengthened the bonds of love and sympathy thatheld the little brood together, and whenever the Wolf showed his gauntform at the door, the white faces, and the blue eyes, and the tow-headsonly huddled the closer to each other, until, in very shame, theintruder would take himself off.

Mr. Pitts had no home. With the restlessness of an Arab he flittedfrom one part of the city to another. He was famous for frighteningthe early market-maids by pushing his white round face, usually set ina circle of smaller white round faces, through the windows of long-desertedhovels. Wherever there was a miserable shell of a house thatwhistled when the wind blew, and wept when the rain fell, there youmight be sure of finding Mr. Pitts at one time or another. I do notcare to state how many times my hero, with an uncertain step and apitifully wandering look—his fertile wife, in remote or imminent processof fruitage—his wan and sedate brood of young ones—his cow, athoroughly conscientious creature, who passed her scanty diet to milkto the woeful neglect of tissue—and his dog, too honest for any foolishpride, ambling along in an unpretending, bench-legged sort of way,—Ido not care to state, I say, how many times this pale and melancholyprocession passed through the streets, seeking for a shelter in which itmight hide its wretchedness and ward off the storms.

49During these periods of transition, Mr. Pitts was wonderfully low-spirited.“Even a bird has its nest; and the poorest animal has somesort of a hole in the ground, or a roost where it can go when it isa-weary,” he said to me once, when I caught him fluttering aimlesslyout of a house which, under the influence of a storm, had spit out itswestern wall, and dropped its upper jaw dangerously near to the backof the cow. And from that time forth, I fancied I noticed my poorfriend’s face growing whiter, and the blue in his eye deepening, andhis lips becoming more tremulous and uncertain. The shuffling figure,begirt with the rag-picker’s bells, and dragging the wobbling cart, graduallybended forward, and the look of childish content was gone fromhis brow, and a great dark wrinkle had knotted itself there.

And now let me tell you about the starting of the Palace.

One day in the springtime, when the uprising sap ran through everyfibre of the forest, and made the trees as drunk as lords—when thebirds were full-throated, and the air was woven thick with their songsof love and praise—when the brooks kissed their uttermost banks, andthe earth gave birth to flowers, and all nature was elastic and alert, andthrilled to the core with the ecstasy of the sun’s new courtship—adivine passion fell like a spark into Mr. Mortimer Pitts’s heart. Howit ever broke through the hideous crust of poverty that cased the manabout, I do not know, nor shall we ever know ought but that God putit there in his own gentle way. But there it was. It dropped into thecold, dead heart like a spark—and there it flared and trembled, andgrew into a blaze, and swept through his soul, and fed upon its bitternessuntil the scales fell off and the eyes flashed and sparkled, and theold man was illumined with a splendid glow like that which hurriesyouth to its love, or a soldier to the charge. You would not havebelieved he was the same man. You would have laughed had youbeen told that the old fellow, sweltering in the dust, harnessed like adog to a cart, and plying his pick into the garbage heaps like a manworn down to the stupidity of a machine, was burning and burstingwith a great ambition—that a passion as pure and as strong as everkindled blue blood, or steeled gentle nerves was tugging at his heart-strings.And yet, so it was. The rag-picker was filled with a consumingfire—and as he worked, and toiled, and starved, his soul sobbed, andlaughed, and cursed, and prayed.

Mr. Pitts wanted a home. A man named Napoleon once wanteduniversal empire. Mr. Pitts was vastly the more daring dreamer ofthe two.

I do not think he had ever had a home. Possibly, away back beyondthe years a dim, sweet memory of a hearthstone and a gable roof withthe rain pattering on it, and a cupboard and a clock, and a deep, stillwell, came to him like an echo or a dream. Be this as it may, our50hero, crushed into the very mud by poverty—upon knees and handsbeneath his burden—fighting like a beast for his daily food—shut outinexorably from all suggestions of home—embittered by starvation—withhis faculties chained down apparently to the dreary problem ofto-day—nevertheless did lift his eyes into the gray future, and set hissoul upon a home.

This is a mere fragment—a bare synopsis of the openingof what was one of the most eloquent and pathetic lecturesever delivered from the platform. It was a beautiful idyllof home—an appeal, a eulogy—a glimpse, as it were, of thepassionate devotion with which he regarded his own home.Here is another fragment of the lecture that follows closelyafter the foregoing:

After a month’s struggle, Mr. Pitts purchased the ground on whichhis home was to be built. It was an indescribable hillside, borderingon the precipitous. A friend of mine remarked that “it was such anaggravating piece of profanity that the owner gave Mr. Pitts five dollarsto accept the land and the deed to it.” This report I feel bound tocorrect. Mr. Pitts purchased the land. He gave three dollars for it.The deed having been properly recorded, Mr. Pitts went to work. Heborrowed a shovel, and, perching himself against his hillside, beganloosening the dirt in front of him, and spilling it out between his legs,reminding me, as I passed daily, of a giant dirt-dauber. At length(and not very long either, for his remorseless desire made his arms flylike a madman’s) he succeeded in scooping an apparently flat place outof the hillside and was ready to lay the foundation of his house.

There was a lapse of a month, and I thought that my hero’s soul hadfailed him—that the fire, with so little of hope to feed upon, had fadedand left his heart full of ashes. But at last there was a pile of dirtysecond-hand lumber placed on the ground. I learned on inquiry thatit was the remains of a small house of ignoble nature which had beenleft standing in a vacant lot, and which had been given him by theowner. Shortly afterwards there came some dry-goods boxes; thenthree or four old sills; then a window-frame; then the wreck of anotherlittle house; and then the planks of an abandoned show-bill board.Finally the house began to grow. The sills were put together by Mr.Pitts and his wife. A rafter shot up toward the sky and stood there,like a lone sentinel, for some days, and then another appeared, andthen another, and then the fourth. Then Mr. Pitts, with an agilityborn of desperation, swarmed up one of them, and began to lay thecross-pieces. God must have commissioned an angel especially to watchover the poor man and save his bones, for nothing short of a miracle51could have kept him from falling while engaged in the perilous work.The frame once up, he took the odds and ends of planks and began tofit them. The house grew like a mosaic. No two planks were alike insize, shape, or color. Here was a piece of a dry-goods box, with itsrich yellow color, and a mercantile legend still painted on it, supplementedby a dozen pieces of plank; and there was an old door nailedup bodily and fringed around with bits of board picked up at random.It was a rare piece of patchwork, in which none of the pieces wererelated to or even acquainted with each other. A nose, an eye, an ear,a mouth, a chin picked up at random from the ugliest people of aneighborhood, and put together in a face, would not have been odderthan was this house. The window was ornamented with panes of threedifferent sizes, and some were left without any glass at all, as Mr. Pittsafterwards remarked, “to see through.” The chimney was a piece ofold pipe that startled you by protruding unexpectedly through the wall,and looked as if it were a wound. The entire absence of smoke at theouter end of this chimney led to a suspicion, justified by the facts, thatthere was no stove at the other end. The roof, which Mrs. Pitts, witha recklessness beyond the annals, mounted herself and attended to,was partially shingled and partially planked, this diversity being in thenature of a plan, as Mr. Pitts confidentially remarked, “to try whichstyle was the best.”

Such a pathetic travesty on house-building was never before seen. Itstarted a smile or a tear from every passer-by, as it reared its homelyhead there, so patched, uncouth, and poor. And yet the sun of Austerlitznever brought so much happiness to the heart of Napoleon as came toMr. Pitts, as he crept into this hovel, and, having a blanket before thedoorless door, dropped on his knees and thanked God that at last hehad found a home.

The house grew in a slow and tedious way. It ripened with theseasons. It budded in the restless and rosy spring; unfolded anddeveloped in the long summer; took shape and fullness in the brownautumn; and stood ready for the snows and frost when winter hadcome. It represented a year of heroism, desperation, and high resolve.It was the sum total of an ambition that, planted in the breast of a king,would have shaken the world.

To say that Mr. Pitts enjoyed it would be to speak but a little ofthe truth. I have a suspicion that the older children do not appreciateit as they should. They have a way, when they see a stranger examiningtheir home with curious and inquiring eyes, of dodging away fromthe door shamefacedly, and of reappearing cautiously at the window.But Mr. Pitts is proud of it. There is no foolishness about him. Hesits on his front piazza, which, I regret to say, is simply a plank restingon two barrels, and smokes his pipe with the serenity of a king; and52when a stroller eyes his queer little home curiously, he puts on the airthat the Egyptian gentleman (now deceased) who built the pyramidsmight have worn while exhibiting that stupendous work. I havewatched him hours at a time enjoying his house. I have seen himwalk around it slowly, tapping it critically with his knife, as if toascertain its state of ripeness, or pressing its corners solemnly as iftesting its muscular development.

Here ends this fragment—a delicious bit of descriptionthat only seems to be exaggerated because the hovel wasseen through the eyes of a poet—of a poet who loved allhis fellow men from the greatest to the smallest, and whowas as much interested in the home-making of Mr. Pittsas he was in the making of Governors and Senators, a businessin which he afterwards became an adept. From thefragments of one of his lectures, the title of which I amunable to give, I have pieced together another story ascharacteristic of Mr. Grady as the Patchwork Palace. Itis curious to see how the idea of home and of home-happinessruns through it all:

One of the happiest men that I ever knew—one whose serenitywas unassailable, whose cheerfulness was constant, and from whoseheart a perennial spring of sympathy and love bubbled up—was aman against whom all the powers of misfortune were centered. Hebelonged to the tailors—those cross-legged candidates for consumption.He was miserably poor. Fly as fast as it could through the endlesspieces of broadcloth, his hand could not always win crusts for hischildren. But he walked on and on; his thin white fingers falteredbravely through their tasks as the hours slipped away, and his serenewhite face bended forward over the tedious cloth into which, stitchafter stitch, he was working his life—and, with once in a while a wistfullook at the gleaming sunshine and the floating clouds, he breathedheavily and painfully of the poisoned air of his work-room, from whicha score of stronger lungs had sucked all the oxygen. And when, atnight, he would go home, and find that there were just crusts enoughfor the little ones to eat, the capricious old fellow would dream that hewas not hungry; and when pressed to eat of the scanty store by his sadand patient wife, would with an air of smartness pretend a sacred lie—thathe had dined with a friend—and then, with a heart that swelledalmost to bursting, turn away to hide his glistening eyes. Hungry?Of course he was, time and again. As weak as his body was, as falteringas was the little fountain that sent the life-blood from his heart—as53meagre as were his necessities, I doubt if there was a time in all thelong years when he was not hungry.

Did you ever think of how many people have died out of this worldthrough starvation. Thousands! Not recorded in the books as havingdied of starvation,—ah, no? Sometimes it is a thin and watery sort ofapoplexy—sometimes it is dyspepsia, and often consumption. Theseterms read better. But there are thousands of them, sensitive, shygentlemen—too proud to beg and too honest to steal—too straightforwardto scheme or maneuver—too refined to fill the public with theirgriefs—too heroic to whine—that lock their sorrows up in their ownhearts, and go on starving in silence, weakening day after day fromthe lack of proper food—the blood running slower and slower throughtheir veins—their pulse faltering as they pass through the variousstages of inanition, until at last, worn out, apathetic, exhausted, theyare struck by some casual illness, and lose their hold upon life as easilyand as naturally as the autumn leaf, juiceless, withered and dry, partsfrom the bough to which it has clung, and floats down the vast silenceof the forest.

But my tailor was cheerful. Nothing could disturb his serenity.His thin white face was always lit with a smile, and his eyes shone witha peace that passed my understanding. Hour after hour he wouldsing an asthmatic little song that came in wheezes from his starvedlungs—a song that was pitiful and cracked, but that came from hisheart so freighted with love and praise that it found the ears of Himwho softens all distress and sweetens all harmonies. I wondered whereall this happiness came from. How gushed this abundant stream fromthis broken reed—how sprung this luxuriant flower of peace from thescant soil of poverty? From these hard conditions, how came thisever-fresh felicity?

After he had been turned out of his home, the tailor was taken sick.His little song gave way to a hectic cough. His place at the work-roomwas vacant, and a scanty bed in wretched lodgings held his frail andfevered frame. The thin fingers clutched the cover uneasily, as if theywere restless of being idle while the little ones were crying for bread.The tired man tossed to and fro, racked by pain,—but still his face wasfull of content, and no word of bitterness escaped him. And the littlesong, though the poor lungs could not carry it to the lips, and thetrembling lips could not syllable its music, still lived in his heart andshone through his happy eyes. “I will be happy soon,” he said in afaltering way; “I will be better soon—strong enough to go to worklike a man again, for Bessie and the babies.” And he did get better—betteruntil his face had worn so thin that you could count his heart-beatsby the flush of blood that came and died in his cheeks—betteruntil his face had sharpened and his smiles had worn their deep lines54about his mouth—better until the poor fingers lay helpless at his side,and his eyes had lost their brightness. And one day, as his wife satby his side, and the sun streamed in the windows, and the air was fullof the fragrance of spring—he turned his face toward her and said:“I am better now, my dear.” And, noting a rapturous smile playingabout his mouth, and a strange light kindling in his eyes, she bendedher head forward to lay her wifely kiss upon his face. Ah! a last kiss,good wife, for thy husband! Thy kiss caught his soul as it flutteredfrom his pale lips, and the flickering pulse had died in his patient wrist,and the little song had faded from his heart and gone to swell a divinechorus,—and at last, after years of waiting, the old man was well!

There was nothing strained or artificial in the sentimentthat led him to dwell so constantly on the theme of homeand home happiness. The extracts I have given are merelythe rough lecture notes which he wrote down in order toconfirm and congeal his ideas. On the platform, whilefollowing the current of these notes, he injected into themthe quality of his rare and inimitable humor, the contrastserving to give greater strength and coherence to the pathosthat underlay it all. I do not know that I have dwelt withsufficient emphasis on his humor. He could be wittyenough on occasion, but the sting of it seemed to leave abad taste in his mouth. The quality of his humor was notgreatly different from that of Charles Lamb. It was gentleand perennial—a perpetual wonder and delight to hisfriends—irrepressible and unbounded—as antic and astricksy as that of a boy, as genial and as sweet as thesmile of a beautiful woman. Mr. Grady depended less onanecdote than any of our great talkers and speakers, thoughthe anecdote, apt, pat, and pointed, was always ready atthe proper moment. He depended rather on the originalityof his own point of view—on the results of his own individuality.The charm of his personal presence was indescribable.In every crowd and on every occasion he was amarked man. Quite independently of his own intentions,he made his presence and his influence felt. What he said,no matter how light and frivolous, no matter how trivial,never failed to attract attention. He warmed the hearts ofthe old and fired the minds of the young. He managed, in55some way, to impart something of the charm of his personalityto his written words, so that he carried light, andhope, and courage to many hearts, and when he passedaway, people who had never seen him fell to weeping whenthey heard of his untimely death.

VI.

There are many features and incidents in Mr. Grady’slife that cannot be properly treated in this hurriedly writtenand altogether inadequate sketch. His versatility wassuch that it would be difficult, even in a deliberately writtenbiography, to deal with its manifestations and resultsas they deserve to be dealt with. At the North, the cry is,who shall take his place as a peacemaker? At the South,who shall take his place as a leader, as an orator, and as apeacemaker? In Atlanta, who shall take his place as allof these, and as a builder-up of our interests, our enterprises,and our industries! Who is to make for us thehappy and timely suggestion? Who is to speak the rightword at the right time! The loss the country has sustainedin Mr. Grady’s death can only be measurably estimatedwhen we examine one by one the manifold relations hebore to the people.

I have spoken of the power of organization that hepossessed. There is hardly a public enterprise in Georgiaor in Atlanta—begun and completed since 1880—that doesnot bear witness to his ability, his energy, and his unselfishness.His busy brain and prompt hand were behindthe great cotton exposition held in Atlanta in 1881. Latein the spring of 1887, one of the editorial writers of theConstitution remarked that the next fair held in Atlantashould be called the Piedmont Exposition. “That shallbe its name,” said Mr. Grady, “and it will be held thisfall.” That was the origin of the Piedmont Exposition.Within a month the exposition company had been organized,the land bought, and work on the grounds begun. Itseemed to be a hopeless undertaking—there was so muchto be done, and so little time to do it in. But Mr, Grady56was equal to the emergency. He so infused the town withhis own energy and enthusiasm that every citizen came toregard the exposition as a personal matter, and the Constitutionhammered away at it with characteristic iteration.There was not a detail of the great show from beginning toend that was not of Mr. Grady’s suggestion. When itseemed to him that he was taking too prominent a part inthe management, he would send for other members of thefair committee, pour his suggestions into their ears, andthus evade the notoriety of introducing them himself andprevent the possible friction that might be caused if hemade himself too prominent. He understood humannature perfectly, and knew how to manage men.

The exposition was organized and the grounds madeready in an incredibly short time, and the fair was themost successful in every respect that has ever been held inthe South. Its attractions, which were all suggested byMr. Grady, appealed either to the interest or the curiosityof the people, and the result was something wonderful. Itis to be very much doubted whether any one in this country,in time of peace, has seen an assemblage of such vast andoverwhelming proportions as that which gathered in Atlantaon the principal day of the fair. Two years later, thePiedmont Exposition was reorganized, and Mr. Grady oncemore had practical charge of all the details. The resultwas an exhibition quite as attractive as the first, to whichthe people responded as promptly as before. The ExpositionCompany cleared something over $20,000, a resultunprecedented in the history of Southern fairs.

In the interval of the two fairs, Mr. Grady organized thePiedmont Chautauqua at a little station on the GeorgiaPacific road, twenty miles from Atlanta. Beautiful groundswere laid out and commodious buildings put up. In allthis work Mr. Grady took the most profound interest. Theintellectual and educational features of such an institutionappealed strongly to his tastes and sympathies, and to thatactive missionary spirit which impelled him to be continuallyon the alert in behalf of humanity. He expended a57good deal of energy on the Chautauqua and on the programmeof exercises, but the people did not respondheartily, and the session was not a financial success. Andyet there never was a Chautauqua assembly that had aricher and a more popular programme of exercises. Theconception was a success intellectually, and it will finallygrow into a success in other directions. Mr. Grady, withhis usual unselfishness, insisted on bearing the expenses ofthe lecturers and others, though it crippled him financiallyto do so. He desired to protect the capitalists who wentinto the enterprise on his account, and, as is usual in suchcases, the capitalists were perfectly willing to be protected.Mr. Grady was of the opinion that his experience with theChautauqua business gave him a deeper and a richerknowledge of human nature than he had ever had before.

One morning Mr. Grady saw in a New York newspaperthat a gentleman from Texas was in that city making asomewhat unsuccessful effort to raise funds for a Confederateveterans’ home. The comments of the newspaperwere not wholly unfriendly, but something in their tonestirred Mr. Grady’s blood. “I will show them,” he said,“what can be done in Georgia,” and with that he turnedto his stenographer and dictated a double-leaded editorialthat stirred the State from one end to the other. Hefollowed it up the next day, and immediately subscriptionsbegan to flow in. He never suffered interest in the projectto flag until sufficient funds for a comfortable home forthe Confederate veterans had been raised.

Previously, he had organized a movement for puttingup a building for the Young Men’s Christian Association,and that building now stands a monument to his earnestnessand unselfishness. Years ago, shortly after he cameto Atlanta, he took hold of the Young Men’s Library,which was in a languishing condition, and put it on itsfeet. It was hard work, for he was comparatively unknownthen. Among other things, he organized a lecture coursefor the benefit of the library, and he brought some distinguishedlecturers to Atlanta—among others the late58S. S. Cox. Mr. Cox telegraphed from New York that hewould come to Atlanta, and also the subject of the lecture,so that it could be properly advertised. The telegram saidthat the title of the lecture was “Just Human,” and largeposters, bearing that title, were placed on the bill-boardsand distributed around town. As Mr. Grady said, “thetown broke into a profuse perspiration of placards bearingthe strange device, while wrinkles gathered on the brow ofthe public intellect and knotted themselves hopelessly asit pondered over what might be the elucidation of such astrangely-named subject. At last,” Mr. Grady goes on tosay, “the lecturer came, and a pleasant little gentleman hewas, who beguiled the walk to the hotel with the airiest ofjokes and the brightest of comment. At length, when hehad registered his name in the untutored chirography ofthe great, he took me to one side, and asked in an undertonewhat those placards meant.”

“That,” I replied, looking at him in astonishment, “isthe subject of your lecture.”

“‘My lecture!’ he shrieked, ‘whose lecture? Whatlecture? My subject! Whose subject? Why, sir,’ saidhe, trying to control himself, ‘my subject is ‘IrishHumor,’ while this is ‘Just Human,’ and he put on hisspectacles and glared into space as if he were determinedto wring from that source some solution of this crueljoke.”

By an error of transmission, “Irish Humor” hadbecome “Just Human.” Mr. Grady does not relate thesequel, but what followed was as characteristic of him asanything in his unique career.

“Well,” said he, turning to Mr. Cox, his bright eyesfull of laughter, “you stick to your subject, and I’ll takethis ready-made one; you lecture on ‘Irish Humor’ andI’ll lecture on ‘Just Human.’”

And he did. He took the telegraphic error for a subject,and delivered in Atlanta one of the most beautifullectures ever heard here. There was humor in it andlaughter, but he handled his theme with such grace and59tenderness that the vast audience that sat entranced underhis magnetic oratory went home in tears.

The lecture course that Mr. Grady instituted was neverfollowed up, although it was a successful one. It was hisway, when he had organized an enterprise and placed it onits feet, to turn his attention to something else. Sometimeshis successors were equal to the emergency, andsometimes they were not. The Young Men’s Library hasbeen in good hands, and it is what may be termed a successfulinstitution, but it is not what it was when Mr.Grady was booming the town in its behalf. When he puthis hand to any enterprise or to any movement the effectseemed to be magical. It was not his personal influence, forthere were some enterprises beyond the range of that, thatresponded promptly to his touch. It was not his enthusiasm,for there have been thousands of men quite asenthusiastic. Was it his methods? Perhaps the secretlies hidden there; but I have often thought, while witnessingthe results he brought about, that he had at hiscommand some new element, or quality, or gift not vouchsafedto other men. Whatever it was, he employed it onlyfor the good of his city, his State, his section, and hiscountry. His patriotism was as prominent and as permanentas his unselfishness. His public spirit wasunbounded, and, above all things, restless and eager.

I have mentioned only a few of the more importantenterprises in Atlanta that owe their success to Mr. Grady.He was identified with every public movement that tookshape in Atlanta, and the people were always sure that hisinterest and his influence were on the side of honesty andjustice. But his energies took a wider range. He was thevery embodiment of the spirit that he aptly named “theNew South,”—the New South that, reverently rememberingand emulating the virtues of the old, and striving toforget the bitterness of the past, turns its face to the futureand seeks to adapt itself to the conditions with which anunsuccessful struggle has environed it, and to turn themto its profit. Of the New South Mr. Grady was the prophet,60if not the pioneer. He was never tired of preachingabout the rehabilitation of his section. Much of the marvelousdevelopment that has taken place in the Southduring the past ten years has been due to his eager andpersistent efforts to call the attention of the world to hervast resources. In his newspaper, in his speeches, in hiscontributions to Northern periodicals, this was his theme.No industry was too small to command his attention andhis aid, and none were larger than his expectations. Hiswas the pen that first drew attention to the iron fields ofAlabama, and to the wonderful marble beds and mineralwealth of Georgia. Other writers had preceded him,perhaps, but it is due to his unique methods of advertisingthat the material resources of the two States are in theirpresent stage of development. He had no individualinterest in the development of the material wealth of theSouth. During the past ten years there was not a day whenhe was alive that he could not have made thousands ofdollars by placing his pen at the disposal of men interestedin speculative schemes. He had hundreds of opportunitiesto write himself rich, but he never fell below the high levelof unselfishness that marked his career as boy and man.

There was no limit to his interest in Southern development.The development of the hidden wealth of thehills and valleys, while it appealed strongly to an imaginationthat had its practical and common-sense side, but notmore strongly than the desperate struggle of the farmersof the South in their efforts to recover from the disastrousresults of the war while facing new problems of labor andconditions wholly strange. Mr. Grady gave them theencouragement of his voice and pen, striving to teach themthe lessons of hope and patience. He was something morethan an optimist. He was the embodiment, the veryessence, as it seemed—of that smiling faith in the futurethat brings happiness and contentment, and he had thefaculty of imparting his faith to other people. For himthe sun was always shining, and he tried to make it shinefor other men. At one period, when the farmers of Georgia61seemed to be in despair, and while there was a notablemovement from this State to Georgia, Mr. Grady causedthe correspondents of the Constitution to make an investigationinto the agricultural situation in Georgia. Theresult was highly gratifying in every respect. The correspondentsdid their work well, as, indeed, they couldhardly fail to do under the instructions of Mr. Grady.The farmers who had been despondent took heart, andfrom that time to the present there has been a steadyimprovement in the status of agriculture in Georgia.

It would be difficult to describe or to give an adequateidea of the work—remarkable in its extent as well as in itscharacter—that Mr. Grady did for Georgia and for theSouth. It was his keen and hopeful eyes that first saw thefortunes that were to be made in Florida oranges. Hewrote for the Constitution in 1877 a series of glowing lettersthat were full of predictions and figures based onthem. The matter was so new at that time, and Mr.Grady’s predictions and estimates seemed to be so extravagant,that some of the editors, irritated by his optimism,as well as by his success as a journalist, alluded to his figuresas “Grady’s facts,” and this expression had quite avogue, even among those who were not unfriendly.

Nevertheless there is not a prediction to be found inMr. Grady’s Florida letters that has not been fulfilled, andhis figures appear to be tame enough when compared withthe real results that have been brought about by theorange-growers. Long afterwards he alluded publicly to“Grady’s facts,” accepted its application, and said he wasproud that his facts always turned out to be facts.

It would be impossible to enumerate the practical subjectswith which Mr. Grady dealt in the Constitution. Inthe editorial rooms he was continually suggesting theexhaustive treatment of some matter of real public interest,and in the majority of instances, after making the suggestionto one of his writers, he would treat the subjecthimself in his own inimitable style. His pleasure tripswere often itineraries in behalf of the section he was visiting.62He went on a pleasure trip to Southern Georgia onone occasion, and here are the headlines of a few of theletters he sent back: “Berries and Politics,” “The Savingsof the Georgia Farmers,” “The Largest StrawberryFarm in the State,” “A Wandering Bee, and How it Madethe LeConte Pear,” “The Turpentine Industries.” Allthese are suggestive. Each letter bore some definite relationto the development of the resources of the State.

To Mr. Grady, more than to any other man, is due thedevelopment of the truck gardens and watermelon farmsof southern and southwest Georgia. When he advised inthe Constitution the planting of watermelons for shipmentto the North, the proposition was hooted at by some of therival editors, but he “boomed” the business, as the phraseis, and to-day the watermelon business is an establishedindustry, and thousands of farmers are making moneyduring what would otherwise be a dull season of the year.And so with hundreds of other things. His suggestionswere always practicable, though they were sometimes sounique as to invite the criticism of the thoughtless, andthey were always for the benefit of others—for the benefitof the people. How few men, even though they live to aripe old age, leave behind them such a record of usefulnessand unselfish devotion as that of this man, who died beforehis prime!

VII.

Mr. Grady’s editorial methods were as unique as all hisother methods. They can be described, but they cannotbe explained. He had an instinctive knowledge of newsin its embryonic state; he seemed to know just where andwhen a sensation or a startling piece of information woulddevelop itself, and he was always ready for it. Sometimesit seemed to grow and develop under his hands, and hisinsight and information were such that what appeared tobe an ordinary news item would suddenly become, underhis manipulation and interpretation, of the first importance.It was this faculty that enabled him to make the Constitution63one of the leading journals of the country in its methodof gathering and treating the news.

Mr. Grady was not as fond of the editorial page asmight be supposed. Editorials were very well in their way—capitalin an emergency—admirable when a nail was tobe clinched, so to speak—but most important of all to hismind was the news and the treatment of it. The whirl ofevents was never too rapid for him. The most startlingdevelopments, the most unexpected happenings, alwaysfound him ready to deal with them instantly and in justthe right way.

He magnified the office of reporting, and he had a greatfancy for it himself. There are hundreds of instanceswhere he voluntarily assumed the duties of a reporter afterhe became managing editor. A case in point is the workhe did on the occasion of the Charleston earthquake. Themorning after that catastrophe he was on his way toCharleston. He took a reporter with him, but he preferredto do most of the work. His graphic descriptions of thedisaster in all its phases—his picturesque grouping of allthe details—were the perfection of reporting, and werecopied all over the country. The reporter who accompaniedMr. Grady had a wonderful tale to tell on his return.To the people of that desolate town, the young Georgianseemed to carry light and hope. Hundreds of citizens wereencamped on the streets. Mr. Grady visited these camps,and his sympathetic humor brought a smile to many a sadface. He went from house to house, and from encampmentto encampment, wrote two or three columns of telegraphicmatter on his knee, went to his room in the hotel in theearly hours of morning, fell on the bed with his clothes on,and in a moment was sound asleep. The reporter neverknew the amount of work Mr. Grady had done until hesaw it spread out in the columns of the Constitution.Working at high-pressure there was hardly a limit to theamount of copy Mr. Grady could produce in a given time,and it sometimes happened that he dictated an editorial tohis stenographer while writing a news article.

64He did a good deal of his more leisurely newspaper workat home, with his wife and children around him. He neverwrote on a table or desk, but used a lapboard or a pad,leaning back in his chair with his feet as high as his head.His house was always a centre of attraction, and when visitorscame in Mrs. Grady used to tell them that theyneedn’t mind Henry. The only thing that disturbed himon such occasions was when the people in the room conversedin a tone so low that he failed to hear what theywere saying. When this happened he would look up fromhis writing with a quick “What’s that?” This often happenedin the editorial rooms, and he would frequently writewhile taking part in a conversation, never losing the threadof his article or of the talk.

As I have said, he reserved his editorials for occasionsor emergencies, and it was then that his luminous styleshowed at its best. He employed always the apt phrase;he was, in fact a phrase-builder. His gift of expressionwas something marvelous, and there was something melodiousand fluent about his more deliberate editorials thatsuggested the movement of verse. I was reading awhileago his editorial appealing to the people of Atlanta on thecold Christmas morning which has already been alluded toin this sketch. It is short—not longer than the pencil withwhich he wrote it, but there is that about it calculated tostir the blood, even now. Above any other man I haveever known Mr. Grady possessed the faculty of impartinghis personal magnetism to cold type; and even such astatement as this is an inadequate explanation of the swiftand powerful effect that his writings had on the publicmind.

He had a keen eye for what, in a general way, may becalled climaxes. Thus he was content to see the daily Constitutionrun soberly and sedately along during the weekif it developed into a great paper on Sunday. He didmore editorial work for the Sunday paper than for anyother issue, and bent all his energies toward making animpression on that day. There was nothing about the65details of the paper that he did not thoroughly understand.He knew more about the effects of type combinations thanthe printers did; he knew as much about the businessdepartment as the business manager; and he could securemore advertisem*nts in three hours than his advertisingclerks could solicit in a week. It used to be said of himthat he lacked the business faculty. I suppose the remarkwas based on the fact that, in the midst of all the tremendousbooms he stirred up, and the enterprises he fostered,he remained comparatively poor. I think he purposelyneglected the opportunities for private gain thatwere offered him. There can be no more doubt of his businessqualification than there can be of the fact that heneglected opportunities for private gain; but his businessfaculties were given to the service of the public—witnesshis faultless management of two of the greatest expositionsever held in the South. Had he served his own interestsone-half as earnestly as he served those of the people, hewould have been a millionaire. As it was, he died comparativelypoor.

Mr. Grady took great pride in the Weekly Constitution,and that paper stands to-day a monument to his businessfaculty and to his wonderful methods of management.When Mr. Grady took hold of the weekly edition, it hadabout seven thousand subscribers, and his partners thoughtthat the field would be covered when the list reached tenthousand. To-day the list of subscribers is not far belowtwo hundred thousand, and is larger than that of the weeklyedition of any other American newspaper. Just how thisresult has been brought about it is impossible to say. Hismethods were not mysterious, perhaps, but they did not lieon the surface. The weekly editions of newspapers thathave reached large circulations depend on some specialty—as,for instance, the Detroit Free Press with the popularsketches of M. Quad, and the Toledo Blade, with the rancorous,but still popular, letters of Petroleum V. Nasby.The Weekly Constitution has never depended on suchthings. It has had, and still has, the letters of Bill Arp,66of Sarge Wier, and of Betsey Hamilton, homely humoristsall, but Mr. Grady took great pains never to magnify thesethings into specialties. Contributions that his assistantsthought would do for the weekly, Mr. Grady would cut outrelentlessly.

It sometimes happened that subscribers would begin tofall off. Then Mr. Grady would send for the manager ofthe weekly department, and proceed to caucus with him,as the young men around the office termed the conference.During the next few days there would be a great stir in theweekly department, and in the course of a fortnight thelist of subscribers would begin to grow again. Once, whentalking about the weekly, Mr. Grady remarked in a jocularway that when subscriptions began to flow in at the rate oftwo thousand a day, he wanted to die. Singularly enough,when he was returning from Boston, having been seizedwith the sickness that was so soon to carry him off, thebusiness manager telegraphed him that more than twothousand subscribers had been received the day before.

In the midst of the manifold duties and responsibilitiesthat he had cheerfully taken on his shoulders, there cameto Mr. Grady an ardent desire to aid in the reconciliationof the North and South, and to bring about a better understandingbetween them. This desire rapidly grew into afixed and solemn purpose. His first opportunity was aninvitation to the banquet of the New England Society,which he accepted with great hesitation. The wonderfuleffect of his speech at that banquet, and the tremendousresponse of applause and approval that came to him fromall parts of the country, assured him that he had touchedthe key-note of the situation, and he knew then that hisreal mission was that of Pacificator. There was a changein him from that time forth, though it was a change visibleonly to friendly and watchful eyes. He put away somethingof his boyishness, and became, as it seemed, a triflemore thoughtful. His purpose developed into a mission,and grew in his mind, and shone in his eyes, and remainedwith him day and night. He made many speeches after67that, frequently in little out-of-the-way country places, butall of them had a national significance and national bearing.He was preaching the sentiments of harmony, fraternity,and good will to the South as well as to the North.

He prepared his Boston speech with great care, notmerely to perfect its form, but to make it worthy of thegreat cause he had at heart, and in its preparation hedeparted widely from his usual methods of composition.He sent his servants away, locked himself in Mrs. Grady’sroom, and would not tolerate interruptions from any source.His memory was so prodigious that whatever he wrote wasfixed in his mind, so that when he had once written out aspeech, he needed the manuscript no more. Those whowere with him say that he did not confine himself to theprinted text of the Boston speech, but made little excursionssuggested by his surroundings. Nevertheless, thatspeech, as it stands, reaches the high-water mark of modernoratory. It was his last, as it was his best, contributionto the higher politics of the country—the politics that areabove partisanry and self-seeking.

VIII.

From Boston Mr. Grady came home to die. It wasknown that he was critically ill, but his own life had beenso hopeful and so bright, that when the announcement ofhis death was made the people of Atlanta were paralyzed,and the whole country shocked. It was a catastrophe sosudden and so far-reaching that even sorrow stood dumbfor a while. The effects of such a calamity were greaterthan sorrow could conceive or affection contemplate. Menwho had only a passing acquaintance with him wept whenthey heard of his death. Laboring men spoke of him withtrembling lips and tearful eyes, and working-women wentto their tasks in the morning crying bitterly. Never againwill there come to Atlanta a calamity that shall so profoundlytouch the hearts of the people—that shall soencompass the town with the spirit of mourning.

68I feel that I have been unable, in this hastily writtensketch, to do justice to the memory of this remarkableman. I have found it impossible to describe his marvelousgifts, his wonderful versatility, or the genius that set himapart from other men. The new generations that arise willbring with them men who will be fitted to meet the emergenciesthat may arise, men fitted to rule and capable oftouching the popular heart; but no generation will everproduce a genius so versatile, a nature so rare and so sweet,a character so perfect and beautiful, a heart so unselfish,and a mind of such power and vigor, as those that combinedto form the unique personality of Henry W. Grady. Neveragain, it is to be feared, will the South have such a wiseand devoted leader, or sectional unity so brilliant a champion,or the country so ardent a lover, or humanity sounselfish a friend, or the cause of the people so eloquentan advocate.

HENRY WOODFIN GRADY was born in Athens,Georgia, May 17, 1851, and died in Atlanta,Georgia, December 23, 1889.

His father, William S. Grady, was a native of NorthCarolina, and lived in that State until about the year 1846,when he moved to Athens, Georgia. He was a man ofvigorous energy, sterling integrity, and great independenceof character. He was not literary by profession, but devotedhimself to mercantile pursuits, and accumulated whatwas in those days considered a handsome fortune. Soonafter moving to Georgia to live, he married Miss Gartrell,a woman of rare strength of character and deep religiousnature. Their married life was sanctified by love of God,and made happy by a consistent devotion to each other.

They had three children, Henry Woodfin, William S.,Jr., and Martha. Henry Grady’s father was an early volunteerin the Confederate Army. He organized and equippeda company, of which he was unanimously elected captain,and went at once to Virginia, where he continued in activeservice until he lost his life in one of the battles beforePetersburg. During his career as a soldier he bore himselfwith such conspicuous valor, that he was accorded the raredistinction of promotion on the field for gallantry.

He fought in defense of his convictions, and fell “amartyr for conscience’ sake.”

His widow, bereft of her helpmate, faced alone the graveresponsibility of rearing her three young children.

70She led them in the ways of righteousness and truth,and always sweetened their lives with the tenderness ofindulgence, and the beauty of devotion. Two of them stilllive to call her blessed.

If memorials were meant only for the day and generationin which they are written, who would venture uponthe task of preparing one to Henry W. Grady? His deathoccasioned such wide grief, and induced such unprecedenteddemonstrations of sorrow, that nothing can be commensuratewith those impressive evidences of the unrivaledplace he held in the homage of his countrymen.

No written memorial can indicate the strong hold he hadupon the Southern people, nor portray that peerless personalitywhich gave him his marvelous power among men.He had a matchless grace of soul that made him an unfailingwinner of hearts. His translucent mind pulsated withthe light of truth and beautified all thought. He grewflowers in the garden of his heart and sweetened the worldwith the perfume of his spirit. His endowments were sosuperior, and his purposes so unselfish, that he seemed tocombine all the best elements of genius, and live under theinfluence of Divine inspiration.

As both a writer and a speaker, he was phenomenallygifted. There was no limit, either to the power or witcheryof his pen. In his masterful hand, it was as he chose,either the mighty instrument which Richelieu described, orthe light wand of a poet striking off the melody of song,though not to the music of rhyme. In writing a politicaleditorial, or an article on the industrial development of theSouth, or anything else to which he was moved by aninspiring sense of patriotism or conviction of duty, he waslogical, aggressive, and unanswerable. When building anair-castle over the framework of his fancy, or when pouringout his soul in some romantic dream, or when soundingthe depth of human feeling by an appeal for Charity’s sake,his command of language was as boundless as the realm ofthought, his ideas as beautiful as pictures in the sky, andhis pathos as deep as the well of tears. As an orator, he71had no equal in the South. He literally mastered his audienceregardless of their character, chaining them to thetrain of his thought and carrying them captive to conviction.He moved upon their souls like the Divine Spiritupon the waters, either lashing them into storms of enthusiasm,or stilling them into the restful quiet of sympathy.He was like no other man—he was a veritable magician.He could invest the most trifling thing with proportions ofimportance not at all its own. He could transform ahomely thought into an expression of beauty beneath hiswondrous touch. From earliest childhood he possessed thatindefinable quality which compels hero-worship.

In the untimely ending of his brilliant and useful career—anending too sudden to be called less than tragic—therecame an affliction as broad as the land he loved, and a griefwell-nigh universal. Atlanta lamented her foremost citizen;Georgia mourned her peerless son; the New Southagonized over the fall of her intrepid leader; and the heartof the nation was athrob with sorrow when the announcementwent forth—“Henry W. Grady is dead.”

The power of his personality, the vital force of hisenergy, and the scope of his genius, had always precludedthe thought that death could touch him, and hence, whenhe fell a victim to the dread destroyer, there was a terribleshock felt, and sorrow rolled like a tempest over the soulsof the Southern people.

The swift race he ran, and the lofty heights he attained,harmonized well with God’s munificent endowment of him.In every field that he labored, his achievements were sowonderful, that a faithful account of his career soundsmore like the extravagance of eulogy, than like a record oftruth. Of his very early boyhood no account is essential tothe purposes of this sketch. It is unnecessary to give anydetails of him prior to the time when he was a student inthe University of Georgia, at Athens. From that institutionhe was graduated in 1868.

During his college days, he was a boy of boundingspirit, who, by an inexplicable power over his associates,72made for himself an unchallenged leadership in all thingswith which he concerned himself. He was not a close student.He never studied his text-books more than wasnecessary to guarantee his rising from class to class, andto finally secure his diploma. He had no fondness for anydepartment of learning except belles-lettres. In thatbranch of study he stood well, simply because it was to hisliking. The sciences, especially mathematics, were reallydistasteful to him. He was an omnivorous reader. Everycharacter of Dickens was as familiar to him as a personalfriend. That great novelist was his favorite author. Heread widely of history, and had a great memory for datesand events. He reveled in poetry as a pastime, but neverfound anything that delighted him more than “Lucile.”He learned that love-song literally by heart.

While at college his best intellectual efforts were madein his literary and debating society. He aspired to beanniversarian of his society, and his election seemed aforegone conclusion. He was, however, over-confident ofsuccess in the last days of the canvass, and when the electioncame off was beaten by one vote. This was his firstdisappointment, and went hard with him. He could notbring himself to understand how anything toward theaccomplishment of which he had bent his energy could fail.His defeat proved a blessing in disguise, for the followingyear a place of higher honor, namely that of “commencementorator” was instituted at the University, and to thathe was elected by acclamation. This was the year of hisgraduation, and the speech he made was the sensation ofcommencement. His subject was “Castles in Air,” and inthe treatment of his poetic theme he reveled in that wonderfulpower of word painting for which he afterwardsbecame so famous. Even in those early days, he wrote andspoke with a fluency of expression, and brilliancy of fancy,that were incomparable.

In all the relations of college life he was universallypopular. He had a real genius for putting himself en rapportwith all sorts and conditions of men. His sympathy73was quick-flowing and kind. Any sight or story of sufferingwould touch his heart and make the tears come. Hisgenerosity, like a great river, ran in ceaseless flow andbroadening course toward the wide ocean of humanity.He lived in the realization of its being “more blessed togive than to receive.” He never stopped to consider theworthiness of an object, but insisted that a man was entitledto some form of selfishness, and said his was the self-indulgencewhich he experienced in giving.

There was an old woman in Athens, who was a typicalprofessional beggar. She wore out everybody’s charityexcept Grady’s. He never tired helping her. One day hesaid, just after giving her some money, “I do hope oldJane will not die as long as I live in Athens. If she does,my most unfailing privilege of charity will be cut off.” Aprincely liberality marked everything he did. His namenever reduced the average of a subscription list, but eighttimes out of ten it was down for the largest amount.

By his marked individuality of character, and evidencesof genius, even as a boy he impressed himself upon allthose with whom he came in contact.

Immediately after his graduation at Athens, he went tothe University of Virginia, not so much with a determinationto broaden his scholastic attainments, as with the ideathat in that famous institution he would be inspired to ahigher cultivation of his inborn eloquence. From the dayhe entered the University of Virginia, he had only oneambition, and that was to be “society orator.” He madesuch a profound impression in the Washington Society thathis right to the honor he craved was scarcely disputed. Inthe public debates, he swept all competitors before him.About two weeks before the Society’s election of its orator,he had routed every other aspirant from the field, andit seemed he would be unanimously chosen. However,when election day came, that same over-confidence whichcost him defeat at Athens lost him victory at Charlottesville.This disappointment nearly broke his heart. Hecame back home crestfallen and dispirited, and but for the74wonderful buoyancy of his nature, he might have succumbedpermanently to the severe blow which had beenstruck at his youthful aspirations and hopes.

It was not long after his return to Georgia before hedetermined to make journalism his life-work. At once hebegan writing newspaper letters on all sorts of subjects,trusting to his genius to give interest to purely fancifultopics, which had not the slightest flavor of news. Havingthus felt his way out into the field of his adoption, he soonwent regularly into newspaper business.

Just about this time, and before he had attained hismajority, he married Miss Julia King, of Athens. She wasthe first sweetheart of his boyhood, and kept that hallowedplace always. Her beauty and grace of person, united toher charms of character, made her the queen of his life andthe idol of his love. She, with two children (a boy andgirl), survive him.

In his domestic life he was tender and indulgent to hisfamily, and generously hospitable to his friends. The verybest side of him was always turned toward his hearthstone,and there he dispensed the richest treasures of his soul.His home was his castle, and in it his friends were alwaysmade happy by the benediction of his welcome.

Soon after marriage he moved to Rome, Georgia, andestablished himself in the joint ownership, and editorialmanagement of the Rome Commercial, which paper, insteadof prospering, was soon enveloped in bankruptcy, costingMr. Grady many thousands of dollars. Shortly after thishe moved to Atlanta, and formed a partnership with Col.Robert Alliston in founding the Atlanta Herald. The conductof that paper was a revelation in Georgia journalism.Grady and Alliston combined probably more genius thanany two men who have ever owned a paper together in thatState. They made the columns of the Herald luminous.They also put into it more push and enterprise than hadever been known in that section. They sacrificed everythingto daily triumph, regardless of cost or consequences.They went so far as to charter an engine in order that they75might put their morning edition in Macon, Georgia, bybreakfast time. This was a feat never before dreamed ofin Georgia. They accomplished the unprecedented undertaking,but in doing that, and other things of unwarrantedextravagance, it was not long before the Atlanta Heraldwent “lock, stock and barrel,” into the wide-open arms ofthe Sheriff. In this venture Mr. Grady not only sunk allof his personal fortune which remained after the Romewreck, but involved himself considerably in debt. Thus attwenty-three years of age, he was a victim to disappointmentin the only two pronounced ambitions he had everhad, and was depressed by the utter failure of the onlytwo business enterprises in which he had ever engaged.

He made another effort, and started a weekly papercalled the Atlanta Capital. This, however, soon went thesorrowing way of his other hopes.

While those failures and disappointments seemed cruelset-backs in that day, looked at now they may be countedto have been no more than healthful discipline to him.They served to stir his spirit the deeper, and fill him withnobler resolve. Bravely he trampled misfortune under hisfeet, and climbed to the high place of honor and usefulnessfor which he was destined.

In the day of his extreme poverty, instead of despairinghe took on new strength and courage that equipped himwell for future triumphs. When it is remembered that hisvast accomplishments and national reputation were compassedwithin the next fourteen years, the record is simplyamazing.

Fourteen years ago, Henry W. Grady stood in Atlanta,Georgia, bankrupt and almost broken-hearted. Everythingbehind him was blotted by failure, and nothing ahead ofhim was lighted with promise. In that trying day heborrowed fifty dollars, and giving twenty of it to his faithfulwife, took the balance and determined to invest it intraveling as far as it would carry him from the scene ofhis discouragements. He had one offer then open to him,namely, the editorial management of the Wilmington76(North Carolina) Star, at a salary of twelve hundred dollarsa year. It was the only thing that seemed a guaranteeagainst actual want, and he had about determined to acceptit, when yielding to the influence of pure presentiment,instead of buying a ticket to Wilmington with his thirtydollars, he bought one to New York City.

He landed here with three dollars and seventy-five cents,and registered at the Astor House in order to be in easyreach of Newspaper Row.

He used to tell the story of his experience on that occasionin this way: “After forcing down my unrelishedbreakfast on the morning of my arrival in New York, Iwent out on the sidewalk in front of the Astor House, andgave a bootblack twenty-five cents, one-fifth of which wasto pay for shining my shoes, and the balance was a fee forthe privilege of talking to him. I felt that I would die ifI did not talk to somebody. Having stimulated myself atthat doubtful fountain of sympathy, I went across to theHerald office, and the managing editor was good enoughto admit me to his sanctum. It happened that just at thattime several of the Southern States were holding constitutionalconventions. The Herald manager asked me if Iknew anything about politics, I replied that I knew verylittle about anything else. ‘Well,’ said he, ‘sit at thisdesk and write me an article on State conventions in theSouth.’ With these words he tossed me a pad and leftme alone in the room. When my task-master returned, Ihad finished the article and was leaning back in the chairwith my feet up on the desk. ‘Why, Mr. Grady, what isthe matter?’ asked the managing editor. ‘Nothing,’ Ireplied, ‘except that I am through.’ ‘Very well, leaveyour copy on the desk, and if it amounts to anything I willlet you hear from me. Where are you stopping?’ ‘Iam at the Astor House.’ Early the next morning beforegetting out of bed, I rang for a hall-boy and ordered theHerald. I actually had not strength to get up and dressmyself, until I could see whether or not my article hadbeen used. I opened the Herald with a trembling hand,77and when I saw that ‘State Conventions in the South’was on the editorial page, I fell back on the bed, buriedmy face in the pillow, and cried like a child. When I wentback to the Herald office that day the managing editorreceived me cordially and said, ‘You can go back toGeorgia, Mr. Grady, and consider yourself in the employof the Herald.’”

Almost immediately after his return to Atlanta, he wastendered, and gladly accepted, a position on the editorialstaff of the Atlanta Constitution. He worked vigorouslyfor the New York Herald for five years as its Southerncorrespondent, and in that time did some of the most brilliantwork that has ever been done for that excellentjournal.

Notable among his achievements were the graphicreports he made of the South Carolina riots in 1876. Butthe special work which gave him greatest fame was hisexposure of the election frauds in Florida that same year.He secured the memorable confession of Dennis and hisassociates, and his report of it to the Herald was exclusive.For that piece of work alone, Mr. Bennett paid him a thousanddollars. His attachment to the editorial staff of theAtlanta Constitution gave him an opportunity to impresshimself upon the people of Georgia, which he did withgreat rapidity and power.

In 1879, he came to New York, partly for recreation andpartly for the purpose of writing a series of topical lettersfrom Gotham. While here he was introduced by GovernorJohn B. Gordon to Cyrus W. Field. Mr. Field wasinstantly impressed by him, and liked him so much thathe loaned him twenty thousand dollars with which to buyone-fourth interest in the Atlanta Constitution. He madethe purchase promptly, and that for which he paid twentythousand dollars in 1880, was at the time of his death in1889 worth at least one hundred and fifty thousand dollars.The enormous increase in the value of the Constitutionduring his identification with it shows nothing more plainlythan the value of his marvelous work in its service.

Securing an interest in the Atlanta Constitution may be78said to have fixed his noble destiny. It emancipated hisgenius from the bondage of poverty, quickened his sensitivespirit with a new consciousness of power for good, andinspired him to untiring service in the widest fields of usefulness.He saw the hand of God in the favor that hadblessed him, and in acknowledgment of the Divine providencededicated his life to the cause of truth, and theuplifting of humanity. Atlanta was his home altar, andthere he poured out the best libations of his heart. Thatthriving city to-day has no municipal advantage, no publicimprovement, no educational institution, no industrialenterprise which does not either owe its beginning to hisreadiness of suggestion, or its mature development to hissustaining influence. Its streets are paved with his energyand devotion, its houses are built in the comeliness andfashion that he inspired, and its vast business interests areestablished in the prosperity and strength that he foretold.

Georgia was the pride of his life, and for the increaseof her peace and prosperity, the deepening brotherhood ofher people, the development of her vast mineral resources,and the enrichment of her varied harvests, he wrote, andtalked, and prayed.

The whole South was to him sacred ground, made soboth by the heroic death of his father and the preciousbirth of his children. By the former, he felt all the memoriesand traditions of the Old South to have been sanctified,and by the latter he felt all the hopes and aspirationsof the New South to have been beautified. And thus witha personality altogether unique, and a genius thoroughlyrare, he stood like a magical link between the past and thefuture. Turning toward the days that were gone, he sealedthem with a holy kiss; and then looking toward the timethat had not yet come, he conjured it with a voice ofprophecy.

In politics he was an undeniable leader, and yet neverheld office. High places were pressed for his acceptancetimes without number, but he always resolutely put themaway from him, insisting that office had no charm for him.He could have gone to Congress, as representative from the79State at large, if he would only have consented to serve.His name was repeatedly suggested for the governorshipof Georgia, but he invariably suppressed the idea promptly,urging his friends to leave him at peace in his private station.

In spite of his indifference to all political preferment, itis universally believed in Georgia, that had he lived, hewould have soon been sent to the United States Senate.Although he had no love of office for himself, he was theincomparable Warwick of his day. He was almost anabsolute dictator in Georgia politics. No man cared tostand for election to any place, high or low, unless he feltGrady was with him. He certainly was the most powerfulfactor in the election of two Governors, and practicallygave more than one United States Senator his seat. Hispower extended all over the State.

Such a man could not be held within the narrow limitsof local reputation. It mattered not how far he traveledfrom home, he made himself quickly known by the powerof his impressive individuality, or by some splendid exhibitionof his genius.

By two speeches, one made at a banquet of the NewEngland Society in New York City, and the other at aState fair at Dallas, Texas, he achieved for himself a reputationwhich spanned the continent. The most magnificenteffort of eloquence which he ever made was the soul-stirringspeech delivered in Boston on “The Race Problem,”just ten days before he died. These three speecheswere enough to confirm and perpetuate his fame as a surpassingorator.

It is impossible to give any adequate idea of HenryGrady’s largeness of heart, nobility of soul, and brilliancyof mind. Those three elements combined in royal abundanceto make his princely nature.

When Georgia’s great triumvirate died, their spiritsseemed to linger on earth in the being of Henry W. Grady.While he lived he perpetuated the political sagacity ofAlexander H. Stephens, the consummate genius of RobertToombs, and the impassioned eloquence of Benjamin H.Hill.

80True greatness is immortal. Real patriotic purposesare never swallowed up in death. Good works well begunlive long after their praiseworthy originators have ascendedin glory. If there is any truth in these reflections, theyare precious and priceless to all who mourn the untimelytaking off of Henry Woodfin Grady.

His sudden death struck grief to all true-hearted Americancitizens. In him was combined such breadth of usefulnessand brilliancy of genius, that he illumined the criticalperiod of American history in which he lived, and set thefirmament of our national glory with many a new and shiningstar of promise. This century, though old in its lastquarter, has given birth to but one Henry Woodfin Grady,and it will close its eyes long before his second self is seen.

A hundred years hence, when sweet charity is stemmingthe tides of suffering in the world, if truth is not dumb,she will say: This blessed work is an echo from HenryGrady’s life on earth. A hundred years hence, whenfriendship is building high her altars of self-sacrifice in thename of love and loyalty, if truth is not dumb, she willsay: This beautiful service is going on as a perpetualmemorial to Henry Grady’s life on earth. A hundredyears hence, when all the South shall have been enrichedby the development of her vast natural resources, if truthis not dumb, she will say: This is the legitimate fruit ofHenry Grady’s labor of love while he lived on earth. Ahundred years hence, when patriotism shall have beatendown all sectional and partisan prejudice, and the burningproblems that press upon our national heart to-day shallhave been “solved in patience and fairness,” if truth is notdumb, she will say: This is the glorious verification ofHenry Grady’s prophetic utterances while on earth. Andwhen in God’s own appointed time this nation shall leadall other nations of the earth in the triumphal march ofprosperous peoples under perfect governments, if truth isnot dumb, she will say: This is the free, full and completeanswer to Henry Grady’s impassioned prayer while onearth.

ON the 21st of December, 1886, Mr. Grady, inresponse to an urgent invitation, deliveredthe following Address at the Banquet of theNew England Club, New York:

“There was a South of slavery and secession—thatSouth is dead. There is a South of union and freedom—thatSouth, thank God, is living, breathing, growing everyhour.” These words, delivered from the immortal lips ofBenjamin H. Hill, at Tammany Hall, in 1866, true thenand truer now, I shall make my text to-night.

Mr. President and Gentlemen: Let me express to youmy appreciation of the kindness by which I am permittedto address you. I make this abrupt acknowledgment advisedly,for I feel that if, when I raise my provincial voicein this ancient and august presence, I could find couragefor no more than the opening sentence, it would be well ifin that sentence I had met in a rough sense my obligationas a guest, and had perished, so to speak, with courtesy onmy lips and grace in my heart. Permitted, through yourkindness, to catch my second wind, let me say that I appreciatethe significance of being the first Southerner to speakat this board, which bears the substance, if it surpasses thesemblance, of original New England hospitality—and honorsthe sentiment that in turn honors you, but in whichmy personality is lost, and the compliment to my peoplemade plain.

I bespeak the utmost stretch of your courtesy to-night.I am not troubled about those from whom I come. You84remember the man whose wife sent him to a neighbor witha pitcher of milk, and who, tripping on the top step, fellwith such casual interruptions as the landings affordedinto the basem*nt, and, while picking himself up, had thepleasure of hearing his wife call out: “John, did youbreak the pitcher?”

“No, I didn’t,” said John, “but I’ll be dinged if Idon’t.”

So, while those who call me from behind may inspireme with energy, if not with courage, I ask an indulgenthearing from you. I beg that you will bring your fullfaith in American fairness and frankness to judgmentupon what I shall say. There was an old preacher oncewho told some boys of the Bible lesson he was going toread in the morning. The boys, finding the place, gluedtogether the connecting pages. The next morning he readon the bottom of one page, “When Noah was one hundredand twenty years old he took unto himself a wife, whowas”—then turning the page—“140 cubits long—40 cubitswide, built of gopher wood—and covered with pitch insideand out.” He was naturally puzzled at this. He read itagain, verified it, and then said: “My friends, this is thefirst time I ever met this in the Bible, but I accept this asan evidence of the assertion that we are fearfully andwonderfully made.” If I could get you to hold suchfaith to-night I could proceed cheerfully to the task Iotherwise approach with a sense of consecration.

Pardon me one word, Mr. President, spoken for thesole purpose of getting into the volumes that go out annuallyfreighted with the rich eloquence of your speakers—thefact that the Cavalier as well as the Puritan wason the continent in its early days, and that he was “upand able to be about.” I have read your books carefullyand I find no mention of that fact, which seems to me animportant one for preserving a sort of historical equilibriumif for nothing else.

Let me remind you that the Virginia Cavalier firstchallenged France on the continent—that Cavalier, John85Smith, gave New England its very name, and was sopleased with the job that he has been handing his ownname around ever since—and that while Myles Standishwas cutting off men’s ears for courting a girl without herparents’ consent, and forbade men to kiss their wives onSunday, the Cavalier was courting everything in sight, andthat the Almighty had vouchsafed great increase to theCavalier colonies, the huts in the wilderness being as fullas the nests in the woods.

But having incorporated the Cavalier as a fact in yourcharming little books, I shall let him work out his own salvation,as he has always done, with engaging gallantry, andwe will hold no controversy as to his merits. Why shouldwe? Neither Puritan nor Cavalier long survived as such.The virtues and good traditions of both happily still livefor the inspiration of their sons and the saving of the oldfashion. But both Puritan and Cavalier were lost in thestorm of the first Revolution, and the American citizen, supplantingboth and stronger than either, took possession ofthe republic bought by their common blood and fashionedto wisdom, and charged himself with teaching men governmentand establishing the voice of the people as the voiceof God.

My friends, Dr. Talmage has told you that the typicalAmerican has yet to come. Let me tell you that he hasalready come. Great types, like valuable plants, are slowto flower and fruit. But from the union of these colonists,Puritans and Cavaliers, from the straightening of theirpurposes and the crossing of their blood, slow perfectingthrough a century, came he who stands as the first typicalAmerican, the first who comprehended within himself allthe strength and gentleness, all the majesty and grace ofthis republic—Abraham Lincoln. He was the sum of Puritanand Cavalier, for in his ardent nature were fused thevirtues of both, and in the depths of his great soul thefaults of both were lost. He was greater than Puritan,greater than Cavalier, in that he was American, and thatin his honest form were first gathered the vast and thrilling86forces of his ideal government—charging it with suchtremendous meaning and elevating it above human sufferingthat martyrdom, though infamously aimed, came as afitting crown to a life consecrated from the cradle to humanliberty. Let us, each cherishing the traditions and honoringhis fathers, build with reverent hands to the type ofthis simple but sublime life, in which all types are honored,and in our common glory as Americans there will be plentyand to spare for your forefathers and for mine.

Dr. Talmage has drawn for you, with a master’s hand,the picture of your returning armies. He has told youhow, in the pomp and circ*mstance of war, they cameback to you, marching with proud and victorious tread,reading their glory in a nation’s eyes! Will you bearwith me while I tell you of another army that sought itshome at the close of the late war—an army that marchedhome in defeat and not in victory—in pathos and not insplendor, but in glory that equaled yours, and to hearts asloving as ever welcomed heroes home! Let me picture toyou the footsore Confederate soldier, as buttoning up inhis faded gray jacket the parole which was to bear testimonyto his children of his fidelity and faith, he turned hisface southward from Appomattox in April, 1865. Thinkof him as ragged, half-starved, heavy-hearted, enfeebledby want and wounds, having fought to exhaustion, he surrendershis gun, wrings the hands of his comrades insilence, and lifting his tear-stained and pallid face for thelast time to the graves that dot old Virginia hills, pullshis gray cap over his brow and begins the slow and painfuljourney. What does he find—let me ask you who wentto your homes eager to find, in the welcome you hadjustly earned, full payment for four years’ sacrifice—whatdoes he find when, having followed the battle-stained crossagainst overwhelming odds, dreading death not half somuch as surrender, he reaches the home he left so prosperousand beautiful? He finds his house in ruins, his farmdevastated, his slaves free, his stock killed, his barnsempty, his trade destroyed, his money worthless, his social87system, feudal in its magnificence, swept away; his peoplewithout law or legal status; his comrades slain, andthe burdens of others heavy on his shoulders. Crushedby defeat, his very traditions are gone. Without money,credit, employment, material, or training; and beside allthis, confronted with the gravest problem that ever methuman intelligence—the establishing of a status for thevast body of his liberated slaves.

What does he do—this hero in gray with a heart ofgold? Does he sit down in sullenness and despair? Notfor a day. Surely God, who had stripped him of his prosperity,inspired him in his adversity. As ruin was neverbefore so overwhelming, never was restoration swifter.The soldier stepped from the trenches into the furrow;horses that had charged Federal guns marched before theplow, and fields that ran red with human blood in Aprilwere green with the harvest in June; women reared inluxury cut up their dresses and made breeches for theirhusbands, and, with a patience and heroism that fit womenalways as a garment, gave their hands to work. Therewas little bitterness in all this. Cheerfulness and franknessprevailed. “Bill Arp” struck the key-note when hesaid: “Well, I killed as many of them as they did of me,and now I’m going to work.” Of the soldier returninghome after defeat and roasting some corn on the roadside,who made the remark to his comrades: “You may leavethe South if you want to, but I am going to Sandersville,kiss my wife and raise a crop, and if the Yankees fool withme any more, I’ll whip ’em again.” I want to say toGeneral Sherman, who is considered an able man in ourparts, though some people think he is a kind of carelessman about fire, that from the ashes he left us in 1864 wehave raised a brave and beautiful city; that somehow orother we have caught the sunshine in the bricks and mortarof our homes, and have builded therein not one ignobleprejudice or memory.

But what is the sum of our work? We have found outthat in the summing up the free negro counts more than he88did as a slave. We have planted the schoolhouse on thehilltop and made it free to white and black. We havesowed towns and cities in the place of theories, and put businessabove politics. We have challenged your spinners inMassachusetts and your iron-makers in Pennsylvania. Wehave learned that the $400,000,000 annually received fromour cotton crop will make us rich when the supplies thatmake it are home-raised. We have reduced the commercialrate of interest from 24 to 6 per cent., and are floating 4 percent. bonds. We have learned that one northern immigrantis worth fifty foreigners; and have smoothed the path tosouthward, wiped out the place where Mason and Dixon’sline used to be, and hung out latchstring to you and yours.We have reached the point that marks perfect harmony inevery household, when the husband confesses that the pieswhich his wife cooks are as good as those his mother usedto bake; and we admit that the sun shines as brightly andthe moon as softly as it did before the war. We haveestablished thrift in city and country. We have fallen inlove with work. We have restored comfort to homes fromwhich culture and elegance never departed. We have leteconomy take root and spread among us as rank as the crabgrasswhich sprung from Sherman’s cavalry camps, untilwe are ready to lay odds on the Georgia Yankee as he manufacturesrelics of the battle-field in a one-story shanty andsqueezes pure olive oil out of his cotton seed, against anydown-easter that ever swapped wooden nutmegs for flannelsausage in the valleys of Vermont. Above all, we know thatwe have achieved in these “piping times of peace” a fullerindependence for the South than that which our fatherssought to win in the forum by their eloquence or compel inthe field by their swords.

It is a rare privilege, sir, to have had part, howeverhumble, in this work. Never was nobler duty confided tohuman hands than the uplifting and upbuilding of theprostrate and bleeding South—misguided, perhaps, butbeautiful in her suffering, and honest, brave and generousalways. In the record of her social, industrial and political89illustration we await with confidence the verdict of theworld.

But what of the negro? Have we solved the problemhe presents or progressed in honor and equity toward solution?Let the record speak to the point. No sectionshows a more prosperous laboring population than thenegroes of the South, none in fuller sympathy with the employingand land-owning class. He shares our school fund,has the fullest protection of our laws and the friendshipof our people. Self-interest, as well as honor, demandthat he should have this. Our future, our very existencedepend upon our working out this problem in fulland exact justice. We understand that when Lincolnsigned the emancipation proclamation, your victory wasassured, for he then committed you to the cause of humanliberty, against which the arms of man cannot prevail—whilethose of our statesmen who trusted to makeslavery the corner-stone of the Confederacy doomed us todefeat as far as they could, committing us to a cause thatreason could not defend or the sword maintain in sightof advancing civilization.

Had Mr. Toombs said, which he did not say, “that hewould call the roll of his slaves at the foot of BunkerHill,” he would have been foolish, for he might haveknown that whenever slavery became entangled in war itmust perish, and that the chattel in human flesh endedforever in New England when your fathers—not to beblamed for parting with what didn’t pay—sold their slavesto our fathers—not to be praised for knowing a payingthing when they saw it. The relations of the southernpeople with the negro are close and cordial. We rememberwith what fidelity for four years he guarded our defenselesswomen and children, whose husbands and fatherswere fighting against his freedom. To his eternal creditbe it said that whenever he struck a blow for his own libertyhe fought in open battle, and when at last he raisedhis black and humble hands that the shackles might bestruck off, those hands were innocent of wrong against his90helpless charges, and worthy to be taken in loving graspby every man who honors loyalty and devotion. Ruffianshave maltreated him, rascals have misled him, philanthropistsestablished a bank for him, but the South, with theNorth, protests against injustice to this simple and sincerepeople. To liberty and enfranchisem*nt is as far as lawcan carry the negro. The rest must be left to conscienceand common sense. It must be left to those among whomhis lot is cast, with whom he is indissolubly connected, andwhose prosperity depends upon their possessing his intelligentsympathy and confidence. Faith has been kept withhim, in spite of calumnious assertions to the contrary bythose who assume to speak for us or by frank opponents.Faith will be kept with him in the future, if the Southholds her reason and integrity.

But have we kept faith with you? In the fullest sense,yes. When Lee surrendered—I don’t say when Johnsonsurrendered, because I understand he still alludes to thetime when he met General Sherman last as the time whenhe determined to abandon any further prosecution of thestruggle—when Lee surrendered, I say, and Johnson quit,the South became, and has since been, loyal to this Union.We fought hard enough to know that we were whipped,and in perfect frankness accept as final the arbitrament ofthe sword to which we had appealed. The South foundher jewel in the toad’s head of defeat. The shackles thathad held her in narrow limitations fell forever when theshackles of the negro slave were broken. Under the oldrégime the negroes were slaves to the South; the South wasa slave to the system. The old plantation, with its simplepolice regulations and feudal habit, was the only type possibleunder slavery. Thus was gathered in the hands of asplendid and chivalric oligarchy the substance that shouldhave been diffused among the people, as the rich blood,under certain artificial conditions, is gathered at the heart,filling that with affluent rapture but leaving the body chilland colorless.

The old South rested everything on slavery and agriculture,91unconscious that these could neither give nor maintainhealthy growth. The new South presents a perfect democracy,the oligarchs leading in the popular movement—asocial system compact and closely knitted, less splendidon the surface, but stronger at the core—a hundred farmsfor every plantation, fifty homes for every palace—and adiversified industry that meets the complex need of thiscomplex age.

The new South is enamored of her new work. Her soulis stirred with the breath of a new life. The light of agrander day is falling fair on her face. She is thrillingwith the consciousness of growing power and prosperity.As she stands upright, full-statured and equal among thepeople of the earth, breathing the keen air and lookingout upon the expanded horizon, she understands that heremancipation came because through the inscrutable wisdomof God her honest purpose was crossed, and her bravearmies were beaten.

This is said in no spirit of time-serving or apology. TheSouth has nothing for which to apologize. She believesthat the late struggle between the States was war and notrebellion; revolution and not conspiracy, and that her convictionswere as honest as yours. I should be unjust tothe dauntless spirit of the South and to my own convictionsif I did not make this plain in this presence. The Southhas nothing to take back. In my native town of Athens isa monument that crowns its central hill—a plain, whiteshaft. Deep cut into its shining side is a name dear to meabove the names of men—that of a brave and simple manwho died in brave and simple faith. Not for all the gloriesof New England, from Plymouth Rock all the way, wouldI exchange the heritage he left me in his soldier’s death.To the foot of that I shall send my children’s children toreverence him who ennobled their name with his heroicblood. But, sir, speaking from the shadow of that memorywhich I honor as I do nothing else on earth, I say that thecause in which he suffered and for which he gave his lifewas adjudged by higher and fuller wisdom than his or92mine, and I am glad that the omniscient God held thebalance of battle in His Almighty hand and that humanslavery was swept forever from American soil, the AmericanUnion was saved from the wreck of war.

This message, Mr. President, comes to you from consecratedground. Every foot of soil about the city in whichI live is as sacred as a battle-ground of the republic. Everyhill that invests it is hallowed to you by the blood of yourbrothers who died for your victory, and doubly hallowedto us by the blow of those who died hopeless, but undaunted,in defeat—sacred soil to all of us—rich with memoriesthat make us purer and stronger and better—silentbut staunch witnesses in its red desolation of the matchlessvalor of American hearts and the deathless glory of Americanarms—speaking an eloquent witness in its white peaceand prosperity to the indissoluble union of American Statesand the imperishable brotherhood of the American people.

Now, what answer has New England to this message?Will she permit the prejudice of war to remain in thehearts of the conquerors, when it has died in the hearts ofthe conquered? Will she transmit this prejudice to thenext generation, that in their hearts which never felt thegenerous ardor of conflict it may perpetuate itself? Willshe withhold, save in strained courtesy, the hand whichstraight from his soldier’s heart Grant offered to Lee atAppomattox? Will she make the vision of a restored andhappy people, which gathered above the couch of yourdying captain, filling his heart with grace; touching hislips with praise, and glorifying his path to the grave—willshe make this vision on which the last sigh of hisexpiring soul breathed a benediction, a cheat and delusion?If she does, the South, never abject in asking forcomradeship, must accept with dignity its refusal; but ifshe does not refuse to accept in frankness and sinceritythis message of good will and friendship, then will theprophecy of Webster, delivered in this very society fortyyears ago amid tremendous applause, become true, be verifiedin its fullest sense, when he said: “Standing hand to93hand and clasping hands, we should remain united as wehave been for sixty years, citizens of the same country,members of the same government, united, all united nowand united forever.” There have been difficulties, contentions,and controversies, but I tell you that in myjudgment,

AT the Dallas, Texas, State Fair, on the 26th ofOctober, 1887, Mr. Grady was the Orator ofthe Day. He said:

“Who saves his country, saves all things, and all things saved willbless him. Who lets his country die, lets all things die, and all thingsdying curse him.”

These words are graven on the statue of Benjamin H.Hill in the city of Atlanta, and in their spirit I shall speakto you to-day.

Mr. President and Fellow-Citizens: I salute the firstcity of the grandest State of the greatest government onthis earth. In paying earnest compliment to this thrivingcity, and this generous multitude, I need not cumberspeech with argument or statistics. It is enough to saythat my friends and myself make obeisance this morning tothe chief metropolis of the State of Texas. If it but holdsthis pre-eminence—and who can doubt in this auspiciouspresence that it will—the uprising tides of Texas’s prosperitywill carry it to glories unspeakable. For I say insoberness, the future of this marvelous and amazing empire,that gives broader and deeper significance to statehoodby accepting its modest naming, the mind of mancan neither measure nor comprehend.

I shall be pardoned for resisting the inspiration ofthis presence and adhering to-day to blunt and rigorousspeech—for there are times when fine words are paltry, andthis seems to me to be such a time. So I shall turn away95from the thunders of the political battle upon which everyAmerican hangs intent, and repress the ardor that at thistime rises in every American heart—for there are issuesthat strike deeper than any political theory has reached,and conditions of which partisanry has taken, and cantake, but little account. Let me, therefore, with studiedplainness, and with such precision as is possible—in aspirit of fraternity that is broader than party limitations,and deeper than political motive—discuss with you certainproblems upon the wise and prompt solution of whichdepends the glory and prosperity of the South.

But why—for let us make our way slowly—why “theSouth.” In an indivisible union—in a republic against theintegrity of which sword shall never be drawn or mortalhand uplifted, and in which the rich blood gathering atthe common heart is sent throbbing into every part of thebody politic—why is one section held separated from therest in alien consideration? We can understand why thisshould be so in a city that has a community of local interests;or in a State still clothed in that sovereignty ofwhich the debates of peace and the storm of war has notstripped her. But why should a number of States, stretchingfrom Richmond to Galveston, bound together by nolocal interests, held in no autonomy, be thus combined anddrawn to a common center? That man would be absurdwho declaimed in Buffalo against the wrongs of the MiddleStates, or who demanded in Chicago a convention for theWest to consider the needs of that section. If then it beprovincialism that holds the South together, let us outgrowit; if it be sectionalism, let us root it out of our hearts;but if it be something deeper than these and essential toour system, let us declare it with frankness, consider itwith respect, defend it with firmness, and in dignity abideits consequence. What is it that holds the southernStates—though true in thought and deed to the Union—soclosely bound in sympathy to-day? For a century theseStates championed a governmental theory—but that, havingtriumphed in every forum, fell at last by the sword.96They maintained an institution—but that, having been administeredin the fullest wisdom of man, fell at last in thehigher wisdom of God. They fought a war—but the prejudicesof that war have died, its sympathies have broadened,and its memories are already the priceless treasure ofthe republic that is cemented forever with its blood. Theylooked out together upon the ashes of their homes and thedesolation of their fields—but out of pitiful resource theyhave fashioned their homes anew, and plenty rides on thespringing harvests. In all the past there is nothing todraw them into essential or lasting alliance—nothing in allthat heroic record that cannot be rendered unfearing fromprovincial hands into the keeping of American history.

But the future holds a problem, in solving which theSouth must stand alone; in dealing with which, she mustcome closer together than ambition or despair have drivenher, and on the outcome of which her very existence depends.This problem is to carry within her body politictwo separate races, and nearly equal in numbers. Shemust carry these races in peace—for discord means ruin.She must carry them separately—for assimilation meansdebasem*nt. She must carry them in equal justice—for tothis she is pledged in honor and in gratitude. She mustcarry them even unto the end, for in human probabilityshe will never be quit of either.

This burden no other people bears to-day—on nonehath it ever rested. Without precedent or companionship,the South must bear this problem, the awful responsibilityof which should win the sympathy of all humankind, and the protecting watchfulness of God—alone, evenunto the end. Set by this problem apart from all otherpeoples of the earth, and her unique position emphasizedrather than relieved, as I shall show hereafter, by hermaterial conditions, it is not only fit but it is essential thatshe should hold her brotherhood unimpaired, quicken hersympathies, and in the light or in the shadows of this surpassingproblem work out her own salvation in the fear ofGod—but of God alone.

97What shall the South do to be saved? Through whatpaths shall she reach the end? Through what travail, orwhat splendors, shall she give to the Union this section, itswealth garnered, its resources utilized, and its rehabilitationcomplete—and restore to the world this problem solvedin such justice as the finite mind can measure, or finitehands administer?

In dealing with this I shall dwell on two points.

First, the duty of the South in its relation to the raceproblem.

Second, the duty of the South in relation to its no lessunique and important industrial problem.

I approach this discussion with a sense of consecration.I beg your patient and cordial sympathy. And I invokethe Almighty God, that having showered on this people Hisfullest riches has put their hands to this task, that He willdraw near unto us, as He drew near to troubled Israel, andlead us in the ways of honor and uprightness, even througha pillar of cloud by day, and a pillar of fire by night.

What of the negro? This of him. I want no betterfriend than the black boy who was raised by my side, andwho is now trudging patiently with downcast eyes andshambling figure through his lowly way in life. I wantno sweeter music than the crooning of my old “mammy,”now dead and gone to rest, as I heard it when she heldme in her loving arms, and bending her old black faceabove me stole the cares from my brain, and led me smilinginto sleep. I want no truer soul than that which movedthe trusty slave, who for four years while my father foughtwith the armies that barred his freedom, slept every nightat my mother’s chamber door, holding her and her childrenas safe as if her husband stood guard, and ready to laydown his humble life on her threshold. History has noparallel to the faith kept by the negro in the South duringthe war. Often five hundred negroes to a single white man,and yet through these dusky throngs the women and childrenwalked in safety, and the unprotected homes rested inpeace. Unmarshaled, the black battalions moved patiently98to the fields in the morning to feed the armies their idlenesswould have starved, and at night gathered anxiouslyat the big house to “hear the news from marster,” thoughconscious that his victory made their chains enduring.Everywhere humble and kindly; the bodyguard of thehelpless; the rough companion of the little ones; theobservant friend; the silent sentry in his lowly cabin; theshrewd counselor. And when the dead came home, amourner at the open grave. A thousand torches wouldhave disbanded every Southern army, but not one waslighted. When the master going to a war in which slaverywas involved said to his slave, “I leave my home and lovedones in your charge,” the tenderness between man and masterstood disclosed. And when the slave held that chargesacred through storm and temptation, he gave new meaningto faith and loyalty. I rejoice that when freedom came tohim after years of waiting, it was all the sweeter because theblack hands from which the shackles fell were stainless of asingle crime against the helpless ones confided to his care.

From this root, imbedded in a century of kind and constantcompanionship, has sprung some foliage. As norace had ever lived in such unresisting bondage, none wasever hurried with such swiftness through freedom intopower. Into hands still trembling from the blow thatbroke the shackles, was thrust the ballot. In less thantwelve months from the day he walked down the furrow aslave, the negro dictated in legislative halls from whichDavis and Calhoun had gone forth, the policy of twelvecommonwealths. When his late master protested againsthis misrule, the federal drum-beat rolled around his strong-holds,and from a hedge of federal bayonets he grinned ingood-natured insolence. From the proven incapacity ofthat day has he far advanced? Simple, credulous, impulsive—easilyled and too often easily bought, is he a safer,more intelligent citizen now than then? Is this mass ofvotes, loosed from old restraints, inviting alliance or awaitingopportunity, less menacing than when its purpose wasplain and its way direct?

99My countrymen, right here the South must make adecision on which very much depends. Many wise menhold that the white vote of the South should divide, thecolor line be beaten down, and the southern States rangedon economic or moral questions as interest or belief demands.I am compelled to dissent from this view. Theworst thing in my opinion that could happen is that thewhite people of the South should stand in opposing factions,with the vast mass of ignorant or purchasable negro votesbetween. Consider such a status. If the negroes wereskillfully led,—and leaders would not be lacking,—it wouldgive them the balance of power—a thing not to be considered.If their vote was not compacted, it would invitethe debauching bid of factions, and drift surely to thatwhich was the most corrupt and cunning. With the shiftlesshabit and irresolution of slavery days still possessinghim, the negro voter will not in this generation, adrift fromwar issues, become a steadfast partisan through conscienceor conviction. In every community there are colored menwho redeem their race from this reproach, and who voteunder reason. Perhaps in time the bulk of this race maythus adjust itself. But, through what long and monstrousperiods of political debauchery this status would bereached, no tongue can tell.

The clear and unmistakable domination of the whiterace, dominating not through violence, not through partyalliance, but through the integrity of its own vote and thelargeness of its sympathy and justice through which itshall compel the support of the better classes of thecolored race,—that is the hope and assurance of the South.Otherwise, the negro would be bandied from one faction toanother. His credulity would be played upon, his cupiditytempted, his impulses misdirected, his passions inflamed.He would be forever in alliance with that factionwhich was most desperate and unscrupulous. Such a statewould be worse than reconstruction, for then intelligencewas banded, and its speedy triumph assured. But withintelligence and property divided—bidding and overbidding100for place and patronage—irritation increasing witheach conflict—the bitterness and desperation seizing everyheart—political debauchery deepening, as each factionstaked its all in the miserable game—there would be noend to this, until our suffrage was hopelessly sullied, ourpeople forever divided, and our most sacred rights surrendered.

One thing further should be said in perfect frankness.Up to this point we have dealt with ignorance and corruption—butbeyond this point a deeper issue confronts us.Ignorance may struggle to enlightenment, out of corruptionmay come the incorruptible. God speed the daywhen,—every true man will work and pray for its coming,—thenegro must be led to know and through sympathy toconfess that his interests and the interests of the people ofthe South are identical. The men who, from afar off, viewthis subject through the cold eye of speculation or see itdistorted through partisan glasses, insist that, directly orindirectly, the negro race shall be in control of the affairsof the South. We have no fears of this; already we areattaching to us the best elements of that race, and as weproceed our alliance will broaden; external pressure butirritates and impedes. Those who would put the negro racein supremacy would work against infallible decree, for thewhite race can never submit to its domination, because thewhite race is the superior race. But the supremacy of thewhite race of the South must be maintained forever, andthe domination of the negro race resisted at all points andat all hazards—because the white race is the superior race.This is the declaration of no new truth. It has abidedforever in the marrow of our bones, and shall run foreverwith the blood that feeds Anglo-Saxon hearts.

In political compliance the South has evaded the truth,and men have drifted from their convictions. But we cannotescape this issue. It faces us wherever we turn. It isan issue that has been, and will be. The races and tribesof earth are of Divine origin. Behind the laws of man andthe decrees of war, stands the law of God. What God hath101separated let no man join together. The Indian, the Malay,the Negro, the Caucasian, these types stand as markersof God’s will. Let not man tinker with the work of theAlmighty. Unity of civilization, no more than unity offaith, will never be witnessed on earth. No race has risen,or will rise, above its ordained place. Here is the pivotalfact of this great matter—two races are made equal in law,and in political rights, between whom the caste of race hasset an impassable gulf. This gulf is bridged by a statute,and the races are urged to cross thereon. This cannot be.The fiat of the Almighty has gone forth, and in eighteencenturies of history it is written. We would escape thisissue if we could. From the depths of its soul the Southinvokes from heaven “peace on earth, and good will toman.” She would not, if she could, cast this race back intothe condition from which it was righteously raised. Shewould not deny its smallest or abridge its fullest privilege.Not to lift this burden forever from her people, would shedo the least of these things. She must walk through thevalley of the shadow, for God has so ordained. But he hasordained that she shall walk in that integrity of race, thatcreated in His wisdom has been perpetuated in His strength.Standing in the presence of this multitude, sobered withthe responsibility of the message I deliver to the youngmen of the South, I declare that the truth above all othersto be worn unsullied and sacred in your hearts, to be surrenderedto no force, sold for no price, compromised in nonecessity, but cherished and defended as the covenant ofyour prosperity, and the pledge of peace to your children,is that the white race must dominate forever in the South,because it is the white race, and superior to that race bywhich its supremacy is threatened.

It is a race issue. Let us come to this point, and standhere. Here the air is pure and the light is clear, and herehonor and peace abide. Juggling and evasion deceives nota man. Compromise and subservience has carried not apoint. There is not a white man North or South who doesnot feel it stir in the gray matter of his brain and throb in102his heart. Not a negro who does not feel its power. It isnot a sectional issue. It speaks in Ohio, and in Georgia.It speaks wherever the Anglo-Saxon touches an alien race.It has just spoken in universally approved legislation inexcluding the Chinaman from our gates, not for his ignorance,vice or corruption, but because he sought to establishan inferior race in a republic fashioned in the wisdomand defended by the blood of a hom*ogeneous people.

The Anglo-Saxon blood has dominated always andeverywhere. It fed Alfred when he wrote the charter ofEnglish liberty; it gathered about Hampden as he stoodbeneath the oak; it thundered in Cromwell’s veins as hefought his king; it humbled Napoleon at Waterloo; it hastouched the desert and jungle with undying glory; it carriedthe drumbeat of England around the world and spreadon every continent the gospel of liberty and of God: itestablished this republic, carved it from the wilderness,conquered it from the Indians, wrested it from England,and at last, stilling its own tumult, consecrated it foreveras the home of the Anglo-Saxon, and the theater of histranscending achievement. Never one foot of it can besurrendered while that blood lives in American veins,and feeds American hearts, to the domination of an alienand inferior race.

And yet that is just what is proposed. Not in twentyyears have we seen a day so pregnant with fate to this sectionas the sixth of next November. If President Clevelandis then defeated, which God forbid, I believe theseStates will be led through sorrows compared to which thewoes of reconstruction will be as the fading dews of morningto the roaring flood. To dominate these States throughthe colored vote, with such aid as federal patronage maydebauch or federal power deter, and thus through itschosen instruments perpetuate its rule, is in my opinion thesettled purpose of the Republican party. I am appalledwhen I measure the passion in which this negro problemis judged by the leaders of the party. Fifteen years agoVice-President Wilson said—and I honor his memory as103that of a courageous man: “We shall not have finishedwith the South until we force its people to change theirthought, and think as we think.” I repeat these words,for I heard them when a boy, and they fell on my ears asthe knell of my people’s rights—“to change their thought,and make them think as we think.” Not enough to haveconquered our armies—to have decimated our ranks, tohave desolated our fields and reduced us to poverty, tohave struck the ballot from our hands and enfranchisedour slaves—to have held us prostrate under bayonets whilethe insolent mocked and thieves plundered—but their verysouls must be rifled of their faiths, their sacred traditionscudgeled from memory, and their immortal minds beateninto subjection until thought had lost its integrity, andwe were forced “to think as they think.” And justnow General Sherman has said, and I honor him as asoldier:

“The negro must be allowed to vote, and his vote must be counted;otherwise, so sure as there is a God in heaven, you will have anotherwar, more cruel than the last, when the torch and dagger will takethe place of the muskets of well-ordered battalions. Should the negrostrike that blow, in seeming justice, there will be millions to assistthem.”

And this General took Johnston’s sword in surrender!He looked upon the thin and ragged battalions in gray,that for four years had held his teeming and heroic legionsat bay. Facing them, he read their courage in their depletedranks, and gave them a soldier’s parole. When hefound it in his heart to taunt these heroes with this threat,why—careless as he was twenty years ago with fire, he iseven more careless now with his words. If we could hopethat this problem would be settled within our lives I wouldappeal from neither madness nor unmanliness. But whenI know that, strive as I may, I must at last render thisawful heritage into the untried hands of my son, alreadydearer to me than my life, and that he must in turn bequeathit unsolved to his children, I cry out against theinhumanity that deepens its difficulties with this incendiary104threat, and beclouds its real issue with inflamingpassion.

This problem is not only enduring, but it is widening.The exclusion of the Chinese is the first step in the revolutionthat shall save liberty and law and religion to thisland, and in peace and order, not enforced on the gallowsor at the bayonet’s end, but proceeding from the heart ofan harmonious people, shall secure in the enjoyment ofthese rights, and the control of this republic, the hom*ogeneouspeople that established and has maintained it. Thenext step will be taken when some brave statesman, lookingDemagogy in the face, shall move to call to the strangerat our gates, “Who comes here?” admitting every manwho seeks a home, or honors our institutions, and whosehabit and blood will run with the native current; but excludingall who seek to plant anarchy or to establish alienmen or measures on our soil; and will then demand thatthe standard of our citizenship be lifted and the right ofacquiring our suffrage be abridged. When that daycomes, and God speed its coming, the position of the Southwill be fully understood, and everywhere approved. Untilthen, let us—giving the negro every right, civil andpolitical, measured in that fullness the strong should alwaysaccord the weak—holding him in closer friendshipand sympathy than he is held by those who would crucifyus for his sake—realizing that on his prosperity oursdepends—let us resolve that never by external pressure, orinternal division, shall he establish domination, directly orindirectly, over that race that everywhere has maintainedits supremacy. Let this resolution be cast on the lines ofequity and justice. Let it be the pledge of honest, safeand impartial administration, and we shall command thesupport of the colored race itself, more dependent than anyother on the bounty and protection of government. Letus be wise and patient, and we shall secure through itsacquiescence what otherwise we should win through conflict,and hold in insecurity.

All this is no unkindness to the negro—but rather that105he may be led in equal rights and in peace to his uttermostgood. Not in sectionalism—for my heart beats trueto the Union, to the glory of which your life and heart ispledged. Not in disregard of the world’s opinion—for torender back this problem in the world’s approval is thesum of my ambition, and the height of human achievement.Not in reactionary spirit—but rather to make clearthat new and grander way up which the South is marchingto higher destiny, and on which I would not halt her forall the spoils that have been gathered unto parties sinceCatiline conspired, and Cæsar fought. Not in passion,my countrymen, but in reason—not in narrowness, but inbreadth—that we may solve this problem in calmness andin truth, and lifting its shadows let perpetual sunshinepour down on two races, walking together in peace andcontentment. Then shall this problem have proved ourblessing, and the race that threatened our ruin work oursalvation as it fills our fields with the best peasantry theworld has ever seen. Then the South—putting behind herall the achievements of her past—and in war and inpeace they beggar eulogy—may stand upright among thenations and challenge the judgment of man and the approvalof God, in having worked out in their sympathy,and in His guidance, this last and surpassing miracle ofhuman government.

What of the South’s industrial problem? When weremember that amazement followed the payment by thirty-sevenmillion Frenchmen of a billion dollars indemnity toGermany, that the five million whites of the South renderedto the torch and sword three billions of property—thatthirty million dollars a year, or six hundred milliondollars in twenty years, has been given willingly of ourpoverty as pensions for Northern soldiers, the wonder isthat we are here at all. There is a figure with which historyhas dealt lightly, but that, standing pathetic andheroic in the genesis of our new growth, has interested megreatly—our soldier-farmer of ’65. What chance had hefor the future as he wandered amid his empty barns, his106stock, labor, and implements gone—gathered up the fragmentsof his wreck—urging kindly his borrowed mule—payingsixty per cent. for all that he bought, and buyingall on credit—his crop mortgaged before it was planted—hischildren in want, his neighborhood in chaos—workingunder new conditions and retrieving every error by a costlyyear—plodding all day down the furrow, hopeless andadrift, save when at night he went back to his brokenhome, where his wife, cheerful even then, renewed hiscourage, while she ministered to him in loving tenderness.Who would have thought as during those lonely and terribledays he walked behind the plow, locking the sunshinein the glory of his harvest, and spreading the showers andthe verdure of his field—no friend near save nature thatsmiled at his earnest touch, and God that sent him themessage of good cheer through the passing breeze and thewhispering leaves—that he would in twenty years, havingcarried these burdens uncomplaining, make a crop of$800,000,000. Yet this he has done, and from his bountythe South has rebuilded her cities, and recouped her losses.While we exult in his splendid achievement, let us takeaccount of his standing.

Whence this enormous growth? For ten years theworld has been at peace. The pioneer has now replacedthe soldier. Commerce has whitened new seas, and themerchant has occupied new areas. Steam has made of theearth a chess-board, on which men play for markets.Our western wheat-grower competes in London with theRussian and the East Indian. The Ohio wool growerwatches the Australian shepherd, and the bleat of the nowhistoric sheep of Vermont is answered from the steppes ofAsia. The herds that emerge from the dust of your amazingprairies might hear in their pauses the hoof-beats ofantipodean herds marching to meet them. Under Holland’sdykes, the cheese and butter makers fight Americandairies. The hen cackles around the world. Californiachallenges vine-clad France. The dark continent is disclosedthrough meshes of light. There is competition107everywhere. The husbandman, driven from his market,balances price against starvation, and undercuts his rival.This conflict often runs to panic, and profit vanishes. TheIowa farmer burning his corn for fuel is not an unusualtype.

Amid this universal conflict, where stands the South?While the producer of everything we eat or wear, in everyland, is fighting through glutted markets for bare existence,what of the southern farmer? In his industrial asin his political problem he is set apart—not in doubt, butin assured independence. Cotton makes him king. Notthe fleeces that Jason sought can rival the richness of thisplant, as it unfurls its banners in our fields. It is goldfrom the instant it puts forth its tiny shoot. The showerthat whispers to it is heard around the world. The trespassof a worm on its green leaf means more to Englandthan the advance of the Russians on her Asiatic outposts.When its fibre, current in every bank, is marketed, itrenders back to the South $350,000,000 every year. Itsseed will yield $60,000,000 worth of oil to the press and$40,000,000 in food for soil and beast, making the stupendoustotal of $450,000,000 annual income from this crop.And now, under the Tompkins patent, from its stalk—newspaper is to be made at two cents per pound. EdwardAtkinson once said: “If New England could grow thecotton plant, without lint, it would make her richest crop;if she held monopoly of cotton lint and seed she would controlthe commerce of the world.”

But is our monopoly, threatened from Egypt, India andBrazil, sure and permanent? Let the record answer. In’72 the American supply of cotton was 3,241,000 bales,—foreignsupply 3,036,000. We led our rivals by less than200,000 bales. This year the American supply is 8,000,000bales—from foreign sources, 2,100,000, expressed in balesof four hundred pounds each. In spite of new areas elsewhere,of fuller experience, of better transportation, andunlimited money spent in experiment, the supply of foreigncotton has decreased since ’72 nearly 1,000,000 bales, while108that of the South has increased nearly 5,000,000. Furtherthan this: Since 1872, population in Europe has increased 13per cent., and cotton consumption in Europe has increased50 per cent. Still further: Since 1880 cotton consumptionin Europe has increased 28 per cent., wool only 4 per cent.,and flax has decreased 11 per cent. As for new areas, theuttermost missionary woos the heathen with a cotton shirtin one hand and the Bible in the other, and no savage Ibelieve has ever been converted to one, without adoptingthe other. To summarize: Our American fibre has increasedits product nearly three-fold, while it has seen theproduct of its rival decrease one-third. It has enlargedits dominion in the old centers of population, supplantingflax and wool, and it peeps from the satchel of every businessand religious evangelist that trots the globe. In threeyears the American crop has increased 1,400,000 bales, andyet there is less cotton in the world to-day than at any timefor twenty years. The dominion of our king is established;this princely revenue assured, not for a year, but for alltime. It is the heritage that God gave us when he archedour skies, established our mountains, girt us about withthe ocean, tempered the sunshine, and measured the rain—oursand our children’s forever.

Not alone in cotton, but in iron, does the South excel.The Hon. Mr. Norton, who honors this platform with hispresence, once said to me: “An Englishman of the highestcharacter predicted that the Atlantic will be whitenedwithin our lives with sails carrying American iron and coalto England.” When he made that prediction the Englishminers were exhausting the coal in long tunnels above whichthe ocean thundered. Having ores and coal stored in exhaustlessquantity, in such richness, and in such adjustment,that iron can be made and manufacturing donecheaper than elsewhere on this continent, is to now command,and at last control, the world’s market for iron.The South now sells iron, through Pittsburg, in New York.She has driven Scotch iron first from the interior, andfinally from American ports. Within our lives she will109cross the Atlantic, and fulfill the Englishman’s prophecy.In 1880 the South made 212,000 tons of iron. In 1887, 845,000tons. She is now actually building, or has finished thisyear, furnaces that will produce more than her entire productof last year. Birmingham alone will produce moreiron in 1889 than the entire South produced in 1887. Ourcoal supply is exhaustless, Texas alone having 6000 squaremiles. In marble and granite we have no rivals, as to quantityor quality. In lumber our riches are even vaster.More than fifty per cent. of our entire area is in forests,making the South the best timbered region of the world.We have enough merchantable yellow pine to bring, inmoney, $2,500,000,000—a sum the vastness of which canonly be understood when I say it nearly equaled the assessedvalue of the entire South, including cities, forests,farms, mines, factories and personal property of everydescription whatsoever. Back of this our forests of hardwoods, and measureless swamps of cypress and gum.Think of it. In cotton a monopoly. In iron and coal establishingswift mastery. In granite and marble developingequal advantage and resource. In yellow pine and hardwoods the world’s treasury. Surely the basis of the South’swealth and power is laid by the hand of the Almighty God,and its prosperity has been established by divine law whichwork in eternal justice and not by taxes levied on its neighborsthrough human statutes. Paying tribute for fifty yearsthat under artificial conditions other sections might reacha prosperity impossible under natural laws, it has grownapace—and its growth shall endure if its people are ruledby two maxims, that reach deeper than legislative enactment,and the operation of which cannot be limited by artificialrestraint, and but little hastened by artificial stimulus.

First. No one crop will make a people prosperous. Ifcotton held its monopoly under conditions that made othercrops impossible—or under allurements that made othercrops exceptional—its dominion would be despotism.

Whenever the greed for a money crop unbalances thewisdom of husbandry, the money crop is a curse. When110it stimulates the general economy of the farm, it is the profitingof farming. In an unprosperous strip of Carolina,when asked the cause of their poverty, the people say,“Tobacco—for it is our only crop.” In Lancaster, Pa., therichest American county by the census, when asked thecause of their prosperity, they say, “Tobacco—for it is thegolden crown of a diversified agriculture.” The soil thatproduces cotton invites the grains and grasses, the orchardand the vine. Clover, corn, cotton, wheat, and barleythrive in the same inclosure; the peach, the apple, theapricot, and the Siberian crab in the same orchard. Herdsand flocks graze ten months every year in the meadowsover which winter is but a passing breath, and in whichspring and autumn meet in summer’s heart. Sugar-caneand oats, rice and potatoes, are extremes that cometogether under our skies. To raise cotton and send itsprincely revenues to the west for supplies, and to the eastfor usury, would be misfortune if soil and climate forcedsuch a curse. When both invite independence, to remainin slavery is a crime. To mortgage our farms in Bostonfor money with which to buy meat and bread from westerncribs and smokehouses, is folly unspeakable. I rejoicethat Texas is less open to this charge than others of thecotton States. With her eighty million bushels of grain,and her sixteen million head of stock, she is rapidly learningthat diversified agriculture means prosperity. Indeed,the South is rapidly learning the same lesson; and learnedthrough years of debt and dependence it will never be forgotten.The best thing Georgia has done in twenty yearswas to raise her oat crop in one season from two millionto nine million bushels, without losing a bale of her cotton.It is more for the South that she has increased hercrop of corn—that best of grains, of which Samuel J.Tilden said, “It will be the staple food of the future,and men will be stronger and better when that daycomes”—by forty-three million bushels this year, thanto have won a pivotal battle in the late war. In thisone item she keeps at home this year a sum equal to111the entire cotton crop of my State that last year wentto the west.

This is the road to prosperity. It is the way to manlinessand sturdiness of character. When every farmer inthe South shall eat bread from his own fields and meatfrom his own pastures, and disturbed by no creditor, andenslaved by no debt, shall sit amid his teeming gardens,and orchards, and vineyards, and dairies, and barnyards,pitching his crops in his own wisdom, and growing themin independence, making cotton his clean surplus, andselling it in his own time, and in his chosen market, andnot at a master’s bidding—getting his pay in cash and notin a receipted mortgage that discharges his debt, but doesnot restore his freedom—then shall be breaking the fullnessof our day. Great is King Cotton! But to lie at hisfeet while the usurer and grain-raiser bind us in subjection,is to invite the contempt of man and the reproach ofGod. But to stand up before him and amid the crops andsmokehouses wrest from him the magna charta of ourindependence, and to establish in his name an ample anddiversified agriculture, that shall honor him while it enrichesus—this is to carry us as far in the way of happinessand independence as the farmer, working in the fullestwisdom, and in the richest field, can carry any people.

But agriculture alone—no matter how rich or variedits resources—cannot establish or maintain a people’sprosperity. There is a lesson in this that Texas may learnwith profit. No commonwealth ever came to greatness byproducing raw material. Less can this be possible in thefuture than in the past. The Comstock lode is the richestspot on earth. And yet the miners, gasping for breathfifteen hundred feet below the earth’s surface, get bareexistence out of the splendor they dig from the earth. Itgoes to carry the commerce and uphold the industry ofdistant lands, of which the men who produce it get but dimreport. Hardly more is the South profited when, strippingthe harvest of her cotton fields, or striking her teeminghills, or leveling her superb forests, she sends the raw112material to augment the wealth and power of distant communities.

Texas produces a million and a half bales of cotton,which yield her $60,000,000. That cotton, woven intocommon goods, would add $75,000,000 to Texas’s incomefrom this crop, and employ 220,000 operatives, who wouldspend within her borders more than $30,000,000 in wages.Massachusetts manufactures 575,000 bales of cotton, forwhich she pays $31,000,000, and sells for $72,000,000,adding a value nearly equal to Texas’s gross revenue fromcotton, and yet Texas has a clean advantage for manufacturingthis cotton of one per cent a pound over Massachusetts.The little village of Grand Rapids began manufacturingfurniture simply because it was set in a timberdistrict. It is now a great city and sells $10,000,000 worthof furniture every year, in making which 125,000 men areemployed, and a population of 40,000 people supported.The best pine districts of the world are in eastern Texas.With less competition and wider markets than GrandRapids has, will she ship her forests at prices that barelysupport the wood-chopper and sawyer, to be returned inthe making of which great cities are built or maintained?When her farmers and herdsmen draw from her cities$126,000,000 as the price of their annual produce, shall thisenormous wealth be scattered through distant shops andfactories, leaving in the hands of Texas no more than thesustenance, support, and the narrow brokerage betweenbuyer and seller? As one-crop farming cannot supportthe country, neither can a resource of commercial exchangesupport a city. Texas wants immigrants—she needsthem—for if every human being in Texas were placed atequi-distant points through the State no Texan could hearthe sound of a human voice in your broad areas.

So how can you best attract immigration? By furnishingwork for the artisan and mechanic if you meet thedemand of your population for cheaper and essential manufacturedarticles. One-half million workers would beneeded for this, and with their families would double the113population of your State. In these mechanics and theirdependents farmers would find a market for not onlytheir staple crops but for the truck that they now despiseto raise or sell, but is at least the cream of the farm.Worcester county, Mass., takes $720,000,000 of our materialand turns out $87,000,000 of products every year,paying $20,000,000 in wages. The most prosperous sectionof this world is that known as the Middle States of thisrepublic. With agriculture and manufacturers in thebalance, and their shops and factories set amid rich andample acres, the result is such deep and diffuse prosperityas no other section can show. Suppose those States had amonopoly of cotton and coal so disposed as to commandthe world’s markets and the treasury of the world’s timber,I suppose the mind is staggered in contemplating the majestyof the wealth and power they would attain. What havethey that the South lacks?—and to her these things wereadded, and climate, ampler acres and rich soil. It isa curious fact that three-fourths of the population andmanufacturing wealth of this country is comprised ina narrow strip between Iowa and Massachusetts, comprisingless than one-sixth of our territory, and that thisstrip is distant from the source of raw materials on whichits growth is based, of hard climate and in a large part ofsterile soil. Much of this forced and unnatural developmentis due to slavery, which for a century fenced enterpriseand capital out of the South. Mr. Thomas, who in theLehigh Valley owned a furnace in 1845 that set that patternfor iron-making in America, had at that time bought minesand forest where Birmingham now stands. Slavery forcedhim away. He settled in Pennsylvania. I have wonderedwhat would have happened if that one man had opened hisiron mines in Alabama and set his furnaces there at thattime. I know what is going to happen since he hasbeen forced to come to Birmingham and put up twofurnaces nearly forty years after his survey.

Another cause that has prospered New England andthe Middle States while the South languished, is the114system of tariff taxes levied on the unmixed agriculture ofthese States for the protection of industries to our neighborsto the North, a system on which the Hon. Roger Q.Mills—that lion of the tribe of Judah—has at last laid hismighty paw and under the indignant touch of which it tremblesto its center. That system is to be revised and its dutiesreduced, as we all agree it should be, though I should sayin perfect frankness I do not agree with Mr. Mills in it. Letus hope this will be done with care and industrious patience.Whether it stands or falls, the South has entered theindustrial list to partake of his bounty if it stands, andif it falls to rely on the favor with which nature hasendowed her, and from this immutable advantage tofill her own markets and then have a talk with the worldat large.

With amazing rapidity she has moved away from theone-crop idea that was once her curse. In 1880 she wasesteemed prosperous. Since that time she has added 393,000,000bushels to her grain crops, and 182,000,000 head toher live stock. This has not lost one bale of her cottoncrop, which, on the contrary, has increased nearly200,000 bales. With equal swiftness has she moved awayfrom the folly of shipping out her ore at $2 a ton andbuying it back in implements from $20 to $100 per ton; hercotton at 10 cents a pound and buying it back in cloth at20 to 80 cents per pound; her timber at $8 per thousandand buying it back in furniture at ten to twenty times asmuch. In the past eight years $250,000,000 have beeninvested in new shops and factories in her States; 225,000artisans are now working that eight years ago were idle orworked elsewhere, and these added $227,000,000 to thevalue of her raw material—more than half the value of hercotton. Add to this the value of her increased grain cropsand stock, and in the past eight years she has grown inher fields or created in her shops manufactures more thanthe value of her cotton crop. The incoming tide has begunto rise. Every train brings manufacturers from the Eastand West seeking to establish themselves or their sons near115the raw material and in this growing market. Let the fullnessof the tide roll in.

It will not exhaust our materials, nor shall we glut ourmarkets. When the growing demand of our southernmarket, feeding on its own growth, is met, we shall findnew markets for the South. Under our new conditionmany indirect laws of commerce shall be straightened.We buy from Brazil $50,000,000 worth of goods, and sellher $8,500,000. England buys only $29,000,000, and sellsher $35,000,000. Of $65,000,000 in cotton goods bought byCentral and South America, over $50,000,000 went to England.Of $331,000,000 sent abroad by the southern half ofour hemisphere, England secures over half, although webuy from that section nearly twice as much as England.Our neighbors to the south need nearly every article wemake; we need nearly everything they produce. Lessthan 2,500 miles of road must be built to bind by rail thetwo American continents. When this is done, and evenbefore, we shall find exhaustless markets to the South.Texas shall command, as she stands in the van of this newmovement, its richest rewards.

The South, under the rapid diversification of crops anddiversification of industries, is thrilling with new life. Asthis new prosperity comes to us, it will bring no sweeterthought to me, and to you, my countrymen, I am sure, thanthat it adds not only to the comfort and happiness of ourneighbors, but that it makes broader the glory and deeperthe majesty, and more enduring the strength, of the Unionwhich reigns supreme in our hearts. In this republic ofours is lodged the hope of free government on earth. HereGod has rested the ark of his covenant with the sons ofmen. Let us—once estranged and thereby closer bound,—letus soar above all provincial pride and find our deeperinspirations in gathering the fullest sheaves into the harvestand standing the staunchest and most devoted of itssons as it lights the path and makes clear the way throughwhich all the people of this earth shall come in God’sappointed time.

116A few words for the young men of Texas. I am gladthat I can speak to them at all. Men, especially youngmen, look back for their inspiration to what is best in theirtraditions. Thermopylæ cast Spartan sentiments in heroicmould and sustained Spartan arms for more than a century.Thermopylæ had survivors to tell the story of itsdefeat. The Alamo had none. Though voiceless it shallspeak from its dumb walls. Liberty cried out to Texas, asGod called from the clouds unto Moses. Bowie and Fanning,though dead still live. Their voices rang above thedin of Goliad and the glory of San Jacinto, and theymarched with the Texas veterans who rejoiced at the birthof Texas independence. It is the spirit of the Alamo thatmoved above the Texas soldiers as they charged like demigodsthrough a thousand battle-fields, and it is the spiritof the Alamo that whispers from their graves held in everyState of the Union, ennobling their dust, their soil, thatwas crimsoned with their blood.

In this spirit of this inspiration and in the thrill of theamazing growth that surrounds you, my young friends, itwill be strange if the young men of Texas do not carry thelone star into the heart of the struggle. The South needsher sons to-day more than when she summoned them to theforum to maintain her political supremacy, more thanwhen the bugle called them to the field to defend issuesput to the arbitrament of the sword. Her old body isinstinct with appeal calling on us to come and give herfuller independence than she has ever sought in field orforum. It is ours to show that as she prospered withslaves she shall prosper still more with freemen; ours tosee that from the lists she entered in poverty she shallemerge in prosperity; ours to carry the transcending traditionsof the old South from which none of us can in honoror in reverence depart, unstained and unbroken into thenew. Shall we fail? Shall the blood of the old South—thebest strain that ever uplifted human endeavor—thatran like water at duty’s call and never stained where ittouched—shall this blood that pours into our veins through117a century luminous with achievement, for the first timefalter and be driven back from irresolute heat, when theold South, that left us a better heritage in manliness andcourage than in broad and rich acres, calls us to settleproblems? A soldier lay wounded on a hard-fought field,the roar of the battle had died away, and he rested in thedeadly stillness of its aftermath. Not a sound was heardas he lay there, sorely smitten and speechless, but the shriekof wounded and the sigh of the dying soul, as it escapedfrom the tumult of earth into the unspeakable peace of thestars. Off over the field flickered the lanterns of the surgeonswith the litter bearers, searching that they mighttake away those whose lives could be saved and leave insorrow those who were doomed to die with pleading eyesthrough the darkness. This poor soldier watched, unableto turn or speak as the lanterns grew near. At last thelight flashed in his face, and the surgeon, with kindly face,bent over him, hesitated a moment, shook his head, andwas gone, leaving the poor fellow alone with death. Hewatched in patient agony as they went on from one part ofthe field to another. As they came back the surgeon bentover him again. “I believe if this poor fellow lives to sundownto-morrow he will get well.” And again leaving him,not to death but with hope; all night long these words fellinto his heart as the dews fell from the stars upon his lips,“if he but lives till sundown, he will get well.” Heturned his weary head to the east and watched for thecoming sun. At last the stars went out, the east trembledwith radiance, and the sun, slowly lifting above the horizon,tinged his pallid face with flame. He watched itinch by inch as it climbed slowly up the heavens. Hethought of life, its hopes and ambitions, its sweetness andits raptures, and he fortified his soul against despair untilthe sun had reached high noon. It sloped down its slowdescent, and his life was ebbing away and his heart wasfaltering, and he needed stronger stimulants to make himstand the struggle until the end of the day had come. Hethought of his far-off home, the blessed house resting118in tranquil peace with the roses climbing to its door, andthe trees whispering to its windows, and dozing in thesunshine, the orchard and the little brook running like asilver thread through the forest.

“If I live till sundown I will see it again. I will walkdown the shady lane: I will open the battered gate, andthe mocking-bird shall call to me from the orchard, and Iwill drink again at the old mossy spring.”

And he thought of the wife who had come from theneighboring farmhouse and put her hand shyly in his, andbrought sweetness to his life and light to his home.

“If I live till sundown I shall look once more into herdeep and loving eyes and press her brown head once moreto my aching breast.”

And he thought of the old father, patient in prayer,bending lower and lower every day under his load of sorrowand old age.

“If I but live till sundown I shall see him again andwind my strong arm about his feeble body, and his handsshall rest upon my head while the unspeakable healing ofhis blessing falls into my heart.”

And he thought of the little children that clambered onhis knees and tangled their little hands into his heart-strings,making to him such music as the world shall notequal or heaven surpass.

“If I live till sundown they shall again find my parchedlips with their warm mouths, and their little fingers shallrun once more over my face.”

And he then thought of his old mother, who gatheredthese children about her and breathed her old heart afreshin their brightness and attuned her old lips anew to theirprattle, that she might live till her big boy came home.

“If I live till sundown I will see her again, and I willrest my head at my old place on her knees, and weep awayall memory of this desolate night.” And the Son of God,who had died for men, bending from the stars, put thehand that had been nailed to the cross on ebbing life andheld on the staunch until the sun went down and the stars119came out, and shone down in the brave man’s heart andblurred in his glistening eyes, and the lanterns of the surgeonscame and he was taken from death to life.

The world is a battle-field strewn with the wrecks ofgovernment and institutions, of theories and of faiths thathave gone down in the ravage of years. On this field liesthe South, sown with her problems. Upon the field swingsthe lanterns of God. Amid the carnage walks the GreatPhysician. Over the South he bends. “If ye but liveuntil to-morrow’s sundown ye shall endure, my countrymen.”Let us for her sake turn our faces to the east andwatch as the soldier watched for the coming sun. Let usstaunch her wounds and hold steadfast. The sun mountsthe skies. As it descends to us, minister to her and standconstant at her side for the sake of our children, and ofgenerations unborn that shall suffer if she fails. And whenthe sun has gone down and the day of her probation hasended, and the stars have rallied her heart, the lanternsshall be swung over the field and the Great Physician shalllead her up, from trouble into content, from suffering intopeace, from death to life. Let every man here pledge himselfin this high and ardent hour, as I pledge myself andthe boy that shall follow me; every man himself and hisson, hand to hand and heart to heart, that in death andearnest loyalty, in patient painstaking and care, he shallwatch her interest, advance her fortune, defend her fameand guard her honor as long as life shall last. Every manin the sound of my voice, under the deeper consecration heoffers to the Union, will consecrate himself to the South.Have no ambition but to be first at her feet and last at herservice. No hope but, after a long life of devotion, to sinkto sleep in her bosom, and as a little child sleeps at hismother’s breast and rests untroubled in the light of hersmile.

With such consecrated service, what could we notaccomplish; what riches we should gather for her; whatglory and prosperity we should render to the Union; whatblessings we should gather unto the universal harvest of120humanity. As I think of it, a vision of surpassing beautyunfolds to my eyes. I see a South, the home of fiftymillions of people, who rise up every day to call fromblessed cities, vast hives of industry and of thrift; hercountry-sides the treasures from which their resources aredrawn; her streams vocal with whirring spindles; hervalleys tranquil in the white and gold of the harvest; hermountains showering down the music of bells, as her slow-movingflocks and herds go forth from their folds; herrulers honest and her people loving, and her homes happyand their hearthstones bright, and their waters still, andtheir pastures green, and her conscience clear; her wealthdiffused and poor-houses empty, her churches earnest andall creeds lost in the gospel. Peace and sobriety walkinghand in hand through her borders; honor in her homes;uprightness in her midst; plenty in her fields; straightand simple faith in the hearts of her sons and daughters;her two races walking together in peace and contentment;sunshine everywhere and all the time, and night falling onher generally as from the wings of the unseen dove.

All this, my country, and more can we do for you. AsI look the vision grows, the splendor deepens, the horizonfalls back, the skies open their everlasting gates, and theglory of the Almighty God streams through as He looksdown on His people who have given themselves unto Himand leads them from one triumph to another until theyhave reached a glory unspeaking, and the whirling stars,as in their courses through Arcturus they run to the milkyway, shall not look down on a better people or happierland.

IN November, 1887, at the Augusta Exposition, Mr.Grady delivered the following Address:

“When my eyes for the last time behold the sun in the heavens,may they rest upon the glorious ensign of this republic, still full highadvanced, its arms and trophies streaming in original lustre, not a starobscured or a stripe effaced, but everywhere blazing in characters ofliving light all over its ample folds as they wave over land and sea, andin every wind under heaven, that sentiment dear to every Americanheart, liberty and union now and forever, one and inseparable!”

These words of Daniel Webster, whose brain was thetemple of wisdom and whose soul the temple of liberty,inspire my heart as I speak to you to-day.

Ladies and gentlemen: This day is auspicious. Setapart by governor and president for universal thanksgiving,our grateful hearts confirm the consecration. Thoughwe have not been permitted to parade our democraticroosters in jubilant print, we may now lead them fromtheir innocuous desuetude, and making them the basis ofthis day’s feast, gather about them a company that in cordialgrace shall be excelled by none—not even that whichinvests the republican turkey, whose steaming thighs shallbe slipped to-day in Indianapolis, and attacking them withan appetite that comes from abounding health, consignthem to that digestion that waits on a conscience void ofoffense.

We give thanks to-day that the Lord God Almighty,having led us from desolation into plenty, from povertyinto substance, from passion into reason, and from estrangement122into love—having brought the harvests fromthe ashes, and raised us homes from our ruins, and touchedour scarred land all over with beauty and with peace—permitsus to assemble here to-day and rejoice amid thegarnered heaps of our treasure. Your visitors give thanksbecause, coming to a city that from deep disaster has risenwith energy and courage unequaled, and witnessing an expositionthat in the sweep of its mighty arms and thesplendor of its gathered riches surpasses all we have attempted,they find all sense of rivalry blotted out inwondering admiration, and from hearts that know notenvy or criticism, bid you God-speed to even higherachievement, and to full and swift harvesting of theprosperity to gain which you have builded so bravelyand so wisely.

I am thankful, if you will pardon this personal digression,because I now meet face to face, and can render serviceto a people whose generous words on a late occasiontouched my heart more deeply than I shall attempt hereto express. I simply say to you now, and I would thatmy voice could reach every man in Georgia to whom I amin like indebted, that your kindness left no room for resentmentor regret; but a heart filled with gratitude andlove steadier in its resolution to deserve the approval youso unstintingly gave, and more deeply consecrated to theservice of the people, that in giving me their love havegiven all that I have dared to hope for, and more than Ihad dared to ask. I know not what the future may holdfor the life that recent events have jostled from its accustomedpath. It would be affectation to say that I am careless—for,in touching it with your loving confidence, youhave kindled inspirations that cherished without guile,may be confessed in frankness. But if it be given to manto read the human heart, and plumb the quicksands ofhuman ambition, I know that I speak the truth when Isay that if ever I hold in my grasp any honor, in the winningor wearing of which my State is disadvantaged, andmy hand refuses to surrender it, I pray God that in remembrance123of this hour He will strike it from me forever;and if my ambitious heart rebels, that He will lead it, eventhrough sorrow and humiliation, to know that unworthylaurels will fade on the brow, and that no honor can ennoble,no triumph advance, and no victory satisfy that isnot won and worn in the weal of the people and the prosperityof the State.

It gives us pleasure to meet to-day our neighbors fromCarolina, and by the banks of this river, more bond thanboundary, give them cordial welcome to Georgia. Thepeople of these States, sir, are ancient and honorablefriends. When the infant colony that settled Georgialanded from its long voyage it was the hands of Caroliniansthat helped them ashore, and Carolina’s hospitalitythat gave them food and shelter. A banquet was served atBeaufort, the details of which proved our ancestors to havebeen doughty trenchermen, and at which we are not surprisedto learn a goodly quantity of most excellent winewas served, nor to learn—for scribes extenuated then asnow—that, though the affair was conducted in the mostagreeable manner, no one became intoxicated. When theGeorgians took up their march to Savannah they carriedwith them herds from the Carolinians’ folds, and food fromtheir granaries, and an offer from Mr. Whitaker—blessedbe his memory!—of a silver spoon for the first male childborn on Georgia soil, the first instance, I believe, of abounty offered or protection guaranteed to an infant industryon this continent. When they settled, it was Carolinagentlemen with their servants that builded the huts andsheltered them, and Carolina captains with their picketmen that guarded them from the Indians. As from yourslender and pitiful store you gave then bountifully to us,we invite you to-day to share with us our plenty andrejoice with us that what you planted in neighborly kindnesshath grown into such greatness.

I am stirred with the profoundest emotion when Ireflect upon what the peoples of these two States haveendured together. Shoulder to shoulder they have fought124through two revolutions. Side by side they have fallenon the field of battle, and, brothers even in death, haverested in common graves. Hand clasped in hand, they enjoyedvictory together, and together reaped in honor anddignity the fruits of their triumph. Heart locked inheart, they have stood undaunted in the desolation of defeatand, fortified by unfailing comradeship, have wroughtgladness and peace from the tumult and bitterness of despair.Of them it may be truly said, they have known norivalry save that emulation which inspires each, and embittersneither. If we match your Calhoun, one of thattrinity that hath most been and shall not be equaled inpolitical record, with our Stephens, who was as acute in expounding,and as devoted in defending the constitution ashe; your Hayne, who maintained himself valiantly againstthe great mastodon in American politics, with our Hill(would that he might be given back to us to-day), who tookthe ablest debater of the age by the throat and shook himuntil his eager tongue was stilled and the lips that hadslandered the South were livid in shame and confusion; ifa*gainst McDuffie, eloquent and immortal tribune, we putour Toombs, the Mirabeau of his day, surpassing theFrenchman in eloquence, and stainless of his crimes; ifa*gainst Legare, both scholar and statesman, we put ourWilde, not surpassed as either; if we proffer Lanier,Barick and Harris, when the praises of Sims, and Hayne,and Timrod are sung, it is only because we rejoice in thestrength of each which has honored both, and glorified ourgreat republic. Let the glory of our past history incite usto the future; let the trials we have endured nerve us fortrials yet to come, and let Georgia and Carolina, that inprosperity united, in adversity have not been divided,strike hands here to-day in a new compact that shall holdthem bound together in comradeship and love as long asthe Savannah, laying its lips on the cheeks of either, runsdown to the sea.

The South is now confronted by two dangers.

First, that by remaining solid it will force a permanent125sectional alignment, under which being in minority it hasnothing to gain, and everything to lose.

Second, that by dividing it will debauch its politicalsystem, destroy the defenses of its social integrity, andput the balance of power in the hands of an ignorant anddangerous class.

Let us discuss these dangers for a moment.

As to the first. I do not doubt that every day the Southremains solid, the drift toward a solid North is deepening.The South is solid now in a sense not dreamed of in ante-bellumdays. Then we divided on every question save one,that of preserving equal representation in the Senate.Clay championed the protective tariff. Jackson flew atCalhoun’s throat when Carolina threatened to nullify.Polk, of Tennessee, was made president over Clay, of Kentucky.In 1852, Pierce received the vote of twenty-sevenStates out of thirty-one, though this period marked theheight of slavery disturbance. The South was solidthen on one thing alone. On all other questions nationalsuffrage knew no sectional lines. To-day the Southis a mass of States merged into one; every issue fusedin the ardor of one great question, and our 153 electoralvotes hurled as a rifle-ball into the electoral college.The tendency of this must be to solidify the North. Indeed,this is already being done. Seymour and Blair, in1868, on a platform declaring the amendments null andvoid, were beaten in the North by Grant, the hero of thewar, by less than 100,000 votes. Mr. Harrison, twentyyears later, beat Cleveland with a flawless record and acareful platform, over 450,000 votes in the northern States.The solid South invites the solid North. From this statusthe South has little to hope. The North is already in themajority. More than five million immigrants have pouredinto her States in the past ten years, and will be declared inthe next census. Four new States will give her eight newsenators and twelve electoral votes. In the South but oneState has kept pace with the West—and that one, Texas,has largely gained at the expense of the Atlantic States.126The South had thirty-eight per cent. of the electoral votein 1880. It is doubtful if she will have over twenty-five percent. in 1890. To remain solid, therefore, is to incur thedanger of being placed in perpetual minority, and practicallyshut out from participation in the government, into whichGeorgia and Massachusetts came as equals—that was fashionedin their common wisdom, defended in their commonblood, and bought of their common treasure.

But what of the other danger? Can we risk that toavoid the first? I am sure we cannot. The very worstthing that could happen to the South is to have her whitevote divided into factions, and each faction bidding for thenegro who holds the balance of power. What is this negrovote? In every southern State it is considerable, and Ifear it is increasing. It is alien, being separated by racialdifferences that are deep and permanent. It is ignorant—easilydeluded or betrayed. It is impulsive—lashed by aword into violence. It is purchasable, having the incentiveof poverty and cupidity, and the restraint of neither pridenor conviction. It can never be merged through logical ororderly currents into either of two parties, if two shouldpresent themselves. We cannot be rid of it. There it is,a vast mass of impulsive, ignorant and purchasable votes.With no factions between which to swing it has no play ordislocation; but thrown from one faction to another it isthe loosed cannon on the storm-tossed ship. There is nocommunity that would deliberately tempt this danger; nosocial or political fabric that could stand its strain. TheTweed ring, backed by a similar and less irresponsible followingthan a shrewd clique could rally and control inevery southern State, and daring less of plunder and insolencethan that following would sanction or support,blotted out party lines in New York, and made its intelligenceand integrity as solid as the South ever was. Partylines were promptly recast because New York had to dealwith the vicious, who once punished may be trusted tosulk in quiet while their wounds heal. We deal with theignorant, that scourged from power to-day, may be deluded127to-morrow into assaulting the very position from whichthey have been lashed. Never did robbers find followersmore to their mind than the emancipated slaves of reconstructiondays. Ignorant and confiding, they could be committedto any excess, led to any outrage. Deep as was thedegradation to which these sovereign States were carried,and heavy as is the burden they left on this impoverishedpeople, it was only when the white race, rallying from thegraves of its dead and the ashes of its homes, closed itsdecimated ranks, and fronting federal bayonets, and defyingfederal power, stood like a stone wall before the uttermosttemples of its liberty and credit, and the hideousdrama closed, that the miserable assault was checked.

Shall those ranks be broken while the danger stillthreatens?

Let the whites divide, what happens? Here is thisdangerous and alien influence that holds the balance ofpower. It cannot be won by argument, for it is withoutinformation, understanding or traditions—hence withoutconvictions. It must be bought by race privileges grantedas such, or by money paid outright. Let us follow this inits twofold aspect. One faction gives the negro certainprivileges and wins. The other offers more. The first bidsunder, and so the sickening work goes on until the barriersthat now protect the social integrity and peace of both racesare swept away. The negro gains nothing, for he securesthese spoils and privileges not by deserving them, or qualifyinghimself for them, but as the plunder of an irritatingstruggle in which he loses that largeness of sympathyand tolerance that is at last essential to his well-being andadvancement. The other aspect is as bad. One side putsup five thousand dollars for the purchase of the negro voteand wins. The other, declining at first to corrupt the suffrage,but realizing at last that the administration on whichhis life and property depends is at stake, doubles this, andso the debauching deepens until at last such enormoussums are spent that they must be recouped from the publictreasuries. Good men disgusted go to the rear. The shrewd128and unscrupulous are put to the front, and the negro, carryingwith him the balance of power, falls at last into thegrasp of the faction which is most cunning and conscienceless.National parties, finding here their cheapest marketand widest field, will pour millions into the South, addingto the corruption funds of municipal and State factionsuntil the ballot-box will be hopelessly debauched, all theapproaches thereto corrupt, and all the results therefromtainted.

I understand perfectly that this is not the largest viewof this question to take. The larger interests of this sectionand of the Union do not rest here. I deplore this fact.I would that the South, fettered by no circ*mstances andembarrassed by no problem, could take her place by theside of her sister States, making alliance as her interest orpatriotism suggested.

Let me say here that I yield to no man in my love forthis Union. I was taught from my cradle to love it, andmy father, loving it to the last, nevertheless gave his lifefor Georgia when she asked it at his hands. Loving theUnion as he did, yet would I do unto Georgia even ashe did. I said once in New York, and I repeat it here,honoring his memory as I do nothing on this earth, I stillthank God that the American conflict was adjudged byhigher wisdom than his or mine, that the honest purposesof the South were crossed, her brave armies beaten, andthe American Union saved from the storm of war. I lovethis Union because I am an American citizen. I love it becauseit stands in the light while other nations are gropingin the dark. I love it because here, in this republic of ahom*ogeneous people, must be worked out the great problemsthat perplex the world and established the axiomsthat must uplift and regenerate humanity. I love it becauseit is my country, and my State stood by when its flagwas once unfurled, and uplifted her stainless sword, andpledged “her life, her property and her sacred honor,”and when the last star glittered from the silken folds, andwith her precious blood wrote her loyalty in its crimson129bars. I love it, because I know that its flag, fluttering fromthe misty heights of the future, followed by a devoted peopleonce estranged and thereby closer bound, shall blaze outthe way, and make clear the path up which all the nationsof the earth shall come in God’s appointed time.

I know the ideal status is that every State should votewithout regard to sectional lines. The reconciliation of thepeople will never be complete until Iowa and Georgia,Texas and Massachusetts may stand side by side withoutsurprise. I would to God that status could be reached! Ifany man can define a path on which the whites of theSouth, though divided, can walk in honor and peace, Ishall take that path, though I walk down it alone—for atthe end of that path, and nowhere else, lies the full emancipationof my section and the full restoration of this Union.

But it cannot be. When the negro was enfranchised,the South was condemned to solidity as surely as self-preservationis the first law of nature. A State hereor there may drift away, but it will come back assuredly—andcome through such travail, and bearing suchburden, as neither war nor pestilence can bring. Thisproblem is not of our seeking. It was thrust upon us notin the orderly unfolding of a preordained plan, but in hotimpulse and passion, against the judgment of the worldand the lessons of history, and to the peril of populargovernment, which rests at last on a pure and unsulliedsuffrage as a building rests on its cornerstone. If it beurged that it was the inexorable result of our course in1860, we reply that we took that course in deliberation,maintained it in sincerity, sealed it with the blood of ourbest and bravest—and we accept without complaint, andabide in dignity, its direct and ultimate results, and shallhold it to be, in spite of defeat, forever honorable andsacred. This much I add. No king that ever sat on athrone, though backed by autocratic power, would havedared to subject his kingdom to the strain, and his peopleto the burden that the North put on the prostrate, impoverished,and helpless South when it enfranchised the body130of our late slaves. We would not undo this if we could.We know that this step, though taken in haste, shall neverbe retraced. Posterity will judge of the wisdom andpatriotism in which it was ordered, and the order andequity in which it was worked out.

To that judgment we appeal with confidence. Fromthat judgment Mr. Blaine has already appealed by shrewdlyurging in his written history, that the North did not intendto enfranchise the negro, but was forced to do it by thestubborn attitude of the South. Be that as it may, it isour problem now, and with resolute hands and unfailinghearts we must carry it to the end. It dominates, and willdominate, all other issues with us. Political spoils arenot to be considered. The administration of our affairs issecondary, and patronage is less. Economic issues are asnaught, and even great moral reforms must wait on thesettlement of this question. To quarrel over other issueswhile this is impending is to imitate the mother quail thatthrums the leaves afar from her nest, or recall the finesseof the Spartan boy who smiled in his mother’s face whilehe hid the fox that was gnawing at his vitals.

What then is the duty of the South? Simply this.To maintain the political as well as the social integrity ofher white race, and to appeal to the world for patience andjustice. Let us show that it is not sectional prejudice, buta sectional problem that keeps us compacted; that it isnot the hope of dominion or power, but an abiding necessity—notspoils or patronage, but plain self-preservationthat holds the white race together in the South. Let usmake this so plain that a community anywhere, searching itsown heart, would say: “The necessity that binds our brothersin the South would bind us as closely were the necessityhere.” Let us invite immigrants and meet them withsuch cordial welcome that they will abide with us in brotherhood,and so enlarge the body of intelligence and integrity,that divided it may carry the burden of ignorancewithout danger. Let us be loyal to the Union, and notonly loyal but loving. Let the republic know that in131peace it hath nowhere better citizens, nor in war braversoldiers, than in these States. Though set apart by thisproblem which God permits to rest upon us, and whichtherefore is right, let us garner our sheaves gladly into theharvest of the Union, and find joy in our work and progress,because it makes broader the glory and deeper themajesty of this republic that is cemented with our blood.Let us love the flag that waved over Marion and Jasper,that waves over us, and which when we are gathered to ourfathers shall be a guarantee of liberty and prosperity toour children, and our children’s children, and know thatwhat we do in honor shall deepen, and what we do in dishonorshall dim, the luster of its fixed and glittering stars.

As for the negro, let us impress upon him what healready knows, that his best friends are the people amongwhom he lives, whose interests are one with his, andwhose prosperity depends on his perfect contentment.Let us give him his uttermost rights, and measure out justiceto him in that fullness the strong should always giveto the weak. Let us educate him that he may be a better,a broader, and more enlightened man. Let us lead him insteadfast ways of citizenship, that he may not longer bethe sport of the thoughtless, and the prey of the unscrupulous.Let us inspire him to follow the example of theworthy and upright of his race, who may be found in everycommunity, and who increase steadily in numbers and influence.Let us strike hands with him as friends—and asin slavery we led him to heights which his race in Africahad never reached, so in freedom let us lead him to a prosperityof which his friends in the North have not dreamed.Let us make him know that he, depending more thanany other on the protection and bounty of government,shall find in alliance with the best elements of the whitesthe pledge of safe and impartial administration. And letus remember this—that whatever wrong we put on himshall return to punish us. Whatever we take from him inviolence, that is unworthy and shall not endure. What westeal from him in fraud, that is worse. But what we win132from him in sympathy and affection, what we gain in hisconfiding alliance and confirm in his awakening judgment,that is precious and shall endure—and out of it shallcome healing and peace.

What is the attitude of the North on this issue? Twopropositions appear to be universally declared by theRepublicans. First, that the negro vote of the South issuppressed by violence, or miscounted by fraud. Second,that it shall be freely cast and fairly counted. WhileRepublicans agree on these declarations, there are thosewho hold them sincerely, but would be glad to see the firstdisapproved, and the second thereby wiped out—andthose who hold them in malignity, and who will maintainthe first that they may justify the storm that lies hid inthe second.

Let us send to-day a few words to the fair-minded Republicansof the North. Here is a fundamental assertion—thenegroes of the South can never be kept in antagonismwith their white neighbors—for the intimacy and friendlinessof the relation forbids. This friendliness, the mostimportant factor of the problem—the saving factor now asalways—the North has never, and it appears will never,take account of. It explains that otherwise inexplicablething—the fidelity and loyalty of the negro during the warto the women and children left in his care. Had UncleTom’s Cabin portrayed the habit rather than the exceptionof slavery, the return of the Confederate armies couldnot have stayed the horrors of arson and murder their departurewould have invited. Instead of that, witness themiracle of the slave in loyalty closing the fetters about hisown limbs—maintaining the families of those who foughtagainst his freedom—and at night on the far-off battle-fieldsearching among the carnage for his young master,that he might lift the dying head to his humble breast andwith rough hands wipe the blood away, and bend his tenderear to catch the last words for the old ones at home,wrestling meanwhile in agony and love, that in vicarioussacrifice he would have laid down his life in his master’s133stead. This friendliness, thank God, has survived thelapse of years, the interruption of factions, and the violenceof campaigns, in which the bayonet fortified, and thedrum-beat inspired. Though unsuspected in slavery, itexplains the miracle of ’64—though not yet confessed, itmust explain the miracle of 1888.

Can a Northern man dealing with casual servants,querulous, sensitive, and lodged for a day in a sphere theyresent, understand the close relations of the races of theSouth? Can he comprehend the open-hearted, sympatheticnegro, contented in his place, full of gossip and comradeship,the companion of the hunt, the frolic, the furrow,and the home, standing in kindly dependence that is thehabit of his blood, and lifting not his eyes beyond the narrowhorizon that shuts him in with his neighbors? Thisrelation may be interrupted, but permanent estrangementcan never come between these two races. It is upon thisthat the South depends. By fair dealing and by sympathyto deepen this friendship and add thereto the moral effectof the better elements compacted, with the wealth andintelligence and influence lodged therein—it is this uponwhich the South has relied for years, and upon which shewill rest in future.

Against this no outside power can prevail. That therehas been violence is admitted. There has also been brutalityin the North. But I do not believe there was a negrovoter in the South kept away from the polls by fear of violencein the late election. I believe there were fewer votesmiscounted in the South than in the North. Even in thoselocalities where violence once occurred, wiser counsels haveprevailed, and reliance is placed on those higher and legitimateand inexorable methods by which the superior racealways dominates, and by which intelligence and integrityalways resist the domination of ignorance and corruption.If the honest Republicans of the North permit a scheme offederal supervision, based on the assumption of intimidatedvoters and a false count, they will blunder from thestart, for, beginning in error, they will end in worse. This134whole matter should be left now with the people, withwhom it must be left at last—that people most interestedin its honorable settlement. External pressure but irritatesand delays. The South has voluntarily laid downthe certainty of power which dividing her States wouldbring, that she might solve this problem in the deliberationand the calmness it demands. She turns away from spoils,knowing that to struggle for them would bring irritationto endanger greater things. She postpones reforms andsurrenders economic convictions, that unembarrassed shemay deal with this great issue. And she pledges her sacredhonor—by all that she has won, and all that she has suffered—thatshe will settle this problem in such full andexact justice as the finite mind can measure, or finite handsadminister. On this pledge she asks the patience andwaiting judgment of the world, and especially of the people—herbrothers and her kindred—that in passion forcedthis problem into the keeping of her helpless hands.

Shall she have it?

Let us see. Was there a pistol shot through the Southon election day? Was there a riot? Was there anythingto equal the disturbance and arrests in President Harrison’sown city? If so, diligent search has not found it.Where then was the vote suppressed through violence?In the 12,000 election precincts of the South, where wasa ballot-box rifled, or a registry list altered? ThirteenRepublican congressmen were elected, many of them bymajorities so slender that the vote of a single precinctwould have changed the result. In West Virginia, withits wild and lawless districts, the governorship hangs onless than three hundred votes, and this very day the governorof Tennessee and his cabinet are passing on a legalquestion in the casting of twenty-three votes that elects ordefeats a congressman. In West Virginia and in Tennesseethe law will be applied as impartially and the official voteheld as sacred as in New York or Ohio. Where, then, isthe wholesale fraud of which complaint is made?

In the face of this showing, let me quote from an editorial135in the Chicago Tribune, one of the most powerfuland a usually conservative journal, charging that the negrovote is suppressed and miscounted. It says:

“The trouble is, the blacks will not fight for themselves. Whitemen, or Indians, situated as the negroes, would have made the riversof the South run red with blood before they would submit to the usurpationsand wrongs with which the black passively endure. Oppressedby generations of slavery, the negroes are non-combatants. They willnot shoot and burn for their rights.”

Mark the unspeakable infamy of this suggestion. The“trouble” is that the negroes will not rise and shoot andburn. Not the “mercy” is that they do not—but the“mercy” is that they will not massacre and begin thestrife that would repeat the horrors of Hayti in thevarious States of this Republic. Burn and shoot for what?That they may vote in Georgia, where in front of me inthe line stood a negro, whose place was as sacred as mine,and whose vote as safely counted? That they may vote inthe thirteen districts in which they have elected their congressmen?—inthe 320 counties in which they have electedtheir representatives, and in old Virginia, where they camewithin 1400 votes of carrying the State?

As the 60,000 Virginia negroes who did vote did so inadmitted peace and safety, where was the violence thatprevented the needed 1400 from leaving their fields,coming to the ballot-box, and giving the State to theRepublicans? And yet slavery itself, in which the sellingof a child from its mother’s arms and a wife from herhusband was permitted, never brought into reputable printso villainous a suggestion as this, leveled by a knave at apolitical condition which he views from afar, and which itis proved does not exist. To pass by the man who wrotethese words, how shall we judge the temper of a communityin which they are applauded? Are these menblood of our blood that they permit such things to gounchallenged? Better that they had refused us parole atAppomattox and had confiscated the ruins of our homes,than twenty years later to bring us under the dominion of136such passion as this. Hear another witness, GeneralSherman, not in hot speech but in cold print:

“The negro must be allowed to vote, and his vote must be counted,otherwise, so sure as there is a God in heaven, you will have anotherwar, more cruel than the last, when the torch and dagger will takethe place of the muskets of well-ordered battalions. Should the negrostrike that blow, in seeming justice, there will be millions to assistthem.”

And this is the greatest living soldier of the Unionarmy. He covered the desolation he sowed in city andcountry through these States with the maxim that“cruelty in war, is mercy”—and no one lifted the cloak.But when he insults the men he conquered, and endangersthe renewing growth of the country he wasted, with thisunmanly threat, he puts a stain on his name the maximsof philosophy and fable from Socrates all the way cannotcover, and the glory of Marlborough, were it added to hisown, could not efface.

No answer can be made in passion to these men. If thetemper of the North is expressed in their words, the Southcan do nothing but rally her sons for their last defense andawait in silence what the future may bring forth. Thismuch should be said: The negro can never be establishedin dominion over the white race of the South. The swordof Grant and the bayonets of his army could not maintainthem in the supremacy they had won from the helplessnessof our people. No sword drawn by mortal man, noarmy martialed by mortal hand, can replace them in thesupremacy from which they were cast down by our people,for the Lord God Almighty decreed otherwise when hecreated these races, and the flaming sword of his archangelwill enforce his decree and work out his plan ofunchangeable wisdom.

I do not believe the people of the North will be committedto a violent policy. I believe in the good faithand fair play of the American people. These noisy insectsof the hour will perish with the heat that warmed theminto life, and when their pestilent cries have ceased, the137great clock of the Republic will strike the slow-moving andtranquil hours, and the watchmen from the streets will cry,“All’s well—all’s well!” I thank God that through themists of passion that already cloud our northern horizoncomes the clear, strong voice of President Harrison declaringthat the South shall not suffer, but shall prosper, inhis election. Happy will it be for us—happy for thiscountry, and happy for his name and fame, if he has thecourage to withstand the demagogues who clamor for ourcrucifixion, and the wisdom to establish a path in whichvoters of all parties and of all sections may walk togetherin peace and prosperity.

Should the President yield to the demands of the pestilent,the country will appeal from his decision. In Indianaand New York more than two million votes were cast. Byless than 16,000 majority these States were given to Harrison,and his election thereby secured. A change of lessthan ten thousand in this enormous poll would restore theDemocratic party to power. If President Harrison permitsthis unrighteous crusade on the peace of the South, andthe prosperity of the people, this change and more will bemade, and the Democratic party restored to power.

In her industrial growth the South is daily making newfriends. Every dollar of Northern money invested in theSouth gives us a new friend in that section. Every settleramong us raises up new witnesses to our fairness, sincerityand loyalty. We shall secure from the North more friendlinessand sympathy, more champions and friends, throughthe influence of our industrial growth, than through politicalaspiration or achievement. Few men can comprehend—wouldthat I had the time to dwell on this point to-day—howvast has been the development, how swift the growth,and how deep and enduring is laid the basis of even greatergrowth in the future. Companies of immigrants sent downfrom the sturdy settlers of the North will solve theSouthern problem, and bring this section into full andharmonious relations with the North quicker than all thebattalions that could be armed and martialed could do.

138The tide of immigration is already springing this way.Let us encourage it. But let us see that these immigrantscome in well-ordered procession, and not pell-mell. Thatthey come as friends and neighbors—to mingle their bloodwith ours, to build their homes on our fields, to plant theirChristian faith on these red hills, and not seeking to plantstrange heresies of government and faith, but, honoring ourconstitution and reverencing our God, to confirm, and notestrange, the simple faith in which we have been reared,and which we should transmit unsullied to our children.

It may be that the last hope of saving the old-fashionedon this continent will be lodged in the South. Strangeadmixtures have brought strange results in the North.The anarchist and atheist walk abroad in the cities, and,defying government, deny God. Culture has refined foritself new and strange religions from the strong old creeds.

The old-time South is fading from observance, and themellow church-bells that called the people to the templesof God are being tabooed and silenced. Let us, my countrymen,here to-day—yet a hom*ogeneous and God-fearingpeople—let us highly resolve that we will carry untaintedthe straight and simple faith—that we will give ourselvesto the saving of the old-fashioned, that we will wear in ourhearts the prayers we learned at our mother’s knee, andseek no better faith than that which fortified her lifethrough adversity, and led her serene and smiling throughthe valley of the shadow.

Let us keep sacred the Sabbath of God in its purity, andhave no city so great, or village so small, that every Sundaymorning shall not stream forth over towns and meadowsthe golden benediction of the bells, as they summonthe people to the churches of their fathers, and ring out inpraise of God and the power of His might. Though otherpeople are led into the bitterness of unbelief, or into thestagnation of apathy and neglect—let us keep these twoStates in the current of the sweet old-fashioned, that thesweet rushing waters may lap their sides, and everywherefrom their soil grow the tree, the leaf whereof shall not139fade and the fruit whereof shall not die, but the fruitwhereof shall be meat, and the leaf whereof shall be healing.

In working out our civil, political, and religious salvation,everything depends on the union of our people. Theman who seeks to divide them now in the hour of theirtrial, that man puts ambition before patriotism. A distinguishedgentleman said that “certain upstarts and speculatorswere seeking to create a new South to the derisionand disparagement of the old,” and rebukes them for sodoing. These are cruel and unjust words. It was BenHill—the music of whose voice hath not deepened, thoughnow attuned to the symphonies of the skies—who said:“There was a South of secession and slavery—that Southis dead; there is a South of union and freedom—that South,thank God, is living, growing, every hour.”

It was he who named the New South. One of the “upstarts”said in a speech in New York: “In answering thetoast to the New South, I accept that name in no disparagementto the Old South. Dear to me, sir, is the homeof my childhood and the traditions of my people, and notfor the glories of New England history from PlymouthRock all the way, would I surrender the least of these.Never shall I do, or say, aught to dim the luster of theglory of my ancestors, won in peace and war.”

Where is the young man in the South who has spokenone word in disparagement of our past, or has worn lightlythe sacred traditions of our fathers? The world has notequaled the unquestioning reverence and undying loyaltyof the young man of the South to the memory of ourfathers. History has not equaled the cheerfulness andheroism with which they bestirred themselves amid thepoverty that was their legacy, and holding the inspirationof their past to be better than rich acres and garneredwealth, went out to do their part in rebuilding the fallenfortunes of the South and restoring her fields to their pristinebeauty. Wherever they have driven—in marketplace,putting youth against experience, poverty againstcapital—in the shop earning in the light of their forges140and the sweat of their faces the bread and meat for thosedependent upon them—in the forum, eloquent by instinct,able though unlettered—on the farm, locking the sunshinein their harvests and spreading the showers on their fields—everywheremy heart has been with them, and I thank Godthat they are comrades and countrymen of mine. I havestood with them shoulder to shoulder as they met new conditionswithout surrendering old faiths—and I have beencontent to feel the grasp of their hands and the throb oftheir hearts, and hear the music of their quick step as theymarched unfearing into new and untried ways. If I shouldattempt to prostitute the generous enthusiasm of thesemy comrades to my own ambition, I should be unworthy.If any man enwrapping himself in the sacred memories ofthe Old South, should prostitute them to the hiding of hisweakness, or the strengthening of his failing fortunes, thatman would be unworthy. If any man for his own advantageshould seek to divide the old South from the new, orthe new from the old—to separate these that in love hathbeen joined together—to estrange the son from his father’sgrave and turn our children from the monuments of ourdead, to embitter the closing days of our veterans with suspicionof the sons who shall follow them—this man’s wordsare unworthy and are spoken to the injury of his people.

Some one has said in derision that the old men of theSouth, sitting down amid their ruins, reminded him “ofthe Spanish hidalgos sitting in the porches of the Alhambra,and looking out to sea for the return of the lostArmada.” There is pathos but no derision in this pictureto me. These men were our fathers. Their lives were stainless.Their hands were daintily cast, and the civilizationthey builded in tender and engaging grace hath not beenequaled. The scenes amid which they moved, as princesamong men, have vanished forever. A grosser and materialday has come, in which their gentle hands could garnerbut scantily, and their guileless hearts fend but feebly.Let them sit, therefore, in the dismantled porches of theirhomes, into which dishonor hath never entered, to which141discourtesy is a stranger—and gaze out to the sea, beyondthe horizon of which their armada has drifted forever.And though the sea shall not render back for them theArguses that went down in their ship, let us build for themin the land they love so well a stately and enduring temple—itspillars founded in justice, its arches springing tothe skies, its treasuries filled with substance; liberty walkingin its corridors; art adorning its walls; religion fillingits aisles with incense,—and here let them rest in honorablepeace and tranquillity until God shall call them henceto “a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.”

There are other things I wish to say to you to-day, mycountrymen, but my voice forbids. I thank you for yourcourteous and patient attention. And I pray to God—whohath led us through sorrow and travail—that on this dayof universal thanksgiving, when every Christian heart inthis audience is uplifted in praise, that He will open thegates of His glory and bend down above us in mercy andlove! And that these people who have given themselvesunto Him, and who wear His faith in their hearts, that Hewill lead them even as little children are led—that He willdeepen their wisdom with the ambition of His words—thatHe will turn them from error with the touch of Hisalmighty hand—that he will crown all their triumphs withthe light of His approving smile, and into the heart of theirtroubles, whether of people or state, that He will pour thehealing of His mercy and His grace.

ADDRESS delivered before the Societies of theUniversity of Virginia, June 25, 1889.

Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: In thankingyou for this cordial—this Virginia—welcome, let mesay that it satisfies my heart to be with you to-day. Thisis my alma mater. Kind, in the tolerant patience withwhich she winnowed the chaff of idle days and idler nightsthat she might find for me the grain of knowledge and oftruth, and in the charity with which she sealed in sorrowrather than in anger my brief but stormy career withinthese walls. Kinder yet, that her old heart has turnedlovingly after the lapse of twenty years to her scapegraceson in a distant State, and recalling him with this honorablecommission, has summoned him to her old place at herknees. Here at her feet, with the glory of her presencebreaking all about me, let me testify that the years havebut deepened my reverence and my love, and my heart hasowned the magical tenderness of the emotions first kindledamid these sacred scenes. That which was unworthy hasfaded—that which was good has abided. Faded the memoryof the tempestuous dyke and the riotous kalathump—dimmedthe memory of that society, now happily extinct,but then famous as “The Nippers from Peru”—forgotteneven the glad exultation of those days when the neighboringmountaineer in the pride of his breezy heights broughtdown the bandaged bear to give battle to the urban dog.Forgotten all these follies, and let us hope forgiven. But,143enduring in heart and in brain, the exhaustless splendorof those golden days—the deep and pure inspiration ofthese academic shades—the kindly admonition and wisdomof the masters—the generous ardor of our mimic contests—andthat loving comradeship that laughed at separationand has lived beyond the grave. Enduring and hallowed,blessed be God, the strange and wild ambitions that startledmy boyish heart as amid these dim corridors, oh! mymother, the stirring of unseen wings in thy mighty pastcaught my careless ear, and the dazzling ideals of thyfuture were revealed to my wondering sight.

Gentlemen of the literary societies—I have no studiedoration for you to-day. A life busy beyond its capacitieshas given scanty time for preparation. But from a lovingheart I shall speak to you this morning in comradely sympathyof that which concerns us nearly.

Will you allow me to say that the anxiety that alwayspossesses me when I address my young countrymen is to-dayquickened to the point of consecration. For the firsttime in man’s responsibility I speak in Virginia to Virginia.Beyond its ancient glories that made it matchlessamong States, its later martyrdom has made it the Meccaof my people. It was on these hills that our fathers gavenew and deeper meaning to heroism, and advanced theworld in honor! It is in these valleys that our dead liesleeping. Out there is Appomattox, where on every raggedgray cap the Lord God Almighty laid the sword of Hisimperishable knighthood. Beyond is Petersburg, wherehe whose name I bear, and who was prince to me amongmen, dropped his stainless sword and yielded up his stainlesslife. Dear to me, sir, are the people among whom myfather died—sacred to me, sir, the soil that drank hisprecious blood. From a heart stirred by these emotionsand sobered by these memories, let me speak to you to-day,my countrymen—and God give me wisdom to speak arightand the words wherewithal to challenge and hold yourattention.

We are standing in the daybreak of the second century144of this Republic. The fixed stars are fading from the sky,and we grope in uncertain light. Strange shapes havecome with the night. Established ways are lost—newroads perplex, and widening fields stretch beyond thesight. The unrest of dawn impels us to and fro—butDoubt stalks amid the confusion, and even on the beatenpaths the shifting crowds are halted, and from the shadowsthe sentries cry: “Who comes there?” In the obscurityof the morning tremendous forces are at work. Nothingis steadfast or approved. The miracles of the present beliethe simple truths of the past. The church is besieged fromwithout and betrayed from within. Behind the courtssmoulders the rioter’s torch and looms the gibbet of theanarchists. Government is the contention of partisansand the prey of spoilsmen. Trade is restless in the graspof monopoly, and commerce shackled with limitation. Thecities are swollen and the fields are stripped. Splendorstreams from the castle, and squalor crouches in the home.The universal brotherhood is dissolving, and the people arehuddling into classes. The hiss of the Nihilist disturbsthe covert, and the roar of the mob murmurs along thehighway. Amid it all beats the great American heartundismayed, and standing fast by the challenge of his conscience,the citizen of the Republic, tranquil and resolute,notes the drifting of the spectral currents, and calmlyawaits the full disclosures of the day.

Who shall be the heralds of this coming day? Whoshall thread the way of honor and safety through thesebesetting problems? Who shall rally the people to thedefense of their liberties and stir them until they shall cryaloud to be led against the enemies of the Republic? You,my countrymen, you! The university is the training campof the future. The scholar the champion of the comingyears. Napoleon over-ran Europe with drum-tap andbivouac—the next Napoleon shall form his battalions atthe tap of the schoolhouse bell and his captains shall comewith cap and gown. Waterloo was won at Oxford—Sedanat Berlin. So Germany plants her colleges in the shadow145of the French forts, and the professor smiles amid his studentsas he notes the sentinel stalking against the sky.The farmer has learned that brains mix better with his soilthan the waste of seabirds, and the professor walks by hisside as he spreads the showers in the verdure of his field,and locks the sunshine in the glory of his harvest. Abutton is pressed by a child’s finger and the work of amillion men is done. The hand is nothing—the braineverything. Physical prowess has had its day and the ageof reason has come. The lion-hearted Richard challengingSaladin to single combat is absurd, for even Gog andMagog shall wage the Armageddon from their closets andlook not upon the blood that runs to the bridle-bit. Scienceis everything! She butchers a hog in Chicago, drawsBoston within three hours of New York, renews the famishedsoil, routs her viewless bondsmen from the electriccenter of the earth, and then turns to watch the new Icarusas mounting in his flight to the sun he darkens the burnishedceiling of the sky with the shadow of his wing.

Learning is supreme and you are its prophets. Herethe Olympic games of the Republic—and you its chosenathletes. It is yours then to grapple with these problems,to confront and master these dangers. Yours to decidewhether the tremendous forces of this Republic shall bekept in balance, or whether unbalanced they shall bringchaos; whether 60,000,000 men are capable of self-government,or whether liberty shall be lost to them who wouldgive their lives to maintain it. Your responsibility isappalling. You stand in the pass behind which the world’sliberties are guarded. This government carries the hopesof the human race. Blot out the beacon that lights theportals of this Republic and the world is adrift again.But save the Republic; establish the light of its beaconover the troubled waters, and one by one the nations of theearth shall drop anchor and be at rest in the harbor ofuniversal liberty. Let one who loves this Republic as heloves his life, and whose heart is thrilled with the majestyof its mission, speak to you now of the dangers that146threaten its peace and prosperity, and the means by whichthey may be honorably averted.

The unmistakable danger that threatens free governmentin America, is the increasing tendency to concentratein the Federal government powers and privileges thatshould be left with the States, and to create powers thatneither the State nor Federal government should have. Letit be understood at once that in discussing this question Iseek to revive no dead issue. We know precisely what wasput to the issue of the sword, and what was settled thereby.The right of a State to leave this Union was denied and thedenial made good forever. But the sovereignty of the Statesin the Union was never involved, and the Republic that survivedthe storm was, in the words of the Supreme Court,“an indissoluble Union of indestructible States.” Let usstand on this decree and turn our faces to the future!

It is not strange that there should be a tendency tocentralization in our government. This disposition was thelegacy of the war. Steam and electricity have emphasizedit by bringing the people closer together. The splendor ofa central government dazzles the unthinking—its opulencetempts the poor and the avaricious—its strength assures therich and the timid—its patronage incites the spoilsmen andits powers inflame the partisan.

And so we have paternalism run mad. The merchantasks the government to control the arteries of trade—themanufacturer asks that his product be protected—the richasks for an army, and the unfortunate for help—this manfor schools and that for subsidy. The partisan proclaims,amid the clamor, that the source of largess must be the seatof power, and demands that the ballot-boxes of the Statesbe hedged by Federal bayonets. The centrifugal force ofour system is weakened, the centripetal force is increased,and the revolving spheres are veering inward from theirorbits. There are strong men who rejoice in this unbalancingand deliberately contend that the center is the truerepository of power and source of privilege—men who, werethey charged with the solar system, would shred the planets147into the sun, and, exulting in the sudden splendor, littlereck that they had kindled the conflagration that presagesuniversal nights! Thus the States are dwarfed and thenation magnified—and to govern a people, who can bestgovern themselves, the central authority is made strongerand more splendid!

Concurrent with this political drift is another movement,less formal perhaps, but not less dangerous—the consolidationof capital. I hesitate to discuss this phase ofthe subject, for of all men I despise most cordially thedemagogue who panders to the prejudice of the poor byabuse of the rich. But no man can note the encroachmentin this country of what may be called “the money power”on the rights of the individual, without feeling that thetime is approaching when the issue between plutocracyand the people will be forced to trial. The world has notseen, nor has the mind of man conceived of such miraculouswealth-gathering as are every-day tales to us. Aladdin’slamp is dimmed, and Monte Cristo becomes commonplacewhen compared to our magicians of finance andtrade. The seeds of a luxury that even now surpasses thatof Rome or Corinth, and has only yet put forth its firstflowers, are sown in this simple republic. What shall thefull fruitage be? I do not denounce the newly rich. Formost part their money came under forms of law. Theirresponsibilities of sudden wealth is in many casessteadied by that resolute good sense which seems to be anAmerican heritage, and under-run by careless prodigality orby constant charity. Our great wealth has brought us profitand splendor. But the status itself is a menace. A homethat costs $3,000,000 and a breakfast that cost $5000 aredisquieting facts to the millions who live in a hut and dineon a crust. The fact that a man ten years from povertyhas an income of $20,000,000—and his two associates nearlyas much—from the control and arbitrary pricing of anarticle of universal use, falls strangely on the ears of thosewho hear it, as they sit empty-handed, while children cryfor bread. The tendency deepens the dangers suggested148by the status. What is to be the end of this swift pilingup of wealth? Twenty years ago but few cities had theirmillionaires. To-day almost every town has its dozen.Twenty men can be named who can each buy a sovereignState at its tax-book value. The youngest nation, America,is vastly the richest, and in twenty years, in spite ofwar, has nearly trebled her wealth. Millions are made onthe turn of a trade, and the toppling mass grows and grows,while in its shadow starvation and despair stalk amongthe people, and swarm with increasing legions against thecitadels of human life.

But the abuse of this amazing power of consolidatedwealth is its bitterest result and its pressing danger.When the agent of a dozen men, who have captured andcontrol an article of prime necessity, meets the representativesof a million farmers from whom they have forced$3,000,000 the year before, with no more moral right thanis behind the highwayman who halts the traveler at hispistol’s point, and insolently gives them the measure ofthis year’s rapacity, and tells them—men who live in thesweat of their brows, and stand between God and Nature—thatthey must submit to the infamy because they are helpless,then the first fruits of this system are gathered andhave turned to ashes on the lips. When a dozen men gettogether in the morning and fix the price of a dozenarticles of common use—with no standard but their arbitrarywill, and no limit but their greed or daring—andthen notify the sovereign people of this free Republic howmuch, in the mercy of their masters, they shall pay for thenecessaries of life—then the point of intolerable shame hasbeen reached.

We have read of the robber barons of the Rhine whofrom their castles sent a shot across the bow of every passingcraft, and descending as hawks from the crags, toreand robbed and plundered the voyagers until their greedwas glutted, or the strength of their victims spent. Shallthis shame of Europe against which the world revolted,shall it be repeated in this free country? And yet, when a149syndicate or a trust can arbitrarily add twenty-five percent. to the cost of a single article of common use, andsafely gather forced tribute from the people, until from itssurplus it could buy every castle on the Rhine, or requiteevery baron’s debauchery from its kitchen account—whereis the difference—save that the castle is changed to abroker’s office, and the picturesque river to the teemingstreets and the broad fields of this government “of thepeople, by the people, and for the people”? I do notoverstate the case. Economists have held that wheat,grown everywhere, could never be cornered by capital.And yet one man in Chicago tied the wheat crop in hishandkerchief, and held it until a sewing-woman in my city,working for ninety cents a week, had to pay him twentycents tax on the sack of flour she bore home in her famishedhands. Three men held the cotton crop until the Englishspindles were stopped and the lights went out in 3,000,000English homes. Last summer one man cornered pork untilhe had levied a tax of $3 per barrel on every consumer,and pocketed a profit of millions. The Czar of Russiawould not have dared to do these things. And yet theyare no secrets in this free government of ours! They areknown of all men, and, my countrymen, no argument canfollow them, and no plea excuse them, when they fall onthe men who toiling, yet suffer—who hunger at their work—andwho cannot find food for their wives with which tofeed the infants that hang famishing at their breasts. Mr.Jefferson foresaw this danger and he sought to avert it.When Virginia ceded the vast Northwest to the government—beforethe Constitution was written—Mr. Jeffersonin the second clause of the articles of cession prohibitedforever the right of primogeniture. Virginia then noblysaid, and Georgia in the cession of her territory repeated:“In granting this domain to the government and dedicatingit to freedom, we prescribe that there shall be no classesin the family—no child set up at the expense of the others,no feudal estates established—but what a man hath shallbe divided equally among his children.”

150We see this feudal tendency, swept away by Mr. Jefferson,revived by the conditions of our time, aided by thegovernment with its grant of enormous powers and itsamazing class legislation. It has given the corporationmore power than Mr. Jefferson stripped from the individual,and has set up a creature without soul or conscienceor limit of human life to establish an oligarchy,unrelieved by human charity and unsteadied by humanresponsibility. The syndicate, the trust, the corporation—theseare the eldest sons of the Republic for whom thefeudal right of primogeniture is revived, and who inheritit* estate to the impoverishment of their brothers. Let itbe noted that the alliance between those who would centralizethe government and the consolidated money poweris not only close but essential. The one is the necessity ofthe other. Establish the money power and there is universalclamor for strong government. The weak willdemand it for protection against the people restless underoppression—the patriotic for protection against the plutocracythat scourges and robs—the corrupt hoping tobuy of one central body distant from local influences whatthey could not buy from the legislatures of the Statessitting at their homes—the oligarchs will demand it—asthe privileged few have always demanded it—for the protectionof their privileges and the perpetuity of theirbounty. Thus, hand in hand, will walk—as they havealways walked—the federalist and the capitalist, the centralistand the monopolist—the strong government protectingthe money power, and the money power thepolitical standing army of the government. Hand in hand,compact and organized, one creating the necessity, theother meeting it; consolidated wealth and centralizinggovernment; stripping the many of their rights andaggrandizing the few; distrusting the people but in touchwith the plutocrats; striking down local self-governmentand dwarfing the citizens—and at last confronting the peoplein the market, in the courts, at the ballot box—everywhere—withthe infamous challenge: “What are you going151to do about it?” And so the government protects and thebarons oppress, and the people suffer and grow strong.And when the battle for liberty is joined—the centralistand the plutocrat, entrenched behind the deepening powersof the government, and the countless ramparts ofmoney bags, oppose to the vague but earnest onset of thepeople the power of the trained phalanx and the consciencelessstrength of the mercenary.

Against this tendency who shall protest? Those whobelieve that a central government means a strong government,and a strong government means repression—thosewho believe that this vast Republic, with its diverse interestsand its local needs, can better be governed by libertyand enlightenment diffused among the people than bypowers and privileges congested at the center—those whobelieve that the States should do nothing that the peoplecan do themselves and the government nothing that theStates and the people can do—those who believe that thewealth of the central government is a crime rather than avirtue, and that every dollar not needed for its economicaladministration should be left with the people of theStates—those who believe that the hearthstone of the homeis the true altar of liberty and the enlightened conscienceof the citizen the best guarantee of government! Those ofyou who note the farmer sending his sons to the city thatthey may escape the unequal burdens under which hehas labored, thus diminishing the rural population whoseleisure, integrity and deliberation have corrected the passionand impulse and corruption of the cities—who notethat while the rich are growing richer, and the poor poorer,we are lessening that great middle class that, ever since itmet the returning crusaders in England with the demandthat the hut of the humble should be as sacred as the castleof the great, has been the bulwark and glory of everyEnglish-speaking community—who know that this Republic,which we shall live to see with 150,000,000 people,stretching from ocean to ocean, and almost from the arcticto the torrid zone, cannot be governed by any laws that a152central despotism could devise or controlled by any armiesit could marshal—you who know these things protest withall the earnestness of your souls against the policy and themethods that make them possible.

What is the remedy? To exalt the hearthstone—tostrengthen the home—to build up the individual—to magnifyand defend the principle of local self-government.Not in deprecation of the Federal government, but to itsglory—not to weaken the Republic, but to strengthen it—notto check the rich blood that flows to its heart, butto send it full and wholesome from healthy membersrather than from withered and diseased extremities.

The man who kindles the fire on the hearthstone of anhonest and righteous home burns the best incense to liberty.He does not love mankind less who loves his neighbor most.George Eliot has said:

“A human life should be well rooted in some spot of a native land where itmay get the love of tender kinship for the face of the earth, for the sounds andaccents that haunt it, a spot where the definiteness of early memories may beinwrought with affection, and spread, not by sentimental effort and reflection,but as a sweet habit of the blest.”

The germ of the best patriotism is in the love that a manhas for the home he inhabits, for the soil he tills, for the treesthat gives him shade, and the hills that stand in his pathway.I teach my son to love Georgia—to love the soil thathe stands on—the body of my old mother—the mountainsthat are her springing breasts, the broad acres that holdher substance, the dimpling valleys in which her beautyrests, the forests that sing her songs of lullaby and of praise,and the brooks that run with her rippling laughter. Thelove of home—deep rooted and abiding—that blurs theeyes of the dying soldier with the vision of an old homesteadamid green fields and clustering trees—that followsthe busy man through the clamoring world, persistentthough put aside, and at last draws his tired feet from thehighway and leads him through shady lanes and well-rememberedpaths until, amid the scenes of his boyhood,he gathers up the broken threads of his life and owns the153soil his conqueror—this—this lodged in the heart of thecitizen is the saving principle of our government. We notethe barracks of our standing army with its rolling drumand its fluttering flag as points of strength and protection.But the citizen standing in the doorway of his home—contentedon his threshold—his family gathered about hishearthstone—while the evening of a well-spent day closesin scenes and sounds that are dearest—he shall save theRepublic when the drum tap is futile and the barracks areexhausted.

This love shall not be pent up or provincial. The homeshould be consecrated to humanity, and from its roof-treeshould fly the flag of the Republic. Every simple fruitgathered there—every sacrifice endured, and every victorywon, should bring better joy and inspiration in the knowledgethat it will deepen the glory of our Republic andwiden the harvest of humanity! Be not like the peasantof France who hates the Paris he cannot comprehend—butemulate the example of your fathers in the South, who,holding to the sovereignty of the States, yet gave to theRepublic its chief glory of statesmanship, and under Jacksonat New Orleans, and Taylor and Scott in Mexico, savedit twice from the storm of war. Inherit without fear orshame the principle of local self-government by which yourfathers stood! For though entangled with an institutionforeign to this soil, which, thank God, not planted by theirhands, is now swept away, and with a theory bravelydefended but now happily adjusted—that principle holdsthe imperishable truth that shall yet save this Republic.The integrity of the State, its rights and its powers—these,maintained with firmness, but in loyalty—these shall yet,by lodging the option of local affairs in each locality, meetthe needs of this vast and complex government, and checkthe headlong rush to that despotism that reason could notdefend, nor the armies of the Czar maintain, among a freeand enlightened people. This issue is squarely made! Itis centralized government and the money power on theone hand—against the integrity of the States and rights of154the people on the other. At all hazard, stand with thepeople and the threatened States. The choice may not beeasily made. Wise men may hesitate and patriotic mendivide. The culture, the strength, the mightiness of therich and strong government—these will tempt and dazzle.But be not misled. Beneath this splendor is the cankerof a disturbed and oppressed people. It was from thegolden age of Augustus that the Roman empire staggeredto its fall. The integrity of the States and the rights ofthe people! Stand there—there is safety—there is thebroad and enduring brotherhood—there, less of glory, butmore of honor! Put patriotism above partisanship—andwherever the principle that protects the States against thecentralists, and the people against the plutocrats, may lead,follow without fear or faltering—for there the way of dutyand of wisdom lies!

Exalt the citizen. As the State is the unit of governmenthe is the unit of the State. Teach him that his homeis his castle, and his sovereignty rests beneath his hat.Make himself self-respecting, self-reliant and responsible.Let him lean on the State for nothing that his own armcan do, and on the government for nothing that his Statecan do. Let him cultivate independence to the point ofsacrifice, and learn that humble things with unbartered libertyare better than splendors bought with its price. Lethim neither surrender his individuality to government, normerge it with the mob. Let him stand upright and fearless—afreeman born of freemen—sturdy in his ownstrength—dowering his family in the sweat of his brow—lovingto his State—loyal to his Republic—earnest in hisallegiance wherever it rests, but building his altar in themidst of his household gods and shrining in his own heartthe uttermost temple of its liberty.

Go out, determined to magnify the community in whichyour lot is cast. Cultivate its small economies. Stand byits young industries. Commercial dependence is a chainthat galls every day. A factory built at home, a bookpublished, a shoe or a book made, these are steps in that155diffusion of thought and interest that is needed. Teachyour neighbors to withdraw from the vassalage of distantcapitalists, and pay, under any sacrifice, the mortgage onthe home or the land. By simple and prudent lives staywithin your own resources, and establish the freedom ofyour community. Make every village and cross-roads asfar as may be sovereign to its own wants. Learn thatthriving country-sides with room for limbs, conscience, andliberty are better than great cities with congested wealthand population. Preserve the straight and simple hom*ogeneityof our people. Welcome emigrants, but see thatthey come as friends and neighbors, to mingle their bloodwith ours, to build their houses in our fields, and to planttheir Christian faith on our hills, and honoring our constitutionand reverencing our God, to confirm the simplebeliefs in which we have been reared, and which we shouldtransmit unsullied to our children. Stand by these old-fashionedbeliefs. Science hath revealed no better faiththan that you learned at your mother’s knee—nor hasknowledge made a wiser and a better book than the wornold Bible that, thumbed by hands long since still, andblurred with the tears of eyes long since closed, held thesimple annals of your family and the heart and conscienceof your homes.

Honor and emulate the virtues and the faith of yourforefathers—who, learned, were never wise above a knowledgeof God and His gospel—who, great, were neverexalted above an humble trust in God and His mercy!

Let me sum up what I have sought to say in thishurried address. Your Republic—on the glory of whichdepends all that men hold dear—is menaced with greatdangers. Against these dangers defend her, as you woulddefend the most precious concerns of your own life.Against the dangers of centralizing all political powers,put the approved and imperishable principle of local self-government.Between the rich and the poor now driftinginto separate camps, build up the great middle class that,neither drunk with wealth, nor embittered by poverty,156shall lift up the suffering and control the strong. To thejangling of races and creeds that threaten the courts ofmen and the temples of God, oppose the home and the citizen—ahom*ogeneous and honest people—and the simplefaith that sustained your fathers and mothers in their stainlesslives and led them serene and smiling into the valleyof the shadow.

Let it be understood in my parting words to you that Iam no pessimist as to this Republic. I always bet on sunshinein America. I know that my country has reachedthe point of perilous greatness, and that strange forces notto be measured or comprehended are hurrying her toheights that dazzle and blind all mortal eyes—but I knowthat beyond the uttermost glory is enthroned the LordGod Almighty, and that when the hour of her trial hascome He will lift up His everlasting gates and bend downabove her in mercy and in love. For with her He hassurely lodged the ark of His covenant with the sons of men.Emerson wisely said, “Our whole history looks like thelast effort by Divine Providence in behalf of the humanrace.” And the Republic will endure. Centralism will bechecked, and liberty saved—plutocracy overthrown andequality restored. The struggle for human rights nevergoes backward among English-speaking peoples. Ourbrothers across the sea have fought from despotism to liberty,and in the wisdom of local self-government haveplanted colonies around the world. This very day Mr.Gladstone, the wisest man that has lived since your Jeffersondied—with the light of another world beating in hisface until he seems to have caught the wisdom of the Infiniteand towers half human and half divine from his eminence—thisman, turning away from the traditions of hislife, begs his countrymen to strip the crown of its lastusurped authority, and lodge it with the people, where itbelongs. The trend of the times is with us. The worldmoves steadily from gloom to brightness. And bendingdown humbly as Elisha did, and praying that my eyes shallbe made to see, I catch the vision of this Republic—its157mighty forces in balance, and its unspeakable glory fallingon all its children—chief among the federation of English-speakingpeople—plenty streaming from its borders, andlight from its mountain tops—working out its missionunder God’s approving eye, until the dark continents areopened—and the highways of earth established, and theshadows lifted—and the jargon of the nations stilled andthe perplexities of Babel straightened—and under onelanguage, one liberty, and one God, all the nations of theworld hearkening to the American drum-beat and girdingup their loins, shall march amid the breaking of themillennial dawn into the paths of righteousness and ofpeace!

MR. Grady’s Speech at Elberton, Georgia, in June, 1889.

Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen:—For thefirst time in my life I address an audience in the open air.And as I stand here in this beautiful morning, so shotthrough and through with sunshine that the very air is asmolten gold to the touch—under these trees in whosetrunks the rains and suns of years are compacted, and onwhose leaves God has laid His whispering music—herein His majestic temple, with the brightness of His smilebreaking all about us—standing above the soil instinctwith the touch of His life-giving hand, and full of Hispromise and His miracle—and looking up to the cloudsthrough which His thunders roll, and His lightnings cuttheir way, and beyond that to the dazzling glory of thesun, and yet beyond to the unspeakable splendor of theuniverse, flashing and paling until the separate stars arebut as mist in the skies—even to the uplifted jasper gatesthrough which His everlasting glory streams, my mindfalls back abashed, and I realize how paltry is humanspeech, and how idle are the thoughts of men!

Another thought oppresses me. In front of me sit severalthousand people. Over there, in smelling distance,where we can almost hear the lisping of the mop as itcaresses the barbecued lamb or the pottering of the skeweredpig as he leisurely turns from fat to crackling,159is being prepared a dinner that I verily believe coversmore provisions than were issued to all the soldiers ofLee’s army, God bless them, in their last campaign. AndI shudder when I think that I, a single, unarmed, defenselessman, is all that stands between this crowd and thatdinner. Here then, awed by God’s majesty, and menacedby man’s appetite, I am tempted to leave this platformand yield to the boyish impulses that always stir in myheart amid such scenes, and revert to the days of boyhoodwhen about the hills of Athens I chased the pacing coon,or twisted the unwary rabbit, or shot my ramrod at allmanner of birds and beasts—and at night went home tolook up into a pair of gentle eyes and take on my tiredface the benediction of a mother’s kiss and feel on myweary head a pair of loving hands, now wrinkled andtrembling, but, blessed be God, fairer to me yet than thehands of mortal women, and stronger yet to lead me thanthe hands of mortal man, as they laid a mother’s blessingthere, while bending at her knees I made my best confessionof faith and worshiped at the truest altar I have yetfound in this world. I had rather go out and lay down onthe ground and hug the grass to my breast and mind me ofthe time when I builded boyish ambitions on the woodedhills of Athens, than do aught else to-day. But I recall thestory of Uncle Remus, who when his favorite hero, BrerRabbit, was sorely pressed by that arch villain, Brer Fox,said:

“An’ Brer Rabbit den he climb’d a tree.” “But,” saidthe little boy, “Uncle Remus, a rabbit can’t climb a tree.”

“Doan you min’ dat, honey. Brer Fox pressed disrabbit so hard he des bleeged to clim’ a tree.”

I am pressed so hard to-day by your commands that Iam just “bleeged” to make a speech, and so I proceed. Iheartily invoke God’s guidance in what I say, that I shallutter no word to soil this temple of His, and no sentimentnot approved in His wisdom; and as for you, whenthe time comes—as it will come—when you prefer barbecuedshote to raw orator, and feel that you can be happier160at that table than in this forum, just say the word and Iwill be with you heart and soul!

I am tempted to yield to the gaiety of this scene, to theflaunting banners of the trees, the downpouring sunshine,the garnered plenty over there, this smiling and hospitablecrowd, and, throwing serious affairs aside, to speak to youto-day as the bird sings—without care and without thought.I should be false to myself and to you if I did, for thereare serious problems that beset our State and our countrythat no man, facing, as I do this morning, a great and intelligentaudience, can in honor or in courage disregard.I shall attempt to make no brilliant speech—but to counselwith you in plain and simple words, beseeching yourattention and your sympathy as to the dangers of thepresent hour, and our duties and our responsibilities.

At Saturday noon in any part of this county you maynote the farmer going from his field, eating his dinnerthoughtfully and then saddling his plow-horse, or startingafoot and making his way to a neighboring church or schoolhouse.There he finds from every farm, through everyfoot-path, his neighbors gathering to meet him. What isthe object of this meeting? It is not social, it is not frolic,it is not a pic-nic—the earnest, thoughtful faces, the seriousdebate and council, the closed doors and the secret sessionforbid this assumption. It is a meeting of men who feelthat in spite of themselves their affairs are going wrong—offree and equal citizens who feel that they carry unequalburdens—of toilers who feel that they reap not the justfruits of their toil—of men who feel that their labor enrichesothers while it leaves them poor, and that the sweatof their bodies, shed freely under God’s command, goes toclothe the idle and the avaricious in purple and fine linen.This is a meeting of protest, of resistance. Here the farmermeets to demand, and organize that he may enforcehis demand, that he shall stand equal with every otherclass of citizens—that laws discriminating against himshall be repealed—that the methods oppressing him shallbe modified or abolished—and that he shall be guaranteed161that neither government nor society shall abridge,by statute or custom, his just and honest proportion of thewealth he created, but that he shall be permitted to garnerin his barns, and enjoy by his hearthstone, the full andfair fruits of his labor. If this movement were confined toElbert, if this disturbing feeling of discontent were shutin the limits of your county lines, it would still demandthe attention of the thoughtful and patriotic. But, as itis in Elbert, so it is in every county in Georgia—as inGeorgia, so it is in every State in the South—as in theSouth, so in every agricultural State in the Union. Inevery rural neighborhood, from Ohio to Texas, from Michiganto Georgia, the farmers, riding thoughtful throughfield and meadow, seek ten thousand schoolhouses orchurches—the muster grounds of this new army—and there,recounting their wrongs and renewing their pledges, sendup from neighborhoods to county, from county to State,and State to Republic, the measure of their strength andthe unyielding quality of their determination. The agriculturalarmy of the Republic is in motion. The rallyingdrumbeat has rolled over field and meadow, and from wherethe wheat locks the sunshine in its bearded sheaf, and theclover carpets the earth, and the cotton whitens beneaththe stars, and the tobacco catches the quick aroma of therains—everywhere that patient man stands above the soil,or bends about the furrow, the farmers are ready in squadsand companies and battalions and legions to be led againstwhat they hold to be an oppression that honest men wouldnot deserve, and that brave men would not endure. Letus not fail to comprehend the magnitude and the meaningof this movement. It is no trifling cause that brings thefarmers into such determined and widespread organizationas this. It is not the skillful arts of the demagoguethat has brought nearly two million farmers into thisperfect and pledge-bound society—but it is a deep andabiding conviction that, in political and commercial economyof the day, he is put at a disadvantage that keeps himpoor while other classes grow rich, and that bars his way162to prosperity and independence. General Toombs oncesaid that the farmer, considered the most conservative typeof citizenship, is really the most revolutionary. That thefarmers of France, flocking to the towns and cities fromthe unequal burdens of their farms, brought about theFrench Revolution, and that about once in every centurythe French peasant raided the towns. Three times thefarmers of England have captured and held London. Itwas the farmers of Mecklenburg that made the first Americandeclaration, and Putnam left his plow standing in thefurrow as he hurried to lead the embattled farmers whofought at Concord and Lexington. I realize it is impossiblethat revolution should be the outcome of our industrialtroubles. The farmer of to-day does not consider thatremedy for his wrongs. I quote history to show that thefarmer, segregated and deliberate, does not move on slightprovocation, but organizes only under deep conviction, andthat when once organized and convinced, he is terribly inearnest, and is not going to rest until his wrongs arerighted.

Now, here we are confronted with the most thoroughand widespread agricultural movement of this or any otherday. It is the duty alike of farmers and those who standin other ranks, to get together and consult as to what isthe real status and what is the patriotic duty. Not insullenness, but in frankness. Not as opponents, but asfriends—not as enemies, but as brothers begotten of acommon mother, banded in common allegiance, and marchingto a common destiny. It will not do to say that thisorganization will pass away, for if the discontent on whichit is based survives it, it had better have lived and forcedits wrongs to final issue. There is no room for dividedhearts in this State, or in this Republic. If we shallrestore Georgia to her former greatness and prosperity—ifwe shall solve the problems that beset the South in honorand safety—if we shall save this Republic from the dangersthat threaten it—it will require the earnest and unitedeffort of every patriotic citizen, be he farmer, or merchant,163or lawyer, or manufacturer. Let us consider then the situation,and decide what is the duty that lies before us.

In discussing this matter briefly, I beg the ladies to giveme their attention. I have always believed that there arefew affairs of life in which woman should not have a part.Not obtrusive part—for that is unwomanly. The workfalling best to the hand of woman is such work as is doneby the dews of night—that ride not on the boasting wind,and shine not in the garish sun, but that come when thewind is stilled and the sun is gone, and night has wrappedthe earth in its sacred hush, and fall from the distillery ofthe stars upon the parched and waiting flowers, as a benedictionfrom God.

Let no one doubt the power of this work, though it lackpomp and circ*mstance. Is Bismarck the mightiest powerof this earth, who is attended by martial strains when hewalks abroad, and in whose path thrones are scattered astrophies? Why, the little housewife alone in her chimney-corner,musing in her happiness with no trophy in herpath save her husband’s loving heart, and no music onher ear save the chirping of the cricket beneath her hearthstone,is his superior. For, while he holds the purse-stringsof Germany, she holds the heart-strings of men.She who rocks the cradle rules the world. Give me thenyour attention, note the conflict that is gathering aboutus, and take your place with seeming modesty in the ranksof those who fight for right. It is not an abstract politicaltheory that is involved in the contest of which I speak.It is the integrity and independence of your home that isat stake. The battle is not pitched in a distant State.Your home is the battle-field, and by your hearthstonesyou shall fight for your household gods. With your husband’sarms so wound around you that you can feel hisanxious heart beating against your cheek—with your sons,sturdy and loving, holding your old hands in theirs—hereon the threshold of your house, under the trees that shelteredyour babyhood, with the graves of your dead in thatplain enclosure yonder—here men and women, heart to164heart, with not a man dismayed, not a woman idle—whilethe multiplied wolves of debt and mortgage, andtrust and monopoly, swarm from every thicket; here wemust fight the ultimate battle for the independence of ourpeople and the happiness of our homes.

Now let us look at the facts: First, the notable movementof the population in America is from the country tothe cities. In 1840—a generation ago, only one-twelfth ofthe American people lived in cities of more than 8000people. In 1850, one-eighth; in 1860, one-sixth; in 1870,one-fifth; in 1880, one-fourth. In the past half-centurythe population of cities has increased more than four timesas rapidly as that of the country. Mind you, when I saythat the city population has increased in one generationfrom 8 per cent. to 25 per cent. in population, I mean thepopulation of cities of more than 8000 people. There isnot such a city in this congressional district. It is the villageand town population, as well as that of the farms,that goes to swell so enormously the population of thegreat cities. Thus we see diminishing with amazing rapiditythat rural population that is the strength and the safetyof the people—slow to anger and thus a safeguard, but terriblein its wrath, and thus a tremendous corrective power.No greater calamity could befall any country than thesacrifice of its town and village and country life. I rejoicein Atlanta’s growth, and yet I wonder whether it is worthwhat it cost when I know that her population has beendrawn largely from rural Georgia, and that back of hergrandeur are thousands of deserted farms and dismantledhomes. As much as I love her—and she is all to me thathome can be to any man—if I had the disposal of 100,000immigrants at her gates to-morrow, 5000 should enterthere, 75,000 should be located in the shops and factoriesin Georgia towns and villages, and 20,000 sent to herfarms. It saddens me to see a bright young fellow cometo my office from village or country, and I shudder when Ithink for what a feverish and speculative and uncertainlife he has bartered his rural birthright, and surrendered165the deliberation and tranquillity of his life on the farm.It is just that deliberate life that this country needs, forthe fever of the cities is already affecting its system.Character, like corn, is dug from the soil. A contentedrural population is not only the measure of our strength,and an assurance of its peace when there should be peace,and a resource of courage when peace would be cowardice—butit is the nursery of the great leaders who have madethis country what it is. Washington was born and livedin the country. Jefferson was a farmer. Henry Clay rodehis horse to the mill in the slashes. Webster dreamedamid the solitude of Marshfield. Lincoln was a rail splitter.Our own Hill walked between the handles of theplow. Brown peddled barefoot the product of his patch.Stephens found immortality under the trees of his countryhome. Toombs and Cobb and Calhoun were country gentlemen,and afar from the cities’ maddening strife establishedthat greatness that is the heritage of their people.The cities produce very few leaders. Almost every man inour history formed his character in the leisure and deliberationof village or country life, and drew his strengthfrom the drugs of the earth even as a child draws hisfrom his mother’s breast. In the diminution of this ruralpopulation, virtuous and competent, patriotic and honest,living beneath its own roof-tree, building its altars by itsown hearthstone and shrining in its own heart its libertyand its conscience, there is abiding cause for regret. Inthe corresponding growth of our cities—already centerspots of danger, with their idle classes, their sharp richand poor, their corrupt politics, their consorted thieves,and their clubs and societies of anarchy and socialism—Isee a pressing and impending danger. Let it be noted thatthe professions are crowded, that middlemen are multipliedbeyond reason, that the factories can in six monthssupply the demand of twelve—that machinery is constantlytaking the place of men—that labor in everydepartment bids against itself until it is mercilessly in thehands of the employer, that the new-comers are largely recruits166of the idle and dangerous classes, and we can appreciatesomething of the danger that comes with this increasingmovement to strip the villages and the farms and sendan increasing volume into the already overcrowded cities.This is but one phase of that tendency to centralizationand congestion which is threatening the liberties of thispeople and the life of this Republic.

Now, let us go one step further. What is the mostnotable financial movement in America? It is the mortgagingof the farm lands of the country—the bringing ofthe farmer into bondage to the money-lender. In Illinoisthe farms are mortgaged for $200,000,000, in Iowa for$140,000,000, in Kansas for $160,000,000, and so on throughthe Northwest. In Georgia about $20,000,000 of foreigncapital holds in mortgage perhaps one-fourth of Georgia’sfarms, and the work is but started. Every town has itsloan agent—a dozen companies are quartered in Atlanta,and the work goes briskly on. A mortgage is the bulldogof obligations—a very mud-turtle for holding on. Itis the heaviest thing of its weight in the world. I had oneonce, and sometimes I used to feel, as it rested on my roof,deadening the rain that fell there, and absorbing the sunshine,that it would crush through the shingles and therafters and overwhelm me with its dull and persistentweight, and when at last I paid it off, I went out to lookat the shingles to see if it had not flopped back there of itsown accord. Think of it, Iowa strips from her farmers$14,000,000 of interest every year, and sends it to NewYork and Boston to be reloaned on farms in other States,and to support and establish the dominion of the money-lendersover the people. Georgia gathers from her languishingfields $2,000,000 of interest every year, and sendsit away forever. Could her farmers but keep it at home,one year’s interest would build factories to supply at costevery yard of bagging and every pound of guano thefarmers need, establish her exchanges and their warehouses,and have left more than a million dollars for theimprovement of their farms and their homes. And year167after year this drain not only continues, but deepens.What will be the end? Ireland has found it. Her peasantsin their mud cabins, sending every tithe of their earningsto deepen the purple luxury of London, where theirlandlords live, realize how poor is that country whose farmsare owned in mortgage or fee simple by those who livebeyond its borders. If every Irish landlord lived on hisestate, bought of his tenants the product of their farms,and invested his rents in Irish industries, this Irish questionthat is the shame of the world would be settled withoutlegislation or strife. Georgia can never go to Ireland’sdegradation, but every Georgia farm put under mortgageto a foreign capitalist is a step in that direction, and everydollar sent out as interest leaves the State that muchpoorer. I do not blame the farmers. It is a miracle thatout of their poverty they have done so well. I simply deplorethe result, and ask you to note in the millions ofacres that annually pass under mortgage to the money-lendersof the East, and in the thousands of independentcountry homes annually surrendered as hostages to theirhands, another evidence of that centralization that isdrinking up the life-blood of this broad Republic.

Let us go one step further. All protest as to our industrialcondition is met with the statement that America isstartling the world with its growth and progress. Is thisgrowth symmetrical—is this progress shared by everyclass? Let the tax-books of Georgia answer. This year,for the first time since 1860, our taxable wealth is equal tothat with which, excluding our slaves, we entered the civilwar—$368,000,000. There is cause for rejoicing in thiswonderful growth from the ashes and desolation of twentyyears ago, but the tax-books show that while the townsand cities are $60,000,000 richer than they were in 1860,the farmers are $50,000,000 poorer.

Who produced this wealth? In 1865, when our townsand cities were paralyzed, when not a mine or quarry wasopen, hardly a mill or a factory running; when we hadneither money or credit, it was the farmers’ cotton that168started the mills of industry and of trade. Since that desolateyear, when, urging his horse down the furrow, plowingthrough fields on which he had staggered amid the storm ofbattle, he began the rehabilitation of Georgia with no friendnear him save nature that smiled at his kindly touch, andGod that sent him the message of cheer through the rustlingleaves, he has dug from the soil of Georgia more than$1,000,000,000 worth of product. From this mighty resourcegreat cities have been builded and countless fortunesamassed—but amid all the splendor he has remainedthe hewer of wood and the drawer of water. He had madethe cities $60,000,000 richer than they were when the warbegan, and he finds himself, in the sweat of whose browthis miracle was wrought, $50,000,000 poorer than he thenwas. Perhaps not a farmer in this audience knew thisfact—but I doubt if there is one in the audience who hasnot felt in his daily life the disadvantage that in twentyshort years has brought about this stupendous difference.Let the figures speak for themselves. The farmer—thefirst figure to stumble amid the desolate dawn of our newlife and to salute the coming day—hurrying to marketwith the harvest of his hasty planting that Georgia mightonce more enter the lists of the living States and buy thewherewithal to still her wants and clothe her nakedness—alwaysapparently the master of the situation, has he notbeen really its slave, when he finds himself at the end oftwenty hard and faithful years $110,000,000 out of balance?

Now, let us review the situation a moment. I haveshown you, first, that the notable drift of population is tothe loss of village and country, and the undue and dangerousgrowth of the city; second, that the notable movementof finance is that which is bringing villages and countryunder mortgage to the city; and third, that they who handlethe products for sale profit more thereby than those whocreate them—the difference in one State in twenty yearsreaching the enormous sum of $110,000,000. Are thesehealthy tendencies? Do they not demand the earnest andthoughtful consideration of every patriotic citizen? The169problem of the day is to check these three currents thatare already pouring against the bulwarks of our peace andprosperity. To anchor the farmer to his land and the villagerto his home; to enable him to till the land underequal conditions and to hold that home in independence;to save with his hands the just proportion of his labor, thathe may sow in content and reap in justice,—this is whatwe need. The danger of the day is centralization, itssalvation diffusion. Cut that word deep in your heart.This Republic differs from Russia only because the powerscentralized there in one man are here diffused among thepeople. Western Ohio is happy and tranquil, whileChicago is feverish and dangerous, because the people diffusedin the towns and the villages of the one are centralizedand packed in the tenements of the other; but of allcentralization that menaces our peace and threatens ourliberties, is the consolidation of capital—and of all thediffusion that is needed in this Republic, congesting at somany points, is the leveling of our colossal fortunes andthe diffusion of our gathered wealth amid the great middleclasses of this people. As this question underruns thethree tendencies we have been discussing, let us considerit a moment.

Few men comprehend the growth of private fortunes inthis country, and the encroachments they have made onthe rest of the people. Take one instance: A man inChicago that had a private fortune secured control of allthe wheat in the country, and advanced the price untilflour went up three dollars a barrel. When he collected$4,000,000 of this forced tribute from the people, he openedhis corner and released the wheat, and the world, forgettingthe famishing children from whose hungry lips he had stolenthe crust, praised him as the king of finance and trade.Let us analyze this deal. The farmer who raised the wheatgot not one cent of the added profit. The mills that groundit not one cent. Every dollar went to swell the topplingfortunes of him who never sowed it to the ground, nor fedit to the thundering wheels, but who knew it only as the170chance instrument of his infamous scheme. Why, ourfathers declared war against England, their mother country,from whose womb they came, because she levied two centsa pound on our tea, and yet, without a murmur, we submitto ten times this tax placed on the bread of our mouths,and levied by a private citizen for no reason save his greed,and no right save his might. Were a man to enter anhumble home in England, bind the father helpless, stampout the fire on the hearthstone, empty the scanty larder,and leave the family for three weeks cold and hungry andhelpless, he would be dealt with by the law; and yet fourmen in New York cornered the world’s cotton crop andheld it until the English spindles were stopped and 14,000,000operatives sent idle and empty-handed to their homes,to divide their last crust with their children, and then sitdown and suffer until the greed of the speculators was filled.The sugar refineries combined their plants at a cost of$14,000,000, and so raised the price of sugar that theymade the first year $9,500,000 profit, and since then haveadvanced it rapidly until we sweeten our coffee absolutelyin their caprice. When the bagging mills were threatenedwith a reduced tariff, they made a trust and openly boastedthat they intended to make one season’s profits pay theentire cost of their mills—and these precious villains, whomthus far the lightnings have failed to blast, having carriedout their infamous boast, organized for a deeper steal thisseason. And so it goes. There is not a thing we eat ordrink, nor an article we must have for the comfort of ourhomes, that may not be thus seized and controlled andmade an instrument for the shameless plundering of thepeople. It is a shame—this people patient and cheerfulunder the rise or fall of prices that come with the failureof God’s season’s charge as its compensation—or under theadvance at the farm which enriches the farmer, or underthat competitive demand which bespeaks brisk prosperity—thispeople made the prey and the sport of plunderers wholevy tribute through a system that mocks at God’s recurringrains, knows not the farmer, and locks competition in171the grasp of monopoly. And the millions, thus wrungfrom the people, loaned back to them at usury, laying theblight of the mortgage on their homes, and the obligationof debt on their manhood. Talk about the timidity ofcapital. That is a forgotten phrase. In the power andirresponsibility of this sudden and enormous wealth is bredan insolence that knows no bounds. “The public bedamned!” was the sentiment of the plutocrats, speakingthrough the voice of Vanderbilt’s millions. In corneringthe product and levying the tribute—in locking up abundantsupply until the wheels of industry stop—in oppressingthrough trusts, and domineering in the strength ofcorporate power, the plutocrats do what no political partywould dare attempt and what no government on this earthwould enforce. The Czar of Russia would not dare holdup a product until the mill-wheels were idle, or lay an unusualtax on bread and meat to replenish his coffers, andyet these things our plutocrats, flagrant and irresponsible,do day after day until public indignation is indignant andshame is lost in wonder.

And when an outraged people turn to government forhelp what do they find? Their government in the hands ofa party that is in sympathy with their oppressors—thatwas returned to power with votes purchased with theirmoney—and whose confessed leaders declared that trustsare largely private concerns with which the governmenthad naught to do. Not only is the dominant party theapologist of the plutocrats and the beneficiary of theircrimes, but it is based on that principle of centralizationthrough which they came into life and on which alone theycan exist. It holds that sovereignty should be taken fromthe States and lodged with the nation—that political powersand privileges should be wrested from the people andguarded at the capital. It distrusts the people, and evennow demands that your ballot-boxes shall be hedged aboutby its bayonets. It declares that a strong government isbetter than a free government, and that national authority,backed by national armies and treasury, is a better guarantee172of peace and prosperity and liberty and enlightenmentdiffused among the people. To defend this policy,that cannot be maintained by argument or sustained bythe love or confidence of the people, it rallies under its flagthe mercenaries of the Republic, the syndicate, the trust,the monopolist, and the plutocrat, and strengthening themby grant and protection, rejoices as they grow richer andthe people grow poorer. Confident in the debauchingpower of money and the unscrupulous audacity of theircreatures, they catch the spirit of Vanderbilt’s defianceand call aloud from their ramparts, “the people bedamned!” I charge that this party has bought its way fortwenty years. Its nucleus was the passion that survivedthe war—and around this it has gathered the protectedmanufacturer, the pensioned soldier, the licensed monopolist,the privileged corporation, the unchallenged trust—allwhom power can daunt, or money can buy, and withthese in close and constant phalanx it holds the governmentagainst the people. Not a man in all its ranks thatis not influenced by prejudice or bought by privilege.

What a spectacle, my countrymen! This free Republicin the hands of a party that withdraws sovereignty fromthe people that its own authority may be made supreme—thatfans the smouldering embers of war, and loosingamong the people the dogs of privilege and monopoly tohunt, and harrow and rend, that its lines may be madestronger and its ramparts fortified. And now, it is committedto a crime that is without precedent or parallel inthe history of any people, and this crime it is obliged byits own necessity as well as by its pledge to commit as soonas it gets the full reins of power. This crime is hidden inthe bill known as the service pension bill, which pensionsevery man who enlisted for sixty days for the Union army.Let us examine this pension list. Twelve years ago itfooted $46,000,000. Last year it was $81,000,000. Thisyear it has already run to over $100,000,000. Of thisamount Georgia pays about $3,500,000 a year. Think ofit. The money that her people have paid, through indirect173taxation into the treasury, is given, let us say to Iowa, forthat State just equals Georgia in population. Every year$3,500,000 wrung from her pockets and sent into Iowa aspensions for her soldiers. Since 1865, out of her poverty,Georgia has paid $51,000,000 as pensions to Northern soldiers—one-sixthof the value of her whole property. Andnow it is proposed to enlarge the pension list until itincludes every man who enlisted for sixty days. They willnot fail. The last Congress passed a pension bill thatCommissioner Black—himself a gallant Union general—studieddeliberately, and then told the President that if hesigned it, it would raise the pension list to $200,000,000,and had it not been for the love of the people that ran inthe veins of Grover Cleveland and the courage of Democracywhich flamed in his heart, that bill would have beenlaw to-day. A worse bill will be offered. There is a surplusof $120,000,000 in the treasury. While that remainsit endangers the protective tariff, behind which the trainedcaptains of the Republican party muster their men. Butlet the pension list be lifted to $200,000,000 a year. Thenthe surplus is gone and a deficiency created, and the protectivetariff must be not only perpetuated but deepened,and the vigilance of the spies and collectors increased tomeet the demands of the government. And back of it allwill be mustered the army of a million and a half pensioners,drawing their booty from the Republican party andgiving it in turn their purchased allegiance and support.

My countrymen, a thousand times I have thought ofthat historic scene beneath the apple-tree at Appomattox,of Lee’s 8000 ragged, half-starved immortals, going hometo begin anew amid the ashes of their homes, and the gravesof their dead, the weary struggle for existence, and Grant’s68,000 splendid soldiers, well fed and equipped, going hometo riot amid the plenty of a grateful and prosperous people,and I have thought how hard it was that out of our povertywe should be taxed to pay their pension, and to divide withthis rich people the crust we scraped up from the ashes ofour homes. And I have thought when their maimed and174helpless soldiers were sheltered in superb homes, and lappedin luxury, while our poor cripples limped along the highwayor hid their shame in huts, or broke bitter bread in thecounty poor-house, how hard it was that, of all the millionswe send them annually, we can save not one dollar to go toour old heroes, who deserve so much and get so little. Andyet we made no complaint. We were willing that everyUnion soldier made helpless by the war should have hispension and his home, and thank God, without setting ourcrippled soldiers on the curbstone of distant Babylons tobeg, as blind Belisarius did, from the passing stranger. Wehave provided them a home in which they can rest in honorablepeace until God has called them hence to a home notmade with hands, eternal in the heavens. We have notcomplained that our earnings have gone to pension Unionsoldiers—the maimed soldiers of the Union armies. Butthe scheme to rob the people that every man who enlistedfor sixty days, or his widow, shall be supported at publicexpense is an outrage that must not be submitted to. Itis not patriotism—it is politics. It is not honesty—it isplunder. The South has played a patient and a waitinggame for twenty years, fearing to protest against what sheknew to be wrong in the fear that she would be misunderstood.I fear that she has gained little by this course savethe contempt of her enemies. The time has come when sheshould stand upright among the States of this Republic anddeclare her mind and stand by her convictions. She mustnot stand silent while this crowning outrage is perpetrated.It means that the Republican party will loot the treasuryto recruit its ranks—that $70,000,000 a year shall be takenfrom the South to enrich the North, thus building up onesection against another—that the protective tariff shall bedeepened, thus building one class against another, and thatthe party of trusts and monopoly shall be kept in power,the autonomy of the Republic lost, the government centralized,the oligarchs established, and justice to the peoplepostponed. But this party will not prevail, even thoughits pension bill should pass, and its pretorial God be established175in every Northern State. It was Louis XVI. whopeddled the taxing privileges to his friends, and when thepeople protested surrounded himself with an army of Swissmercenaries. His minister, Neckar, said to him: “Sire, Ibeseech you send away these Swiss and trust your people”;but the king, confident in his strength and phalanx, buckledit close about him and plundered the people until his headpaid the penalty of his crime. So this party, barteringprivileges and setting up classes, may feel secure as itcloses the ranks of its mercenaries, but some day the greatAmerican heart will burst with righteous wrath, and thevoice of the people, which is the voice of God, will challengethe traitors, and the great masses will rise in theirmight, and breaking down the defenses of the oligarchs,will hurl them from power and restore this Republic to theold moorings from which it had been swept by the storm.

The government can protect its citizens. It is of thepeople, and it shall not perish from the face of the earth.It can top off these colossal fortunes and, by an income tax,retard their growth. It can set a limit to personal andcorporate wealth. It can take trusts and syndicates by thethroat. It can shatter monopoly; it can equalize the burdenof taxation; it can distribute its privileges impartially;it can clothe with credit its land now discredited at itsbanks; it can lift the burdens from the farmer’s shoulders,give him equal strength to bear them—it can trust thepeople in whose name this Republic was founded; in whosecourage it was defended; in whose wisdom it has beenadministered, and whose stricken love and confidence it cannot survive.

But the government, no matter what it does, does not doall that is needed, nor the most; that is conceded, for alltrue reform must begin with the people at their homes. Afew Sundays ago I stood on a hill in Washington. Myheart thrilled as I looked on the towering marble of mycountry’s Capitol, and a mist gathered in my eyes as, standingthere, I thought of its tremendous significance and thepowers there assembled, and the responsibilities there176centered—its presidents, its congress, its courts, its gatheredtreasure, its army, its navy, and its 60,000,000 of citizens.It seemed to me the best and mightiest sight that the suncould find in its wheeling course—this majestic home ofa Republic that has taught the world its best lessons ofliberty—and I felt that if wisdom, and justice, and honorabided therein, the world would stand indebted to thistemple on which my eyes rested, and in which the ark ofmy covenant was lodged for its final uplifting and regeneration.

A few days later I visited a country home. A modest,quiet house sheltered by great trees and set in a circle offield and meadow, gracious with the promise of harvest—barnsand cribs well filled and the old smoke-house odorouswith treasure—the fragrance of pink and hollyhock minglingwith the aroma of garden and orchard, and resonantwith the hum of bees and poultry’s busy clucking—insidethe house, thrift, comfort and that cleanliness that is nextto godliness—the restful beds, the open fireplace, the booksand papers, and the old clock that had held its steadfastpace amid the frolic of weddings, that had welcomed insteady measure the newborn babes of the family, and keptcompany with the watchers of the sick bed, and had tickedthe solemn requiem of the dead; and the well-worn Biblethat, thumbed by fingers long since stilled, and blurredwith tears of eyes long since closed, held the simple annalsof the family, and the heart and conscience of the home.Outside stood the master, strong and wholesome andupright; wearing no man’s collar; with no mortgage onhis roof, and no lien on his ripening harvest; pitching hiscrops in his own wisdom, and selling them in his own timein his chosen market; master of his lands and master ofhimself. Near by stood his aged father, happy in theheart and home of his son. And as they started to thehouse the old man’s hands rested on the young man’sshoulder, touching it with the knighthood of the fourthcommandment, and laying there the unspeakable blessingof an honored and grateful father. As they drew near the177door the old mother appeared; the sunset falling on herface, softening its wrinkles and its tenderness, lighting upher patient eyes, and the rich music of her heart tremblingon her lips, as in simple phrase she welcomed her husbandand son to their home. Beyond was the good wife, true oftouch and tender, happy amid her household cares, cleanof heart and conscience, the helpmate and the buckler ofher husband. And the children, strong and sturdy, troopingdown the lane with the lowing herd, or weary of simplesport, seeking, as truant birds do, the quiet of the old homenest. And I saw the night descend on that home, fallinggently as from the wings of the unseen dove. And thestars swarmed in the bending skies—the trees thrilledwith the cricket’s cry—the restless bird called from theneighboring wood—and the father, a simple man of God,gathering the family about him, read from the Bible theold, old story of love and faith, and then went down inprayer, the baby hidden amid the folds of its mother’sdress, and closed the record of that simple day by callingdown the benediction of God on the family and the home!

And as I gazed the memory of the great Capitol fadedfrom my brain. Forgotten its treasure and its splendor.And I said, “Surely here—here in the homes of the peopleis lodged the ark of the covenant of my country. Here isits majesty and its strength. Here the beginning of itspower and the end of its responsibility.” The homes ofthe people; let us keep them pure and independent, andall will be well with the Republic. Here is the lesson ourfoes may learn—here is work the humblest and weakesthands may do. Let us in simple thrift and economy makeour homes independent. Let us in frugal industry makethem self-sustaining. In sacrifice and denial let us keepthem free from debt and obligation. Let us make themhomes of refinement in which we shall teach our daughtersthat modesty and patience and gentleness are the charmsof woman. Let us make them temples of liberty, and teachour sons that an honest conscience is every man’s firstpolitical law. That his sovereignty rests beneath his hat,178and that no splendor can rob him and no force justify thesurrender of the simplest right of a free and independentcitizen. And above all, let us honor God in our homes—anchorthem close in His love. Build His altars above ourhearthstones, uphold them in the set and simple faith ofour fathers and crown them with the Bible—that book ofbooks in which all the ways of life are made straight andthe mystery of death is made plain. The home is thesource of our national life. Back of the national Capitoland above it stands the home. Back of the President andabove him stands the citizen. What the home is, this andnothing else will the Capitol be. What the citizen wills,this and nothing else will the President be.

Now, my friends, I am no farmer. I have not soughtto teach you the details of your work, for I know little ofthem. I have not commended your splendid local advantages,for that I shall do elsewhere. I have not discussedthe differences between the farmer and other classes, for Ibelieve in essential things there is no difference betweenthem, and that minor differences should be sacrificed to thegreater interest that depends on a united people. I seeknot to divide our people, but to unite them. I shoulddespise myself if I pandered to the prejudice of either classto win the applause of the other.

But I have noted these great movements that destroythe equilibrium and threaten the prosperity of mycountry, and standing above passion and prejudice ordemagoguery I invoke every true citizen, fighting from hishearthstone outward, with the prattle of his children onhis ear, and the hand of his wife and mother closelyclasped, to determine here to make his home sustainingand independent, and to pledge eternal hostility to theforces that threaten our liberties, and the party that standsbehind it.

When I think of the tremendous force of the currentsagainst which we must fight, of the great political partythat impels that fight, of the countless host of mercenariesthat fight under its flag, of the enormous powers of government179privilege and monopoly that back them up, I confessmy heart sinks within me, and I grow faint. But I rememberthat the servant of Elisha looked abroad fromSamaria and beheld the hosts that encompassed the city,and said in agonized fear: “Alas, master, what shall wedo?” and the answer of Elisha was the answer of everybrave man and faithful heart in all ages: “Fear not, forthey that be with us are more than they that be withthem,” and this faith opened the eyes of the servant ofthe man of God, and he looked up again, and lo, the airwas filled with chariots of fire, and the mountains werefilled with horsem*n, and they compassed the city aboutas a mighty and unconquerable host. Let us fight insuch faith, and fear not. The air all about us is filledwith chariots of unseen allies, and the mountains arethronged with unseen knights that shall fight with us.Fear not, for they that be with us are more than they thatbe with them. Buckle on your armor, gird about yourloins, stand upright and dauntless while I summon you tothe presence of the immortal dead. Your fathers and mineyet live, though they speak not, and will consecrate thisair with their wheeling chariots, and above them andbeyond them to the Lord God Almighty, King of theHosts in whose unhindered splendor we stand this morning.Look up to them, be of good cheer, and faint not, forthey shall fight with us when we strike for liberty andtruth, and all the world, though it be banded againstus, shall not prevail against them.

IN his Speech at the Annual Banquet of the BostonMerchants’ Association in December, 1889, Mr.Grady said:

Mr. President: Bidden by your invitation to a discussionof the race problem—forbidden by occasion to make apolitical speech—I appreciate in trying to reconcile orderswith propriety the predicament of the little maid who,bidden to learn to swim, was yet adjured, “Now, go, mydarling, hang your clothes on a hickory limb, and don’tgo near the water.”

The stoutest apostle of the church, they say, is the missionary,and the missionary, wherever he unfurls his flag,will never find himself in deeper need of unction and addressthan I, bidden to-night to plant the standard of a SouthernDemocrat in Boston’s banquet hall, and discuss the problemof the races in the home of Phillips and of Sumner. But,Mr. President, if a purpose to speak in perfect franknessand sincerity; if earnest understanding of the vast interestsinvolved; if a consecrating sense of what disastermay follow further misunderstanding and estrangement, ifthese may be counted to steady undisciplined speech andto strengthen an untried arm—then, sir, I find the courageto proceed.

Happy am I that this mission has brought my feet atlast to press New England’s historic soil, and my eyes tothe knowledge of her beauty and her thrift. Here, within181touch of Plymouth Rock and Bunker Hill—where Websterthundered and Longfellow sang, Emerson thought andChanning preached—here in the cradle of American letters,and almost of American liberty, I hasten to make the obeisancethat every American owes New England when first hestands uncovered in her mighty presence. Strange apparition!This stern and unique figure—carved from the oceanand the wilderness—its majesty kindling and growingamid the storms of winters and of wars—until at last thegloom was broken, its beauty disclosed in the sunshine,and the heroic workers rested at its base—while startledkings and emperors gazed and marveled that from the rudetouch of this handful, cast on a bleak and unknown shore,should have come the embodied genius of human government,and the perfected model of human liberty! Godbless the memory of those immortal workers—and prosperthe fortunes of their living sons—and perpetuate theinspiration of their handiwork.

Two years ago, sir, I spoke some words in New Yorkthat caught the attention of the North. As I stand hereto reiterate, as I have done everywhere, every word I thenuttered—to declare that the sentiments I then avowed wereuniversally approved in the South—I realize that the confidencebegotten by that speech is largely responsible formy presence here to-night. I should dishonor myself if Ibetrayed that confidence by uttering one insincere word,or by withholding one essential element of the truth.Apropos of this last, let me confess, Mr. President—beforethe praise of New England has died on my lips—that Ibelieve the best product of her present life is the processionof 17,000 Vermont Democrats that for twenty-two years,undiminished by death, unrecruited by birth or conversion,have marched over their rugged hills, cast their Democraticballots, and gone back home to pray for their unregenerateneighbors, and awake to read the record of 26,000 Republicanmajority. May the God of the helpless and the heroichelp them—and may their sturdy tribe increase!

Far to the south, Mr. President, separated from this182section by a line, once defined in irrepressible difference,once traced in fratricidal blood, and now, thank God, buta vanishing shadow, lies the fairest and richest domainof this earth. It is the home of a brave and hospitablepeople. There, is centered all that can please or prosperhumankind. A perfect climate, above a fertile soil, yieldsto the husbandman every product of the temperate zone.There, by night the cotton whitens beneath the stars, andby day the wheat locks the sunshine in its bearded sheaf.In the same field the clover steals the fragrance of thewind, and the tobacco catches the quick aroma of the rains.There, are mountains stored with exhaustless treasures;forests, vast and primeval, and rivers that, tumbling orloitering, run wanton to the sea. Of the three essentialitems of all industries—cotton, iron and wool—that regionhas easy control. In cotton, a fixed monopoly—in iron,proven supremacy—in timber, the reserve supply of theRepublic. From this assured and permanent advantage,against which artificial conditions cannot much longerprevail, has grown an amazing system of industries. Notmaintained by human contrivance of tariff or capital, afaroff from the fullest and cheapest source of supply, butresting in Divine assurance, within touch of field and mineand forest—not set amid costly farms from which competitionhas driven the farmer in despair, but amid cheap andsunny lands, rich with agriculture, to which neither seasonnor soil has set a limit—this system of industries is mountingto a splendor that shall dazzle and illumine the world.

That, sir, is the picture and the promise of my home—aland better and fairer than I have told you, and yetbut fit setting, in its material excellence, for the loyaland gentle quality of its citizenship. Against that, sir, wehave New England, recruiting the Republic from its sturdyloins, shaking from its overcrowded hives new swarms ofworkers and touching this land all over with its energyand its courage. And yet, while in the Eldorado of whichI have told you, but 15 per cent. of lands are cultivated, itsmines scarcely touched and its population so scant that,183were it set equidistant, the sound of the human voice couldnot be heard from Virginia to Texas—while on the thresholdof nearly every house in New England stands a son,seeking with troubled eyes some new land in which tocarry his modest patrimony, the strange fact remains thatin 1880 the South had fewer Northern-born citizens thanshe had in 1870—fewer in ’70 than in ’60. Why is this?Why is it, sir, though the sectional line be now but a mistthat the breath may dispel, fewer men of the North havecrossed it over to the South than when it was crimsonwith the best blood of the Republic, or even when theslaveholder stood guard every inch of its way?

There can be but one answer. It is the very problemwe are now to consider. The key that opens that problemwill unlock to the world the fairest half of this Republic,and free the halted feet of thousands whose eyes arealready kindling with its beauty. Better than this, it willopen the hearts of brothers for thirty years estranged, andclasp in lasting comradeship a million hands now withheldin doubt. Nothing, sir, but this problem, and the suspicionsit breeds, hinders a clear understanding and a perfectunion. Nothing else stands between us and such love asbound Georgia and Massachusetts at Valley Forge andYorktown, chastened by the sacrifices at Manassas andGettysburg, and illumined with the coming of better workand a nobler destiny than was ever wrought with the swordor sought at the cannon’s mouth.

If this does not invite your patient hearing to-night—hearone thing more. My people, your brothers in theSouth—brothers in blood, in destiny, in all that is best inour past and future—are so beset with this problem thattheir very existence depends upon its right solution. Norare they wholly to blame for its presence. The slave-shipsof the Republic sailed from your ports—the slaves workedin our fields. You will not defend the traffic, nor I the institution.But I do hereby declare that in its wise and humaneadministration, in lifting the slave to heights of whichhe had not dreamed in his savage home, and giving him a184happiness he has not yet found in freedom—our fathersleft their sons a saving and excellent heritage. In thestorm of war this institution was lost. I thank God asheartily as you do that human slavery is gone forever fromthe American soil. But the freedman remains. With hima problem without precedent or parallel. Note its appallingconditions. Two utterly dissimilar races on the samesoil—with equal political and civil rights—almost equal innumbers, but terribly unequal in intelligence and responsibility—eachpledged against fusion—one for a century inservitude to the other, and freed at last by a desolatingwar—the experiment sought by neither, but approachedby both with doubt—these are the conditions. Underthese, adverse at every point, we are required to carry thesetwo races in peace and honor to the end.

Never, sir, has such a task been given to mortal stewardship.Never before in this Republic has the white racedivided on the rights of an alien race. The red man wascut down as a weed, because he hindered the way of theAmerican citizen. The yellow man was shut out of thisRepublic because he is an alien and inferior. The red manwas owner of the land—the yellow man highly civilizedand assimilable—but they hindered both sections and aregone! But the black man, affecting but one section, isclothed with every privilege of government and pinned tothe soil, and my people commanded to make good at anyhazard, and at any cost, his full and equal heirship ofAmerican privilege and prosperity. It matters not thatevery other race has been routed or excluded, withoutrhyme or reason. It matters not that wherever the whitesand blacks have touched, in any era or in any clime, therehas been irreconcilable violence. It matters not that notwo races, however similar, have lived anywhere at anytime on the same soil with equal rights in peace! In spiteof these things we are commanded to make good this changeof American policy which has not perhaps changed Americanprejudice—to make certain here what has elsewherebeen impossible between whites and blacks—and to reverse,185under the very worst conditions, the universal verdict ofracial history. And driven, sir, to this superhuman taskwith an impatience that brooks no delay—a rigor thataccepts no excuse—and a suspicion that discourages franknessand sincerity. We do not shrink from this trial. Itis so interwoven with our industrial fabric that we cannotdisentangle it if we would—so bound up in our honorableobligation to the world, that we would not if we could.Can we solve it? The God who gave it into our hands,He alone can know. But this the weakest and wisest of usdo know; we cannot solve it with less than your tolerantand patient sympathy—with less than the knowledge thatthe blood that runs in your veins is our blood—and thatwhen we have done our best, whether the issue be lost orwon, we shall feel your strong arms about us and hear thebeating of your approving hearts.

The resolute, clear-headed, broad-minded men of theSouth—the men whose genius made glorious every page ofthe first seventy years of American history—whose courageand fortitude you tested in five years of the fiercestwar—whose energy has made bricks without straw andspread splendor amid the ashes of their war-wastedhomes—these men wear this problem in their hearts andtheir brains, by day and by night. They realize, as youcannot, what this problem means—what they owe to thiskindly and dependent race—the measure of their debt tothe world in whose despite they defended and maintainedslavery. And though their feet are hindered in its undergrowth,and their march encumbered with its burdens, theyhave lost neither the patience from which comes clearness,nor the faith from which comes courage. Nor, sir, whenin passionate moments is disclosed to them that vague andawful shadow, with its lurid abysses and its crimsonstains, into which I pray God they may never go, are theystruck with more of apprehension than is needed to completetheir consecration!

Such is the temper of my people. But what of the problemitself? Mr. President, we need not go one step further186unless you concede right here the people I speak forare as honest, as sensible, and as just as your people, seekingas earnestly as you would in their place, to rightlysolve the problem that touches them at every vital point.If you insist that they are ruffians, blindly striving withbludgeon and shotgun to plunder and oppress a race, thenI shall sacrifice my self-respect and tax your patience invain. But admit that they are men of common sense andcommon honesty—wisely modifying an environment theycannot wholly disregard—guiding and controlling as bestthey can the vicious and irresponsible of either race—compensatingerror with frankness, and retrieving in patiencewhat they lose in passion—and conscious all the time thatwrong means ruin,—admit this, and we may reach anunderstanding to-night.

The President of the United States in his late messageto Congress, discussing the plea that the South should beleft to solve this problem, asks: “Are they at work uponit? What solution do they offer? When will the blackman cast a free ballot? When will he have the civilrights that are his?” I shall not here protest against thepartisanry that, for the first time in our history in time ofpeace, has stamped with the great seal of our governmenta stigma upon the people of a great and loyal section,though I gratefully remember that the great dead soldierwho held the helm of state for the eight stormiest years ofreconstruction never found need for such a step; andthough there is no personal sacrifice I would not make toremove this cruel and unjust imputation on my peoplefrom the archives of my country! But, sir, backed by arecord on every page of which is progress, I venture tomake earnest and respectful answer to the questions thatare asked. I bespeak your patience, while with vigorousplainness of speech, seeking your judgment rather thanyour applause, I proceed step by step. We give to theworld this year a crop of 7,500,000 bales of cotton, worth$45,000,000, and its cash equivalent in grain, grasses andfruit. This enormous crop could not have come from the187hands of sullen and discontented labor. It comes frompeaceful fields, in which laughter and gossip rise abovethe hum of industry, and contentment runs with the singingplow.

It is claimed that this ignorant labor is defrauded of itsjust hire. I present the tax-books of Georgia, which showthat the negro, 25 years ago a slave, has in Georgia alone$10,000,000 of assessed property, worth twice that much.Does not that record honor him, and vindicate his neighbors?What people, penniless, illiterate, has done so well?For every Afro-American agitator, stirring the strife inwhich alone he prospers, I can show you a thousandnegroes, happy in their cabin homes, tilling their own landby day, and at night taking from the lips of their childrenthe helpful message their State sends them from the schoolhousedoor. And the schoolhouse itself bears testimony.In Georgia we added last year $250,000 to the school fund,making a total of more than $1,000,000—and this in theface of prejudice not yet conquered—of the fact that thewhites are assessed for $368,000,000, the blacks for $10,000,000,and yet 49 per cent. of the beneficiaries are blackchildren—and in the doubt of many wise men if educationhelps, or can help, our problem. Charleston, with hertaxable values cut half in two since 1860, pays more in proportionfor public schools than Boston. Although it iseasier to give much out of much than little out of little,the South with one-seventh of the taxable property of thecountry, with relatively larger debt, having received onlyone-twelfth as much public land, and having back of itstax-books none of the half billion of bonds that enrich theNorth—and though it pays annually $26,000,000 to yoursection as pensions—yet gives nearly one-sixth of thepublic-school fund. The South since 1865 has spent $122,000,000in education, and this year is pledged to $37,000,000for state and city schools, although the blacks paying one-thirtiethof the taxes get nearly one-half of the fund.

Go into our fields and see whites and blacks workingside by side. On our buildings in the same squad. In our188shops at the same forge. Often the blacks crowd thewhites from work, or lower wages by the greater need orsimpler habits, and yet are permitted because we want tobar them from no avenue in which their feet are fitted totread. They could not there be elected orators of thewhite universities, as they have been here, but they doenter there a hundred useful trades that are closed againstthem here. We hold it better and wiser to tend the weedsin the garden than to water the exotic in the window. Inthe South, there are negro lawyers, teachers, editors, dentists,doctors, preachers, multiplying with the increasingability of their race to support them. In villages andtowns they have their military companies equipped fromthe armories of the State, their churches and societies builtand supported largely by their neighbors. What is thetestimony of the courts? In penal legislation we havesteadily reduced felonies to misdemeanors, and have ledthe world in mitigating punishment for crime, that wemight save, as far as possible, this dependent race from itsown weakness. In our penitentiary record 60 per cent. of theprosecutors are negroes, and in every court the negro criminalstrikes the colored juror, that white men may judgehis case. In the North, one negro in every 1865 is injail—in the South only one in 446. In the North the percentageof negro prisoners is six times as great as nativewhites—in the South, only four times as great. If prejudicewrongs him in southern courts, the record shows itto be deeper in northern courts.

I assert here, and a bar as intelligent and upright asthe bar of Massachusetts will solemnly indorse my assertion,that in the southern courts, from highest to lowest,pleading for life, liberty or property, the negro has distinctadvantage because he is a negro, apt to be over-reached,oppressed—and that this advantage reaches fromthe juror in making his verdict to the judge in measuringhis sentence. Now, Mr. President, can it be seriouslymaintained that we are terrorizing the people from whosewilling hands come every year $1,000,000,000 of farm189crops? Or have robbed a people, who twenty-five yearsfrom unrewarded slavery have amassed in one State$20,000,000 of property? Or that we intend to oppress thepeople we are arming every day? Or deceive them whenwe are educating them to the utmost limit of our ability?Or outlaw them when we work side by side with them?Or re-enslave them under legal forms when for their benefitwe have even imprudently narrowed the limit of feloniesand mitigated the severity of law? My fellow countryman,as you yourself may sometimes have to appeal to thebar of human judgment for justice and for right, give tomy people to-night the fair and unanswerable conclusion ofthese incontestible facts.

But it is claimed that under this fair seeming there isdisorder and violence. This I admit. And there will beuntil there is one ideal community on earth after whichwe may pattern. But how widely it is misjudged! It ishard to measure with exactness whatever touches thenegro. His helplessness, his isolation, his century of servitude,these dispose us to emphasize and magnify hiswrongs. This disposition, inflamed by prejudice and partisanry,has led to injustice and delusion. Lawless menmay ravage a county in Iowa and it is accepted as an incident—inthe South a drunken row is declared to be thefixed habit of the community. Regulators may whip vagabondsin Indiana by platoons, and it scarcely arrestsattention—a chance collision in the South among relativelythe same classes is gravely accepted as evidence that onerace is destroying the other. We might as well claim thatthe Union was ungrateful to the colored soldiers who followedits flag, because a Grand Army post in Connecticutclosed its doors to a negro veteran, as for you to give racialsignificance to every incident in the South, or to acceptexceptional grounds as the rule of our society. I am notone of those who becloud American honor with the paradeof the outrages of either section, and belie American characterby declaring them to be significant and representative.I prefer to maintain that they are neither, and stand190for nothing but the passion and the sin of our poor fallenhumanity. If society, like a machine, were no strongerthan its weakest part, I should despair of both sections.But, knowing that society, sentient and responsible inevery fibre, can mend and repair until the whole has thestrength of the best, I despair of neither. These gentlemenwho come with me here, knit into Georgia’s busy lifeas they are, never saw, I dare assert, an outrage committedon a negro! And if they did, not one of you would beswifter to prevent or punish. It is through them, and themen who think with them—making nine-tenths of everysouthern community—that these two races have been carriedthus far with less of violence than would have beenpossible anywhere else on earth. And in their fairnessand courage and steadfastness—more than in all the lawsthat can be passed or all the bayonets that can be mustered—isthe hope of our future.

When will the black cast a free ballot? When ignoranceanywhere is not dominated by the will of the intelligent;when the laborer anywhere casts a vote unhinderedby his boss; when the vote of the poor anywhere is notinfluenced by the power of the rich; when the strong andthe steadfast do not everywhere control the suffrage of theweak and shiftless—then and not till then will the ballot ofthe negro be free. The white people of the South arebanded, Mr. President, not in prejudice against theblacks—not in sectional estrangement, not in the hope ofpolitical dominion—but in a deep and abiding necessity.Here is this vast ignorant and purchasable vote—clannish,credulous, impulsive and passionate—tempting every artof the demagogue, but insensible to the appeal of thestatesman. Wrongly started, in that it was led into alienationfrom its neighbor and taught to rely on the protectionof an outside force, it cannot be merged and lost in thetwo great parties through logical currents, for it lackspolitical conviction and even that information on whichconviction must be based. It must remain a faction—strongenough in every community to control on the slightest191division of the whites. Under that division it becomesthe prey of the cunning and unscrupulous of both parties.Its credulity is imposed on, its patience inflamed, itscupidity tempted, its impulses misdirected—and even itssuperstition made to play its part in a campaign in whichevery interest of society is jeopardized and every approachto the ballot-box debauched. It is against such campaignsas this—the folly and the bitterness and the danger ofwhich every southern community has drunk deeply—thatthe white people of the South are banded together. Justas you in Massachusetts would be banded if 300,000 blackmen, not one in a hundred able to read his ballot—bandedin race instinct, holding against you the memory of acentury of slavery, taught by your late conquerors to distrustand oppose you, had already travestied legislationfrom your statehouse, and in every species of folly orvillainy had wasted your substance and exhausted yourcredit.

But admitting the right of the whites to unite againstthis tremendous menace, we are challenged with the smallnessof our vote. This has long been flippantly charged tobe evidence, and has now been solemnly and officiallydeclared to be proof of political turpitude and baseness onour part. Let us see. Virginia—a State now under fierceassault for this alleged crime—cast in 1888 75 per cent. ofher vote. Massachusetts, the State in which I speak, 60per cent. of her vote. Was it suppression in Virginia andnatural causes in Massachusetts? Last month Virginiacast 69 per cent. of her vote, and Massachusetts, fighting inevery district, cast only 49 per cent. of hers. If Virginiais condemned because 31 per cent. of her vote was silent,how shall this State escape in which 51 per cent. wasdumb? Let us enlarge this comparison. The sixteensouthern States in 1888 cast 67 per cent. of their total vote—thesix New England States but 63 per cent. of theirs. Bywhat fair rule shall the stigma be put upon one section,while the other escapes? A congressional election in NewYork last week, with the polling-place in touch of every192voter, brought out only 6000 votes of 28,000—and the lackof opposition is assigned as the natural cause. In a districtin my State, in which an opposition speech has notbeen heard in ten years, and the polling-places are milesapart—under the unfair reasoning of which my section hasbeen a constant victim—the small vote is charged to beproof of forcible suppression. In Virginia an averagemajority of 10,000, under hopeless division of the minority,was raised to 42,000; in Iowa, in the same election, amajority of 32,000 was wiped out, and an opposition majorityof 8000 was established. The change of 42,000 votesin Iowa is accepted as political revolution—in Virginia anincrease of 30,000 on a safe majority is declared to be proofof political fraud. I charge these facts and figures home,sir, to the heart and conscience of the American people,who will not assuredly see one section condemned for whatanother section is excused!

If I can drive them through the prejudice of the partisan,and have them read and pondered at the fireside ofthe citizen, I will rest on the judgment there formed andthe verdict there rendered!

It is deplorable, sir, that in both sections a larger percentageof the vote is not regularly cast, but more inexplicablethat this should be so in New England than in theSouth. What invites the negro to the ballot-box? Heknows that, of all men, it has promised him most andyielded him least. His first appeal to suffrage was thepromise of “forty acres and a mule.” His second, thethreat that Democratic success meant his re-inslavement.Both have proved false in his experience. He looked fora home, and he got the freedman’s bank. He fought underthe promise of the loaf, and in victory was denied thecrumbs. Discouraged and deceived, he has realized at lastthat his best friends are his neighbors, with whom his lot iscast, and whose prosperity is bound up in his—and that hehas gained nothing in politics to compensate the loss oftheir confidence and sympathy that is at last his best and hisenduring hope. And so, without leaders or organization—and193lacking the resolute heroism of my party friends inVermont that makes their hopeless march over the hills ahigh and inspiring pilgrimage—he shrewdly measures theoccasional agitator, balances his little account with politics,touches up his mule and jogs down the furrow, letting themad world jog as it will!

The negro vote can never control in the South, and itwould be well if partisans in the North would understandthis. I have seen the white people of a State set about byblack hosts until their fate seemed sealed. But, sir, somebrave man, banding them together, would rise, as Elisharose in beleaguered Samaria, and touching their eyes withfaith, bid them look abroad to see the very air “filled withthe chariots of Israel and the horsem*n thereof.” If thereis any human force that cannot be withstood, it is thepower of the banded intelligence and responsibility of afree community. Against it, numbers and corruption cannotprevail. It cannot be forbidden in the law or divorcedin force. It is the inalienable right of every free community—andthe just and righteous safeguard against an ignorantor corrupt suffrage. It is on this, sir, that we rely inthe South. Not the cowardly menace of mask or shotgun;but the peaceful majesty of intelligence and responsibility,massed and unified for the protection of its homes and thepreservation of its liberty. That, sir, is our reliance andour hope, and against it all the powers of the earth shallnot prevail. It was just as certain that Virginia wouldcome back to the unchallenged control of her white race—thatbefore the moral and material power of her people oncemore unified, opposition would crumble until its last desperateleader was left alone vainly striving to rally his disorderedhosts—as that night should fade in the kindlingglory of the sun. You may pass force bills, but theywill not avail. You may surrender your own liberties toFederal election law, you may submit, in fear of a necessitythat does not exist, that the very form of this governmentmay be changed—this old State that holds in its charterthe boast that “it is a free and independent commonwealth”—it194may deliver its election machinery into thehands of the government it helped to create—but never,sir, will a single State of this Union, North or South, bedelivered again to the control of an ignorant and inferiorrace. We wrested our State government from negro supremacywhen the Federal drumbeat rolled closer to theballot-box and Federal bayonets hedged it deeper aboutthan will ever again be permitted in this free government.But, sir, though the cannon of this Republic thundered inevery voting district of the South, we still should find inthe mercy of God the means and the courage to prevent itsre-establishment!

I regret, sir, that my section, hindered with this problem,stands in seeming estrangement to the North. If, sir,any man will point out to me a path down which the whitepeople of the South divided may walk in peace and honor,I will take that path though I took it alone—for at theend, and nowhere else, I fear, is to be found the full prosperityof my section and the full restoration of this Union.But, sir, if the negro had not been enfranchised, the Southwould have been divided and the Republic united. Hisenfranchisem*nt—against which I enter no protest—holdsthe South united and compact. What solution, then, canwe offer for the problem? Time alone can disclose it tous. We simply report progress and ask your patience.If the problem be solved at all—and I firmly believe it will,though nowhere else has it been—it will be solved by thepeople most deeply bound in interest, most deeply pledgedin honor to its solution. I had rather see my people renderback this question lightly solved than to see themgather all the spoils over which faction has contended sinceCatiline conspired and Cæsar fought. Meantime we treatthe negro fairly, measuring to him justice in the fullnessthe strong should give to the weak, and leading him in thesteadfast ways of citizenship that he may no longer be theprey of the unscrupulous and the sport of the thoughtless.We open to him every pursuit in which he can prosper, andseek to broaden his training and capacity. We seek to195hold his confidence and friendship, and to pin him to thesoil with ownership, that he may catch in the fire of hisown hearthstone that sense of responsibility the shiftlesscan never know. And we gather him into that alliance ofintelligence and responsibility that, though it now runsclose to racial lines, welcomes the responsible and intelligentof any race. By this course, confirmed in our judgmentand justified in the progress already made, we hopeto progress slowly but surely to the end.

The love we feel for that race you cannot measure norcomprehend. As I attest it here, the spirit of my old blackmammy from her home up there looks down to bless, andthrough the tumult of this night steals the sweet music ofher croonings as thirty years ago she held me in her blackarms and led me smiling into sleep. This scene vanishesas I speak, and I catch a vision of an old Southern home,with its lofty pillars, and its white pigeons fluttering downthrough the golden air. I see women with strained andanxious faces, and children alert yet helpless. I see nightcome down with its dangers and its apprehensions, and ina big homely room I feel on my tired head the touch ofloving hands—now worn and wrinkled, but fairer to me yetthan the hands of mortal woman, and stronger yet to leadme than the hands of mortal man—as they lay a mother’sblessing there while at her knees—the truest altar I yethave found—I thank God that she is safe in her sanctuary,because her slaves, sentinel in the silent cabin or guard ather chamber door, puts a black man’s loyalty between herand danger.

I catch another vision. The crisis of battle—a soldierstruck, staggering, fallen. I see a slave, scuffling throughthe smoke, winding his black arms about the fallen form,reckless of the hurtling death—bending his trusty face tocatch the words that tremble on the stricken lips, so wrestlingmeantime with agony that he would lay down his lifein his master’s stead. I see him by the weary bedside,ministering with uncomplaining patience, praying with allhis humble heart that God will lift his master up, until196death comes in mercy and in honor to still the soldier’sagony and seal the soldier’s life. I see him by the opengrave, mute, motionless, uncovered, suffering for the deathof him who in life fought against his freedom. I see himwhen the mound is heaped and the great drama of his lifeis closed, turn away and with downcast eyes and uncertainstep start out into new and strange fields, faltering, struggling,but moving on, until his shambling figure is lost inthe light of this better and brighter day. And from thegrave comes a voice saying: “Follow him! Put yourarms about him in his need, even as he puts his about me.Be his friend as he was mine.” And out into this newworld—strange to me as to him, dazzling, bewilderingboth—I follow! And may God forget my people—whenthey forget these!

Whatever the future may hold for them—whether theyplod along in the servitude from which they have neverbeen lifted since the Cyrenian was laid hold upon bythe Roman soldiers and made to bear the cross of the faintingChrist—whether they find homes again in Africa, andthus hasten the prophecy of the psalmist who said: “Andsuddenly Ethiopia shall hold out her hands unto God”—whether,forever dislocated and separated, they remain aweak people beset by stronger, and exist as the Turk,who lives in the jealousy rather than in the conscience ofEurope—or whether in this miraculous Republic theybreak through the caste of twenty centuries and, belyinguniversal history, reach the full stature of citizenship, andin peace maintain it—we shall give them uttermost justiceand abiding friendship. And whatever we do, into whateverseeming estrangement we may be driven, nothing shalldisturb the love we bear this Republic, or mitigate our consecrationto its service. I stand here, Mr. President, toprofess no new loyalty. When General Lee, whose heartwas the temple of our hopes and whose arm was clothedwith our strength, renewed his allegiance to the governmentof Appomattox, he spoke from a heart too great tobe false, and he spoke for every honest man from Maryland197to Texas. From that day to this, Hamilcar hasnowhere in the South sworn young Hannibal to hatred andvengeance—but everywhere to loyalty and to love. Witnessthe soldier standing at the base of a Confederate monumentabove the graves of his comrades, his empty sleevetossing in the April wind, adjuring the young men abouthim, to serve as honest and loyal citizens the governmentagainst which their fathers fought. This message, deliveredfrom that sacred presence, has gone home to thehearts of my fellows! And, sir, I declare here, if physicalcourage be always equal to human aspiration, thatthey would die, sir, if need be, to restore this Republictheir fathers fought to dissolve!

Such, Mr. President, is this problem as we see it; suchis the temper in which we approach it: such the progressmade. What do we ask of you? First, patience; out ofthis alone can come perfect work. Second, confidence; inthis alone can you judge fairly. Third, sympathy; in thisyou can help us best. Fourth, give us your sons as hostages.When you plant your capital in millions, send yoursons that they may help know how true are our hearts andmay help to swell the Anglo-Saxon current until it cancarry without danger this black infusion. Fifth, loyaltyto the Republic—for there is sectionalism in loyalty as inestrangement. This hour little needs the loyalty that isloyal to one section and yet holds the other in enduringsuspicion and estrangement. Give us the broad and perfectloyalty that loves and trusts Georgia alike with Massachusetts—thatknows no south, no north, no east, no west;but endears with equal and patriotic love every foot of oursoil, every State in our Union.

A mighty duty, sir, and a mighty inspiration impelsevery one of us to-night to lose in patriotic consecrationwhatever estranges, whatever divides. We, sir, are Americans—andwe fight for human liberty. The uplifting forceof the American idea is under every throne on earth.France, Brazil—these are our victories. To redeem theearth from kingcraft and oppression—this is our mission.198And we shall not fail. God has sown in our soil the seedof his millennial harvest, and he will not lay the sickle tothe ripening crop until his full and perfect day has come.Our history, sir, has been a constant and expandingmiracle from Plymouth Rock and Jamestown all the way—aye,even from the hour when, from the voiceless and tracklessocean, a new world rose to the sight of the inspiredsailor. As we approach the fourth centennial of that stupendousday—when the old world will come to marvel andto learn, amid our gathered treasures—let us resolve tocrown the miracles of our past with the spectacle of aRepublic compact, united, indissoluble in the bonds oflove—loving from the lakes to the Gulf—the wounds ofwar healed in every heart as on every hill—serene andresplendent at the summit of human achievement andearthly glory—blazing out the path, and making clear theway up which all the nations of the earth must come inGod’s appointed time!

DURING Mr. Grady’s Visit to Boston, in 1889, hewas a Guest of the Bay State Club, beforewhom he Delivered the following Speech:

Mr. President and Gentlemen: I am confident youwill not expect a speech from me this afternoon, especiallyas my voice is in such a condition that I can hardly talk.I am free to say that it is not a lack of ability to talk, becauseI am a talker by inheritance. My father was anIrishman, my mother was a woman; both talked. I cameby it honestly.

I don’t know how I could take up any discussion hereon any topic apart from the incidents of the past two days.I saw this morning Plymouth Rock. I was pulled up ontop of it and was told to make a speech.

It reminded me of an old friend of mind, Judge Dooley,of Georgia, who was a very provoking fellow and wasalways getting challenged to duels, and never fightingthem. He always got out of it by being smarter than theother fellow. One day he went out to fight a man with oneleg, and he insisted on bringing along a bee gum and stickingone leg into it so that he would have no more flesh exposedthan his antagonist. On the occasion I am thinkingof, however, he went out to fight with a man who had St.Vitus’s dance, and the fellow stood before him holding thepistol co*cked and primed, his hand shaking. The judge200went quietly and got a forked stick and stuck it up infront of him.

“What’s that for?” said the man.

“I want you to shoot with a rest, so that if you hit meyou will bore only one hole. If you shoot that way youwill fill me full of holes with one shot.”

I was reminded of that and forced to tell my friendsthat I could not think of speaking on top of Plymouth Rockwithout a rest.

But I said this, and I want to say it here again, for Inever knew how true it was till I had heard myself sayit and had taken the evidence of my voice, as well as mythoughts—that there is no spot on earth that I had ratherhave seen than that. I have a boy who is the pride andthe promise of my life, and God knows I want him to be agood citizen and a good man, and there is no spot in allthis broad Republic nor in all this world where I had ratherhave him stand to learn the lessons of right citizenship, ofindividual liberty, of fortitude and heroism and justice,than the spot on which I stood this morning, reverent anduncovered.

Now, I do not intend to make a political speech,although when Mr. Cleveland expressed some surprise atseeing me here, I said: “Why, I am at home now; I wasout visiting last night.” I was visiting mighty cleverfolks, but still I was visiting. Now I am at home.

It is the glory and the promise of Democracy, it seems tome, that its success means more than partisanry canmean. I have been told that what I said helped the Democraticparty in this State. Well, the chief joy that I feelat that, and that you feel, is that, beyond that and aboveit, it helped those larger interests of the Republic, andthose essential interests of humanity that for seventy yearsthe Democratic party has stood for, being the guarantorand the defender.

Now, Mr. Cleveland last night made—I trust this willnot get into the papers—one of the best Democraticspeeches I ever heard in my life, and yet all around sat201Republicans cheering him to the echo. It was just simplybecause he pitched his speech on a high key, and becausehe said things that no man, no matter how partisan hewas, could gainsay.

Now it seems to me we do not care much for politicalsuccess in the South—for a simple question of spoils or ofpatronage. We wanted to see one Democratic administrationsince General Lee surrendered at Appomattox, just toprove to the people of this world that the South was notthe wrong-headed and impulsive and passionate sectionshe was represented to be. I heard last night from Mr.Cleveland, our great leader, as he sat by me, that he heldto be the miracle of modern history the conservatism andthe temperance and the quiet with which the Southaccepted his election, and the few office-seekers in comparisonthat came from that section to besiege and importunehim.

Now it seems to me that the struggle in this country,the great fight, the roar and din of which we already hear,is a fight against the consolidation of power, the concentrationof capital, the diminution of local sovereignty andthe dwarfing of the individual citizen. Boston is the homeof the one section of a nationalist party that claims thatthe remedy for all our troubles, the way in which Dives,who sits inside the gate, shall be controlled, and the poorLazarus who sits outside shall be lifted up, is for the governmentto usurp the functions of the citizen and takecharge of all his affairs. It is the Democratic doctrine thatthe citizen is the master and that the best guarantee of thisgovernment is not garnered powers at the capital, but diffusedintelligence and liberty among the people.

My friend, General Collins—who, by the way, capturedmy whole State and absolutely conjured the ladies—whenhe came down there talked about this to us, and he gaveus a train of thought that we have improved to advantage.

It is the pride, I believe, of the South, with her simplefaith and her hom*ogeneous people, that we elevate therethe citizen above the party, and the citizen above everything.202We teach a man that his best guide at least is hisown conscience, that his sovereignty rests beneath his hat,that his own right arm and his own stout heart are his bestdependence; that he should rely on his State for nothingthat he can do for himself, and on his government fornothing that his State can do for him; but that he shouldstand upright and self-respecting, dowering his family inthe sweat of his brow, loving to his State, loyal to hisRepublic, earnest in his allegiance wherever it rests, butbuilding at last his altars above his own hearthstone, andshrining his own liberty in his own heart. That is a sentimentthat I would not have been afraid to avow last night.And yet it is mighty good democratic doctrine, too.

I went to Washington the other day and I stood on theCapitol hill, and my heart beat quick as I looked at thetowering marble of my country’s Capitol, and a mist gatheredin my eyes as I thought of its tremendous significance,of the armies and the treasury, and the judges and thePresident, and the Congress and the courts, and all thatwas gathered there; and I felt that the sun in all itscourse could not look down on a better sight than thatmajestic home of a Republic that had taught the world itsbest lessons of liberty. And I felt that if honor and wisdomand justice abided therein, the world would at lastowe that great house in which the ark of the covenant ofmy country is lodged its final uplifting and its regeneration.

But a few days afterwards I went to visit a friend in thecountry, a modest man, with a quiet country home. Itwas just a simple, unpretentious house, set about withgreat trees and encircled in meadow and field rich with thepromise of harvest; the fragrance of the pink and thehollyhock in the front yard was mingled with the aromaof the orchard and the garden, and the resonant cluckingof poultry and the hum of bees. Inside was quiet, cleanliness,thrift and comfort.

Outside there stood my friend, the master—a simple,independent, upright man, with no mortgage on his roof,203no lien on his growing crops—master of his land andmaster of himself. There was his old father, an aged andtrembling man, but happy in the heart and home of his son.And, as he started to enter his home, the hand of the oldman went down on the young man’s shoulder, layingthere the unspeakable blessing of an honored and honorablefather, and ennobling it with the knighthood of thefifth commandment. And as we approached the door themother came, a happy smile lighting up her face, whilewith the rich music of her heart she bade her husband andher son welcome to their home. Beyond was the housewife,busy with her domestic affairs, the loving helpmateof her husband. Down the lane came the children afterthe cows, singing sweetly, as like birds they sought thequiet of their nest.

So the night came down on that house, falling gentlyas the wing from an unseen dove. And the old man, whilea startled bird called from the forest and the trees thrilledwith the cricket’s cry, and the stars were falling from thesky, called the family around him and took the Bible fromthe table and called them to their knees. The little babyhid in the folds of its mother’s dress while he closed therecord of that day by calling down God’s blessing on thatsimple home. While I gazed, the vision of the marbleCapitol faded; forgotten were its treasuries and its majesty;and I said: “Surely here in the homes of the people lodgeat last the strength and the responsibility of this government,the hope and the promise of this Republic.”

My friends, that is the democracy in the South; that isthe democratic doctrine we preach; a doctrine, sir, that iswrit above our hearthstones. We aim to make our homes,poor as they are, self-respecting and independent. We tryto make them temples of refinement, in which our daughtersmay learn that woman’s best charm and strength is hergentleness and her grace, and temples of liberty in whichour sons may learn that no power can justify and no treasurerepay for the surrender of the slightest right of a freeindividual American citizen.

204Now you do not know how we love you Democrats.Had we better print that? Yes, we do, of course we do.If a man does not love his home folks, who should he love?We know how gallant a fight you have made here, notas hard and hopeless as our friends in Vermont, butstill an up-hill fight. You have been doing better, muchbetter.

Now, gentlemen, I have some mighty good Democratshere. There is one of the fattest and best in the worldsitting right over there [pointing to his partner, Mr.Howell].

You want to know about the South. My friends, werepresentative men will tell you about it. I just want tosay that we have had a hard time down there.

When my partner came out of the war he didn’t haveany breeches. That is an actual truth. Well, his wife,one of the best women that ever lived, reared in the lapof luxury, took her old woolen dress that she had wornduring the war—and it had been a garment of sorrow andof consecration and of heroism—and cut it up and made agood pair of breeches. He started with that pair ofbreeches and with $5 in gold as his capital, and he scrapedup boards from amid the ashes of his home, and built hima shanty of which love made a home and which courtesymade hospitable. And now I believe he has with him threepairs of breeches and several pairs at home. We haveprospered down there.

I attended a funeral once in Pickens county in my State.A funeral is not usually a cheerful object to me unless Icould select the subject. I think I could, perhaps, withoutgoing a hundred miles from here, find the material for oneor two cheerful funerals. Still, this funeral was peculiarlysad. It was a poor “one gallus” fellow, whose breechesstruck him under the armpits and hit him at the other endabout the knee—he didn’t believe in decollete clothes.They buried him in the midst of a marble quarry: theycut through solid marble to make his grave; and yet alittle tombstone they put above him was from Vermont.205They buried him in the heart of a pine forest, and yet thepine coffin was imported from Cincinnati. They buriedhim within touch of an iron mine, and yet the nails in hiscoffin and the iron in the shovel that dug his grave wereimported from Pittsburg. They buried him by the side ofthe best sheep-grazing country on the earth, and yet thewool in the coffin bands and the coffin bands themselveswere brought from the North. The South didn’t furnish athing on earth for that funeral but the corpse and the holein the ground. There they put him away and the clods rattleddown on his coffin, and they buried him in a New Yorkcoat and a Boston pair of shoes and a pair of breeches fromChicago and a shirt from Cincinnati, leaving him nothingto carry into the next world with him to remind him of thecountry in which he lived, and for which he fought for fouryears, but the chill of blood in his veins and the marrow inhis bones.

Now we have improved on that. We have got the biggestmarble-cutting establishment on earth within a hundredyards of that grave. We have got a half-dozenwoolen mills right around it, and iron mines, and iron furnaces,and iron factories. We are coming to meet you.We are going to take a noble revenge, as my friend,Mr. Carnegie, said last night, by invading every inch ofyour territory with iron, as you invaded ours twenty-nineyears ago.

A voice—I want to know if the tariff built up theseindustries down there?

Mr. Grady—The tariff? Well, to be perfectly frankwith you, I think it helped some; but you can bet yourbottom dollar that we are Democrats straight throughfrom the soles of our feet to the top of our heads,and Mr. Cleveland will not have if he runs again,which I am inclined to think he ought to do, a strongerfollowing.

Now, I want to say one word about the reception wehad here. It has been a constant revelation of hospitalityand kindness and brotherhood from the whole people of206this city to myself and my friends. It has touched usbeyond measure.

I was struck with one thing last night. Every speakerthat rose expressed his confidence in the future and lastingglory of this Republic. There may be men, and there are,who insist on getting up fratricidal strife, and who infamouslyfan the embers of war that they may raise themagain into a blaze. But just as certain as there is a Godin the heavens, when those noisy insects of the hour haveperished in the heat that gave them life, and their pestilenttongues have ceased, the great clock of this Republic willstrike the slow-moving, tranquil hours, and the watchmanfrom the street will cry, “All is well with theRepublic; all is well.”

We bring to you, from hearts that yearn for your confidenceand for your love, the message of fellowship from ourhomes. This message comes from consecrated ground.The fields in which I played were the battle-fields of thisRepublic, hallowed to you with the blood of your soldierswho died in victory, and doubly sacred to us with theblood of ours who died undaunted in defeat. All aroundmy home are set the hills of Kennesaw, all around themountains and hills down which the gray flag fluttered todefeat, and through which American soldiers from eitherside charged like demigods; and I do not think I couldbring you a false message from those old hills and thosesacred fields—witnesses twenty years ago in their red desolationof the deathless valor of American arms and thequenchless bravery of American hearts, and in their whitepeace and tranquillity to-day of the imperishable Unionof the American States and the indestructible brotherhoodof the American people.

It is likely that I will not again see Bostonians assembledtogether. I therefore want to take this occasion tothank you, and my excellent friends of last night and thosefriends who accompanied us this morning for all that youhave done for us since we have been in your city, and tosay that whenever any of you come South just speak your207name, and remember that Boston or Massachusetts is thewatchword, and we will meet you at the gates.

SINCE my experience with the case of “Sallie,” I feel ahesitation in presenting a new heroine to the attentionof the public.

You see, I do not mind the real sorrow that I experiencedwhen my sincere efforts to improve the condition ofthis child came to naught. But I was staggered andsickened by the fact that most of my friends were rejoicedat her downfall.

I do not remember anything that gave more genuine joyto the town than the relapse of this wretched girl into theslums from which she had been lifted. It was the occasionof general hilarity—this falling back of an immortal soulinto Death—this terrible spectacle of a child staggeringblindly from sunlight into shame. I was poked in the ribsfacetiously. A perfect shower of chuckles fell on myear. It was the joke of the season—this triumph of theDevil over the body of a girl. One mad young wag, who,with a keen nose for a joke, followed her into her hauntsof crime, came back, his honest face convulsed with laughter,and bearing on his lips a statement from her, to theliteral effect that “I was a d—d fool.”

I was staggered, I say, at the enjoyment created by thedownfall of this girl. For myself, I can hardly imagine amore pitiful sight than her childish figure, as with faceaverted and hands raised, blinded by the white light of virtueand bewildered by her new condition, she slipped backin despair to her old shame. I may be a “d—d fool,”but I cannot find the heart to laugh at that.

212I don’t know how it is, but I have a mania for lookinginto cases of this sort. It is not philanthropy with me;it is a disease.

At the editorial desk, I sit opposite a young man of ahigh order of mind.

He makes it a point to compass the problems ofnations. I dodge them. He has settled, to his own agreement,every European problem of the past decade. Thoseproblems have settled me. He soars—I plod. Once in awhile, when he yearns for a listener, he reaches down formy scalp, and lifts me up to his altitude, where I shiverand blink, until his talented fingers relax, and I drophome. It delights him to adjust his powerful mind to thecontemplation of contending armies,—I swash around withthe swarm that hangs about me.

His hero is Bismarck, that phlegmatic miracle that hasyoked impulse to an ox, and having made a chess-board ofEurope, plays a quiet game with the Pope. My hero is ablear-eyed sot, that having for four years waged a giganticbattle with drink, and alternated between watery Reformand positive Tremens, is now playing a vague and losinggame with Spontaneous Combustion. My friend discussesBismarck’s projects with a vastness of mind that actuallymakes his discourse dim, and I slip off to try my hero’stemper, and see whether I shall have him wind his intoxicatedarms about my neck and envelop me in an atmosphereof whisky and reform, or fall recumbent in the gutter,his weak but honest face upturned to the sky, andhis moist, white hand working vaguely upward from hisplacid breast, in token of abject surrender.

Bismarck is a bigger man than Bob.

But I can’t help thinking that Bob is engaged in themost thrilling and desperate conflict. Anyhow, I hadrather see his watery eyes grow clear and his paroxysmalarms grow steadfast, than to see Bismarck wipe out everypotentate in Europe. It’s a grave thing to watch the conflictsof kings, and see nations embattled rushing againsteach other. But there are greater and deeper conflicts213waged in our midst every day, when the legions of Despairswarm against stout hearts, and Hunger and Suffering stormthe citadel of human lives!

But I started to tell you of my new heroine.

Her name is Jane.

She presented herself one morning about three monthsago. A trim, slender figure, the growth of nine years. Itwas such a small area of poverty that I felt capable ofattending to it myself. But I remembered that smallbeggars usually represent productive but prostrated parentsand a brood of children. The smaller the beggar the largerthe family. I therefore summoned the good little womanwho guides my household affairs.

She claims to be an expert in beggars. She has certaintests that she applies to all comers. Her fundamental ruleis that all applicants are entitled to cold bread on first call.After this she either grades them up to cake and preserves,or holds them to scraps. I remember that she kept Col.Nash on dry biscuit for thirteen months, while other applicantshave gone up to pie in three visits. I never felt anyhesitation in taking her judgment after that, for of allwheedling mendicants Col. Nash, the alleged scissors-grinder,takes the lead.

But Jane was not a beggar. She carried on her arm abasket. It was filled with some useless articles that shewanted to sell. Would the lady look at them? Oh! ofcourse! They were bits of splints embroidered with gayworsted. What were they for? Why, she didn’t know.She just thought somebody would buy them, and sheneeded some money so badly.

“Who is your mother?”

“I haven’t any. She is dead. I have a father, though.”

“What does he do?”

“He’s sick most of the time. He works when he iswell.”

“What’s his name?”

“Robert ——!”

(Saints! My “Bob!” Sick indeed! The weak rascal!)

214Jane was asked in, and I began to investigate. Ilearned that this child was literally alone in the world.She had a sister, a puny two-year-old, and a drunkenfather—my flabby friend. They lived in a rickety hovel,out of which the last chair had been sold to pay rent. Themother, a year an invalid, had been accustomed to worklittle trifles in splints and worsted. She dying, the childpicked up the splints, and worked grotesque baby fanciesin wood and worsted. She had no time for weeping. Herhunger dried her eyes. The cooing baby by her side,crying for bread, made her forget the dead mother. So shefashioned the splints together, and with a brave heart wentout to sell them.

Bob reformed at the bedside of his dying wife. Possiblyat that moment the angels that had come to guide thewoman home swept away the mist of the man’s debauch,and gave him a glimpse of the pure life that lay behind.Certain it is that his moist, uncertain hands crept vaguelyup the cover till they caught the wasted cheeks of his wife,and his shaggy head bent down till his quivering lips foundhers. And the poor wife, yielding once more to the lovethat had outlived shame and desertion, turned her eyesfrom her children and fixed them on her husband. Ah!how this earthly hope and this earthly love chased even theserenity of Heaven from her face, and lighted it with tenderrapture! How quickly this drunkard supplanted God inthe dying woman’s soul? “Oh, Bob! my darling!” shegasped, and raising her face toward him with a masterfulyearning, she died.

“Mother didn’t seem to know we were there after fathercame,” Jane told me. And I wondered if the child had notbeen hurt, that all her months of patient love and watchinghad been forgotten in a tempest of love for a vagabondhusband that had wrought nothing but disaster and death.

After the funeral, through which he went in a dazedsort of stupor, Bob got drunk, I don’t know why or how.He seemed tenderer since then than before. I noticed thathe reformed oftener and got over it quicker. A piece of215crape that Jane had fixed about his hat seemed to possesssacred properties to him. When he touched it and sworeabstinence, he generally held out two or three days. Onenight, as he lay in the gutter, a cow, full of respect for hisperson, and yet unable to utterly control her hunger,chewed his hat. Since then he seemed to have lost hismoorings, and drifted about on a currentless drunk.

He was always kind to Jane and the little biddie. Inhis maudlin way he would caress them, and cry over them,and reform with them, and promise to work for them.Even when he ate their last crust of bread, he accompaniedthe action with a sort of fumbling pomposity thatrobbed it of its horror. He never did it without promisingto go out at once and bring back a sack of flour. Once hewent so high as to promise four sacks. So that the child,in love like her mother with the old rascal, and like hermother fresh always in faith, was rather rejoiced thanotherwise when he ate the bread. Did he bring the flour?

“Why, how could he? They had to bring him home.So of course I did not blame him. Poor father!”

I must do Bob the justice to say that he never earned acent in all these days that he did not intend giving toJane. Of course he never did it, but I desire him to havethe credit of his intention. If the Lord held the best ofus strictly to performance and ruled out intention, wewouldn’t be much better in his sight than Bob is in ours.

One day I was sitting behind a window looking atJane, who stood in the kitchen door. Her oldish-looking,chipper little face was turned straight to me. It was apretty face. The brown eyes were softened with suffering,and fear and anxiety had driven all color from herthin cheeks. I noticed that her mouth was never still.Though she was alone and silent, her lips quivered andtrembled all the time. At times they would break into adumb sob. Then she would draw them firmly together.Again they would twitch convulsively in the terrible semblanceof a smile. Then in that pretty, feminine way shewould pucker them together.

216Long suffering had racked the child until she was allawry, and her nerves were plunging through her tenderframe like devils.

“Jane, were you ever hungry?”

“Sir!” and she started painfully, while her starvedheart managed to send a thin coating of scarlet into hercheeks. She was a proud little body, and never talked ofher sorrows.

May the Lord forgive me for repeating the question!

“Sometimes, sir, when I couldn’t sell anything. LastSaturday we had only some bread for dinner. We neverhad anything else until Sunday night. I wouldn’t haveminded it then, but Mary cried so for bread that I wentout, and a lady that I knew gave me some things.”

Now, think of that. From a crust at Saturday noon,on nothing till Sunday night. Of all the abundant marketingof Saturday evening; of all the luxuries of Sundaybreakfast and dinner, not a crumb for this poor child.While we were dressing our children for their trip to Sunday-school,or their romp over the hills, this poor child,gnawed by hunger, deserted by her drunken father, holdinga starving baby, sat crouched in a hovel, given up todespair and hopelessness. And that, too, within the soundof the bells that made the church-steeples thrill withmusic, and called God’s people to church!

A friend who had heard Jane’s story had given methree dollars for her. I gave it to her, and told her thatas her rent was paid, she could with this lay in some provisions.She was crying then, but she dried her tears andhurried off.

“Will you please come here and look?” called a ladywhose call I always obey, about an hour afterward.

I went, and there stood Jane, flushed and happy.

“I declare I am astonished at this child!” said thelady.

And therewith she displayed Jane’s purchases. A217little meal and meat had been sent home. The rest shehad with her. First, there was a goblet of strained honey;then a bundle of candy “for baby,” a package of tea“for father,” and a chip straw hat, with three gaylycolored ribbons, “for herself.” And that’s where themoney had gone!

“I am just put out with her,” said the arbitress ofmy affairs, after Jane had gathered up her treasuresand departed. “To waste her money like that! I canimagine how the poor, half-starved child couldn’t helpbuying the honey-goblet; I should die myself if I didn’thave something sweet; but how she came to buy that hatand ribbons I can’t see!”

Ah, blue-eyed woman! There’s a yearning in thefeminine soul stronger than hunger. There’s a passionthere that starvation cannot conquer. The hat and ribbonswere bought in response to that craving. The hat,I’ll bet thee, was bought before the honey,—aye, beforethe meal or meat. “Can’t understand it?” Then, myspouse, I’ll explain: Jane is a woman!

I must confess that I was pleased at the misdirection ofJane’s funds. Have you ever had a child deep in a long-continuedstupor from fever? How delighted you werethen when, tempted by some trifle, he gave signs of eagerness!So I was rejoiced to see that the long years of sufferinghad not crushed hope and emotion out of this girl’slife.

The tea and the candy showed that her affections,working up to the father and drawn to the baby, were allright. The honey gave evidence that the fresh impulsesof childhood had not been nipped and chilled. The hatand ribbons—best and most hopeful purchase of all—provedthat the womanly vanity and love of prettinessstill fluttered in her young soul. Nothing is so charmingand so feminine in woman as the passion for dress.Laugh at it as we may, I think that men will agree thatthere is nothing so pathetic as a young woman out ofwhom all hope of fine appearance has been pressed. A218gay ribbon is the sign in which woman conquers. I wagerthat Eve made a neat, many-colored thing of fig-leaves.

But to return to Jane.

I know that this desultory sketch should be closedwith something unusual. Jane should die or get married.But she’s too young for either. And so her life is runningon ever. She plods the streets as she used to do. She hasquit selling the flaming scraps she used to sell, and nowknits her young but resolute brow over crochet work,which she sells at marvelous prices. Her path is fleckedwith more sunshine than ever before, and at Sunday-schoolshe is as smart a little woman as can be seen. If theshadow of a staggering figure, that falls so often acrossher course, could be lifted, she would have little else togrieve over. Not that she complains of this—not a bit ofit. “Poor father is sick so much. How can he beexpected to work?” And so she goes on, with herwoman’s nature clinging to him closer than ever; even asthe ivy clings to the old ruin. Hiding his shame from theworld, wrapping him in the plenitude of her faith, andbinding up his shattered resolves with her heart-strings.

And as for Bob:

I am strongly tempted to tell a lie, and say that he iseither sober or dead. But he is neither. He is the sameshiftless, irresponsible fellow that I have known for threeyears. His face is heavier, his eyes are smaller, his noseredder, his flesh more moist than ever. But in the depthof his debauch there seems to have been winged some ideaof the excellence of Jane’s life, and the fineness of hermartyrdom. He catches me anywhere he sees me, and,falling on my shirt-front, weeps copious tears of praiseand pop-skull, while talking of her. He swears by her.

By the way, I must do him justice. Yesterday hecame to me very much affected. He was white-lipped,and trembling, and hungry. He had spent the night inthe gutter, and the policeman who was scattering the disinfectinglime, either careless or wise beyond his kind, hadpowdered him all over. He seemed to be terribly in earnest.219He raised his trembling hand to his hat and touchedthe place where the crape used to be, and swore that heintended to reform, for good and all. “S’elp me Jane!”he said.

I have not seen him since. I hope that the iron has atlast entered his soul and will hold him steadfast. Ha!that sounds like him stumbling up the steps now. Hey!he has rolled back to the bottom! Here he comes again.That must be him. “Of course!”

IAM proud of my acquaintance with Dobbs.

He was a hero, whose deeds were not spread upon anyof the books of men, but whose martyrdom I am sure illustratesa glowing page in God’s great life book.

I met him late one night.

The paper, with its burden of news and gossip, had justbeen put to press, and I strolled out of the hot, clankingroom to catch a sight of the cool morning stars, and awhiff of the dew-laden breezes of the dawn.

Silhouetted against the intercepted stars, I saw a talland striking form, standing like a statue on the corner.

As I came out of the door the figure approached.

“Is this the Herald office, sir?”

“Yes, sir. Can I serve you in any way?”

“Well—” hesitating for an instant, and then speakingboldly and sharply, “I wanted to know if you could nottrust me for a few papers?”

“I suppose so; walk in to the light.”

I shall never forget the impression Dobbs made on methat night, as we two walked in from the starlight to theglare of the gas-burners.

A BLAZE OF HONESTY.

As I have said before, he had a tall and striking figure.His face was ugly. He was ungraceful, ragged, and uncouth.Yet there was a splendid glow of honesty thatshone from every feature, and challenged your admiration.It was not that cheap honesty that suffuses the face of youraverage honest man; but a vivid burst of light that, fed byprinciple, sent its glow from the heart. It was not the221passive honesty that is the portion of men who have noneed to steal, but the triumphant honesty that has grappledwith poverty, with disease, with despair, and conqueredthe whole devil’s brood of temptation; the honestythat has been sorely tried, the honesty of martyrdom; thehonesty of heroism. He was the honestest man I everknew.

THE PATHOS OF INCONGRUITY.

There was one feature of his dress that was pathetic inits uniqueness. He wore a superb swallow-tail dress-coat;a gorgeous coat, which was doubtless christened at somehappy wedding (his father’s, I suppose); had walked sideby side with dainty laces; been swept through stately quadrilles,pressed upon velvet, and to-night came to me upona shirtless back, and asked “trust” for a half-dozen newspapers.

It had that seedy, threadbare look which makes broadcloth,after its first season, the most melancholy dress thatsombre ingenuity ever invented. It was scrupulouslybrushed and buttoned close up to the chin, whether to hidethe lack of a shirt, I never in the course of six months’intimate acquaintance had the audacity to inquire. In thesleeve, on which rosy wrists had, in days gone by, laid inloving confidence, a shriveled arm hung loosely, and fromits outlet three decrepit fingers driveled. His hat was old,and fell around his ears.

His breeches, of a whitish material, which had the peculiarityof leaving the office perfectly dirty one evening andcoming back pure and clean the next morning. Whatamount of midnight scrubbing this required from my heroDobbs, I will not attempt to tell. Neither will I guess howhe became possessed of that wonderful coat. Whether inthe direst days of the poverty which had caught him, hisold mother, pitying her boy’s rags, had fished it up fromthe bottom of a trunk where, with mayhaps an orange-wreathor a bit of white veil, it had lain for years, the lasttoken of a happy bridal night, and, baptizing it with her222tears, had thrown it around his bare shoulders, I cannottell. All I know is, that taken in connection with the restof his attire, it was startling in its contrast; and that Ihonored the brave dignity with which he buttoned thismagnificent coat against his honest rags, and strode out tomeet the jeers of the world and work out a living.

FIVE DOLLARS A WEEK.

I knew Dobbs for six months! Day after day I sawhim come at three o’clock in the morning. I saw his paleface, and that coat so audacious in its fineness, go to thepress-room, fold his papers, and hurry out into theweather. One night I stopped him.

“Dobbs,” says I, “how much do you make a week?”

“I average five dollars and twenty cents, sir. I havetwenty-seven regular customers. I get the paper at fifteencents a week from you, and sell it to them at twenty-fivecents. I make two dollars and seventy cents off of them,and then I sell about twenty-five extra papers a morning.”

“What do you do with your money?”

“It takes nearly all of it to support me and mother.”

“You don’t mean to tell me that you and your motherlive on five dollars and twenty cents a week?”

“Yes, sir, we do, and pay five dollars a month rent outof that. We live pretty well, too,” with a smile, possiblyinduced by the vision of some of those luxuries which wereincluded under the head of “living pretty well.” I wascrushed!

Five dollars and twenty-five cents a week! The sumwhich I waste per week upon cigars. The paltry amountwhich I pay almost any night at the theater. The sumthat I spend any night I may chance to strike a half-dozenboon companions. This sum, so contemptible to me—wastedso lightly—I find to be the sum total of the incomeof a whole family—the whole support of two human beings.

I left Dobbs, humiliated and crushed. I pulled my hatover my eyes, strolled down to Mercer’s, and bought a223twenty-five cent cigar and sat down to think over my dutyin the premises.

... One morning the book-keeper of the Herald, towhom my admiration for Dobbs was well known (I havingfrequently delivered glowing lectures upon his characterfrom the mailing table to an audience of carriers, clerks,and printers), approached me and with a devilish smack ofjoy in his voice, says:

“I am afraid your man Dobbs is a fraud. Some time agohe persuaded the clerk to give him credit on papers. Heran up a bill of about seven dollars, and then melted fromour view. We have not seen or heard of him since—expecthe’s gone to trading with the Constitution now, to bilkthem out of a bill.”

This looked bad—but somehow or other I still had a firmfaith in my hero. God had written “honesty” too plainin his face for my confidence in him to be shaken. I knewthat if he had sinned or deceived, that it was starvation ordespair that had driven him to it, and I forgave him evenbefore I knew he was guilty....

About a week after this happened, a bombazine female—oneof those melancholy women that occasionally arise likesome Banquo’s ghost in my pathway, and always, I scarceknow why, put remorse to twitching at my heart-strings—cameinto my sanctum and asked for me.

“I am the mother,” says she, in a voice which sorrow (orsnuff) had filled with tears and quavers—“of Mr. Dobbs, ayoung man who used to buy papers from you. He leftowing you a little, and asked me to see you about it.”

“Left? Where has he gone?”

“To heaven, I hope, sir! He is dead!”

“Dead?”

A CONSCIENTIOUS DEBTOR.

“Yes, sir; my poor boy went last Thursday. He wereall I had on earth, but he suffered so it seemed like a mercy224to let him go. He were worried to the last about a debthe was owin’ of you. He said you had been clever to him,and would think hard ef he didn’t pay you. He wantedyou to come and see him so he could explain as how hewere took down with the rheumatizum, but that were noone to nuss him while I come for you. He had owin’ tohim when he were took, about three dollars, which he havean account of in this little book. He told me with his lastbreath to cullect this money, and not to use a cent tell I hadpaid you, and if I didn’t git enough, to turn you over thebook. I hev took in one dollar and tirty cents, and”—withthe air of one who has fought the good fight—“hereit is!” So saying, she ran her hand into a gash in thebombazine, which looked like a grievous wound, and pulledout one of those long cloth purses that always remindedme of the entrails of some unfortunate dead animal, andcounted out the money. This she handed me with thebook.

I ran my eye over the ruggedly kept accounts and foundthat each man owed from a dime up to fifty cents.

“Why, madam,” says I, “these accounts are notworth collecting.”

“That’s what he was afraid of,” says she, moving towarda bundle that lay upon the floor; “he told me if yousaid so, to give you this, and ask you to sell it if you could,and make your money. It’s all he had, sir, or me, either,and he wouldn’t die easy ’til I told him I wud do it! Godknows”—and the tears rolled down her thin and hollowcheeks—“God knows it were a struggle to promise to giveit up. He wore it, and his father before him. How manytimes it has covered ’em both! I had hoped to carry it tothe end with me, and wrap my old body in it when I died.But it was all we had which was fine, and he wouldn’t rest’til I told him I wud give it to you. Then he smiled aspert-like as a child, and kissed me, and says, ‘Now I amready to go!’ He were a good boy, sir, as ever lived”—andshe rocked her old body to and fro with her grief.Need I say that she had offered me the old dress-coat?225That sacred garment, blessed with the memory of her sonand his father, and which, rather than give up, she wouldwillingly pluck either of the withered arms that hung ather sides from its socket!

I dropped my eyes to the account book again—for whatpurpose I am not ashamed that the reader may guess.

In a few moments I spoke:

“Madam, I was mistaken in the value of these accounts;most of the debtors on this book, I find upon a second look,are capitalists. The $11 worth of accounts will sell for $12anywhere. Your son owed me $7. Leave the book withme; I will pay myself, and here is $5 balance which I handto you. Your son was a good boy, and I feel honored thatI can serve his mother.”

She folded the old coat up and departed.

I kept the book.

It was a simple record of Dobbs’s life. Here ran hisexpense list—a dreary trickle of “bacon” and “meal”and “rent,” enlivened only once with “sugar”; a saccharinesuggestion that I am unable to account for, as itsurely did not comport with either of the staples thatformed the basis of his life. Probably, on some grandoccasion, he and his mother ate it in the lump.

Here were his accounts, of say fifty cents each, on menaccounted responsible in the world’s eye—accounts forpapers furnished through snow, and sleet, and rain! Someof them showed signs of having been called for a dozentimes, being frescoed with such notes as “Call Tuesday,”“Call Wednesday,” “Call Thursday,” etc.

On another page was a pathetic list of delusive linimentsand medicines, with which he had attacked his stubborndisease. Such as, “King of Pane—kored a man in Maryettiin 2 days, $1.00”; “Magic Linament—kores in 10minnits, $2.00 a bottel”; and so on through the whole catalogueof snares which the patent office turns out year afteryear. Poor fellow! the only relief he got from his rackingpains was when God laid his healing hand on him.

I shall keep the book as long as I live.

226In its thumbed and greasy leaves is written the recordof a heroism more lofty and a martyrdom more lustrousthan ever lit the page of book before or since.

I think I shall have it printed in duplicate, andscattered as leaven throughout the lumpy Sunday-schoollibraries of the land.

“HE has been at that for thirteen years.”

And the speaker laughed as he watched an oldman gathering up a bucket of stones and broken bricks.The old man continued his work until his bucket was filled,and then started back toward Spring Street, stopping onthe way to resurrect a rusted old hoop that was nearlyburied in the gutter.

After walking about three blocks he stopped at the cornerof Spring and James streets, and laying the rusty hoopcarefully upon a great heap of hoops of all kinds and sizes,he carried the bucket to the back of his lot, a part ofwhich was considerably lower than the front, and emptiedthe bucketful of bricks and stones.

He was a very old man—about seventy years old, apparently—inhis shirt-sleeves, and wearing a dingy straw hat.He was feeble, too, and his steps were slow, but he stoppedonly to get a drink of water at the back door, and thenambled off with the empty bucket.

The little frame structure is half store and half residence.Just inside the door to the store sat a portly oldlady of sixty or thereabouts. “Who is that old man yonderwith that empty bucket?”

“Him! Why that’s old man Lewis Powell, and he’smy husband. I thought everybody knowed him.”

“Is that all he does?”

“Fill up the lot, you mean? No, no, he puts hoops onbarrels and kegs, and raises calves and such like, but that’shis main business. He’s been at it now for nigh on tofourteen years.”

“And how much has he filled in?”

“Oh, from the sidewalk on back. The lot is fifty by228eighty, and it used to be just one big hole. Now here onSpring Street where the front is, the bank went nearlystraight down ’cause the eye of the sewer was right there.Then the sewer was open and run in a gully the wholelength of the lot, and just about in the middle of the lot.Here on James Street, at the side there, it wasn’t so steep.The front of the old house was about half-way down thebank, and the pillars at the back was over ten feet high.The house wasn’t more’n twelve feet that way, either, soyou can tell how steep it was. And right at the back doorthe sewer passed.”

“How deep was it?”

“Well, right here at the front the city men measured tothe sewer once, and it was a little over twenty feet belowthe sidewalk. The back of the lot was a little lower. Itwas one big hole fifty by eighty, and almost in the bottomof it was the old house.”

“Fourteen years ago.”

“Fourteen years ago we bought it from Jack Smith ontime. It wasn’t much, but me and Jenny and Joe andStella just buckled down and worked like tigers. Theneighbors made fun of us at first, and even the nigg*rsthought it was funny. Now, I aint telling you this becauseI’m stuck up about it, but it just shows what thePowell family has done, and it shows what any poor folkscan do if they just stick at it.”

“Didn’t the old man help?”

“Yes, a little. But we had to live, and then he spentlots of his time a-fillin’ up, so the brunt of the money partfell on me and the children. We bought the mudhole, andhe made the mudhole what it is now. Right here wherethe mudhole was there is a corner lot, and them what usedto laugh at us would like mighty well to own it now.”

And the old lady smiled as though the thought was avery pleasant one.

“Yes, sir,” she continued, “it’s worth a good deal now,and the first thing you know, when the streets get pavedalong here, it will be worth a lot more than it is now.”

229“And the old man?”

“The old man has worked mighty faithful. Little ata time he has fetched dirt, and rocks, and bricks, andtrash. Then the city put a pipe there for the sewer, andhe begun at the sidewalk on Spring Street and filled back.The bank kept getting further and further, and after, Idon’t know how long, we built this little house on thefilled-in part. The old man kept fillin’ back till we’ve gota pretty big back yard; and there’s only a little part leftto fill back there. You see, he never tore up the oldhouse—the patchwork palace of ’77—just throwed inaround it and in it till he has almost buried it.”

“Why?”

“Oh, it’s just a notion of his. He didn’t want to seethe old house tore up, and there it is now, with just theroof stickin’ out. In a little while it will be one levelyard, fifty by eighty, and a corner lot, too. And by thetime it all gets filled up—well, me and the old man is gettin’feeble now, and we won’t last much longer. But, nowthat we are all out of debt, and just enough left to do tokeep the old man’s hand in, it does me good to think ofthat old mudhole, and how we had to save and slave andpinch to pay for it. And I think the old man likes tostand there at the corner and look back how level andsmooth it is, and think how it was done, a handful at atime, through the rain and the snow and the sunshine.Fourteen years! It was a big job, but we stuck to it, andI’m restin’ now, for my work is done. The old man don’twork like he used to, but he says his job aint finished yet,and he keeps fillin’ up.”

“And when his work is done—”

“Then he’ll rest, too.”

THE Threatened Destruction of the Simple Faithof the Fathers by the Vain Deceits of ModernPhilosophers.—An Attack Christians Must Meet.

New York, January 26.—The dread of the times, as Isee it, is the growing skepticism in the leading circles ofthought and action throughout the country—a swellingtide of atheism and unbelief that has already swept overthe outposts of religion.

I am not alarmed by the fact that Henry Ward Beechershook hands with Ingersoll on a public stand, and hassince swung beyond the limit of orthodoxy, any more thanI am reassured by the fact that Stephen H. Tyng has, byindorsing the miracles at Lourdes, swung back into thestronghold of superstition. These are mere personalexpressions that may mean much or little. They may beclassed with the complaint of Dr. Talmage that he foundreligion dead in a circuit of 3000 miles of travel last year,which complaint is balanced by the assertion of Dr. Hallthat the growth of religious sentiment was never sodecisive as at present.

I have noted, in the first place, that the latter-daywriters—novelists, scientists and essayists—are arrayingthemselves in great force either openly on the side ofskepticism, or are treating religious sentiment with areadiness of touch and lack of reverence, that is hardlyless dangerous. I need not run over the lists of scientists,beginning with Tyndall, Huxley and Stephens, that haveraised the banner of negation—nor recount the number of231novelists who follow the lead of sweet George Eliot, thissad and gentle woman, who allied sentiment to positivismso subtly, and who died with the promise on her lips thather life would “be gathered like a scroll in the tomb,unread forever”—who said that she “wanted no futurethat broke the ties of the past,” and has gone to meet theGod whose existence she denied. We all know thatwithin the past twenty years there has been an alarmingincrease of atheism among the leading writers in allbranches. But it is the growth of skepticism among thepeople that has astonished me.

I am not misled by the superb eloquence of Ingersollnor the noisy blasphemy of his imitators. I was with fivejournalists, and I found that every one of them wereskeptics, two of them in the most emphatic sense. In asleeping-car with eight passengers, average people I takeit, I found that three were confirmed atheists, three weredoubtful about it, and two were old-fashioned Christians.A young friend of mine, a journalist and lecturer, askedme a few months ago what I thought of his preparing alecture that would outdo Ingersoll—his excuse being thathe found Ingersoll so popular. I asked Henry Wattersononce what effect Ingersoll’s lectures had on the Louisvillepublic. “No more than a theatrical representation,” wasthe quick reply. Watterson was wrong. I have neverseen a man who came away from an Ingersoll lecture asstout of faith and as strong in heart as he was when hewent there.

I do not know that this spirit of irreligion and unbeliefhas made much inroad on the churches. It is as yetsimply eating away the material upon which the churchesmust recruit and perpetuate themselves. There is a largebody of men and women, the bulk probably of our population,that is between the church and its enemies; notmembers of the church or open professors of religion, theyhave yet had reverence for the religious beliefs, haverespected the rule of conscience, and believed in the existenceof one Supreme Being. These men and women have232been useful to the cause of religion, in that they held allthe outposts about the camp of the church militant, andprotected it with enwrapping conservatism and sympathy.It is this class of people that are now yielding to theassaults of the infidel. Having none of the inspiration ofreligion, and possessing neither the enthusiasm of convertsnor the faith of veterans, they are easily bewildered andovercome. It is a careless and unthinking multitude onwhich the atheists are working, and the very inertia of amob will carry thousands if the drift of the mass oncefloats to the ocean. And the man or woman who rides onthe ebbing tide goes never to return. Religious beliefsonce shattered are hardly mended. The church mayreclaim its sinners, but its skeptics, never.

It is not surprising that this period of critical investigationinto all creeds and beliefs has come. It is a logicalepoch, come in its appointed time. It is one of the penaltiesof progress. We have stripped all the earth of mystery,and brought all its phenomena under the square and compass,so that we might have expected science to doubt themystery of life itself, and to plant its theodolite for ameasurement of the Eternal, and pitched its crucible for ananalysis of the soul. It was natural that the Greek shouldbe led to the worship of his physical gods, for the earthitself was a mystery that he could not divine—a vastnessand vagueness that he could not comprehend. But we havefathomed its uttermost secret; felt its most secret pulse,girdled it with steel, harnessed it and trapped it to ourliking. What was mystery is now demonstrated; whatwas vague is now apparent. Science has dispelled illusionafter illusion, struck down error after error, made plain allthat was vague on earth, and reduced every mystery todemonstration. It is little wonder then that, at last havingreduced all the illusions of matter to an equation, andanchored every theory to a fixed formula, it should assailthe mystery of life itself, and warn the world that sciencewould yet furnish the key to the problem of the soul. Theobelisk, plucked from the heart of Egypt, rests upon a233shore that was as vaguely and infinitely beyond the knowledgeor aspiration of its builders as the shores of a starthat lights the space beyond our vision are to us to-day;the Chinaman jostles us in the streets, and the centuriesthat look through his dreamy eyes have lost all sense ofwonder; ships that were freighted from the heart of Africalie in our harbor, and our market-places are vocal withmore tongues than bewildered the builders at Babel; aletter slips around the earth in ninety days, and the messagesof men flash along the bed of the ocean; we tell thesecrets of the universe as a woman tells her beads, and thestars whirl serenely through orbits that science has defined;we even read of the instant when the comet that plungedin dim illimitable distance, where even the separate starsare lost in mist and vapor, shall whirl again into the visionof man, a wanderer that could not shake off the inexorablesupervision of science, even in the chill and measurelessdepths of the universe. Fit time is this, then, for scienceto make its last and supreme assault—to challenge the lastand supreme mystery—defy the last and supreme force.And the church may gird itself for the conflict! As thePope has said, “It is no longer a rebel that threatens thechurch. It is a belligerent!” It is no longer a shading ofcreed. It is the upsettal of all creeds that is attempted.

It is impossible to conceive the misery and the blindnessthat will come in the wake of the spreading atheism. Theancients witnessed the fall of a hundred creeds, but stillhad a hundred left. The vast mystery of life hung abovethem, but was lit with religions that were sprinkled as starsin its depths. From a host of censers was their air maderich with fragrance, and warmed from a field of altars. Noloss was irreparable. But with us it is different. We havereached the end. Destroy our one belief and we are lefthopeless, helpless, blind. Our air will be odorless, chill,colorless. Huxley, the leader of the positivists, himselfconfesses—I quote from memory: “Never, in the historyof man, has a calamity so terrific befallen the race, as thisadvancing deluge, black with destruction, uprooting our234most cherished hopes, engulfing our most precious creed,and burying our highest life in mindless desolation.” Andyet Mr. Huxley urges on this deluge with furious energy.The aggressiveness of the atheists is inexplicable to me.Why they should insist on destroying a system that is pureand ennobling, when they have nothing to replace it with;why they should shatter a faith that colors life, only toleave it colorless; why they should rob life of all thatmakes life worth living; why they should take away theconsolation that lifts men and women from the despair ofbereavement and desolation, or the light that guides thefeet of struggling humanity, or the hope that robs eventhe grave of its terror,—why they should do all this, andthen stand empty-handed and unresponsive before theyearning and supplicating people they have stripped of allthat is precious, is more than I can understand. The bestatheist, to my mind, that I ever knew, was one who senthis children to a convent for their education. “I cannotlift the blight of unbelief from my own mind,” he said,“but it shall never fall upon the minds of my children if Ican help it. As for me, I would give all I have on earth forthe old faith that I wore so lightly and threw off so carelessly.”

The practical effects of the growth of atheism are tooterrible to contemplate. A vessel on an unknown sea thathas lost its rudder and is tossed in a storm—that’s thepicture. It will not do for Mr. Ingersoll to say that apurely human code of right and wrong can be establishedto which the passions of men can be anchored and fromwhich they can swing with safety. It will not do for himto cite his own correct life or the correct lives of the skepticalscientists, or of leading skeptics, as proof that unbeliefdoes not bring license. These men are held to decency bya pride of position and by a sense of special responsibility.It is the masses that atheism will demoralize and debauch.It is thousands of simple men and women, who, loosedof the one restraint that is absolute and imperious,will drift upon the current of their passions, colliding235everywhere, and bringing confusion and ruin. The vastlygreatest influence that religion has exercised, as far as theworld goes, has been the conservative pressure that it hasput upon the bulk of the people, who are outside of thechurch. With the pressure barely felt and still lessacknowledged, it has preserved the integrity of society,kept the dangerous instincts within bounds, repressed savagery,and held the balance. Conscience has dominatedmen who never confessed even to themselves its power, andthe dim, religious memories of childhood, breathing imperceptiblyover long wastes of sin and brutality, have dissolvedclouds of passion in the souls of veterans. Atheismwill not work its full effect on this class of men. Evenafter they have murdered conscience by withholding thebreath upon which it lives, its ghost will grope throughthe chambers of their brain, menacing and terrible, and tothe last,—

It is on the young men and women—the generation bredin the chill atmosphere of unbelief—that atheism will doits worst. With no traditions in which to guide theirfaith, no altar before which they can do reverence, no idealto which their eyes can turn, no standard lofty enough tosatisfy, or steadfast enough to assure—with no upliftingthat is not limited, no aspiration that has wings, and noenthusiasm that is not absurd—with life but a fever thatkindles in the cradle and dies in the grave,—truly atheismmeets youth with a dread prospect, sullen, storm-swept,hopeless.

In the conflict that is coming, the church is impregnable,because the church is right; because it is foundedon a rock. The scientists boast that they have evolvedeverything logically from the first particles of matter; thatfrom the crystal rock to sentient man is a steady way,marked by natural gradations. They even say that, if anew bulk were thrown off from the sun to-morrow it wouldspin into the face of the earth, and the same development236that has crowned the earth with life would take place inthe new world. And yet Tyndall says: “We have exhaustedphysics, and reached its very rim, and yet a mightymystery looms up before us.” And this mystery is thekindling of the atoms of the brain with the vital spark.There science is baffled, for there is the supreme force thatis veiled eternally from the vision of man.

The church is not bound to the technicalities of argumentin this contest. It has the perfect right to say, andsay logically, that something must rest on faith—that theremust be something in the heart or soul before convictioncan be made perfect. Just as we cannot impress with theecstasies and transports of earthly love a man who hasnever loved, or paint a rainbow to a man who has neverseen. And yet the time has passed when religion can dismissthe skeptic with a shriek or a sneer. I read one littlebook a year ago, gentle, firm, decisive; a book that demonstratedthe necessity and existence of the Supreme Being,as clearly and as closely as a mathematical proposition wasworked out. But the strength of the church is, after all,the high-minded consistency of its members; the warmthand earnestness of its evangelism; the purity and gentlenessof its apostles. If the creeds are put at peace, andevery man who wears the Christian armor will go forth toplead the cause of the meek and lowly Nazarene, whoselove steals into the heart of man as the balm of flowers intothe pulses of a summer evening—then we shall see thehosts of doubt and skepticism put to rout.

Of course I have no business to write all this. It is theprovince of the preachers to talk of these things, and manyno doubt will resent as impertinent even the suggestion ofa worldling. And yet it seems so sure to me that in theswift and silent marshaling of the hosts of unbelief andirreligion there is presaged the supremest test that thefaith of Christians has ever undergone, that I felt impelledto write. There are men, outside of the active workers ofthe church, who have all reverence for its institutions andlove for its leaders; whose hearts are stirred now and then237by a faith caught at a mother’s knee, or the memory ofsome rapt and happy moment; who want to live, if not inthe fold of the chosen, at least in the shadow of theChristian sentiment, and among the people dominated byChristian faith; and who hope to die at last, in the sametrust and peace that moved the dying Shakespeare—wisest,sweetest mind ever clothed in mortal flesh—when he said:“I commend my soul into the hands of God, my Creator,hoping and assuredly believing, through the only merits ofJesus Christ, my Saviour, to be made partaker of life everlasting.”

A VERY TALL STORY.—THE FIRST IMPRESSIONS.—A SIDEVIEW OF SEA-SICKNESS.—THE SIGHT OF THE OCEAN.—LANDAT LAST AND GLAD OF IT.

Philadelphia, Feb. 20, 1876.—The ocean is a greatlyexaggerated affair. About four years ago, my friendCharles I. Graves and myself were sitting on a countryfence, in Floyd County, after the manner of lizards, drinkingin the sunshine, when a wagon containing a small boxwheeled past us. It had hardly got abreast us when myfriend dropped from his comfortable perch as if he wereshot, and rushed to the wagon. Then ensued a remarkablescene. You have all seen a well-bred country dog meeta city dog on some green highway. You know with whathurried circ*mspection he smells the stranger at all points.So did my friend approach the little square box on thewagon. He sniffed at it as if “he would draw his soulthrough his nose.” I examined the ugly little box closely.It was marked

To Mr. Berckmans,

Mont Alto, Near Rome,

Ga., U.S.A.

It was Rhenish wine shipped from Paris.

My friend explained to me, after his rhapsody was over,that the box having been brought across the ocean in thehold of a steamer, retained a subtle scent of bilge-water,that brought the sea with all its dangerous fascination back239to him—he having served all his young life before the mast.He was, at this writing, a plain, staid farmer, contentamong his cattle and clover. And yet that sharp, briny,saline flavor, thrown on the bosom of the still countrybreeze, put a restless devil in his breast. It was as if aborn gallant, exiled for a decade to the heart of some desert,should, near the expiration of his sentence, stumbleupon a cambric handkerchief, redolent with the perfumeof a lady’s boudoir. In less than two years after the sightor rather the smell of that box my friend had sold his plantation,convinced his wife, and gone to the ocean again.Had Dr. Berckmans been content to drink native wine,Mr. Graves would yet be alternating cotton with clover, inthe peaceful valley of the Etowah.

After this strong proof of the fascination that the seahas for its votaries, I achieved a strong desire to try it formyself. It renewed in my mature days the wild ambitionthat put turmoil into my schoolboy life, after I had read“Lafitte, or the Pirate of the Gulf.”

I have longed for many a day to run a “gore” intoeach leg of my pantaloons, roll back my collar, tousle myhair, fold my cloak about my shoulders, and stand beforethe mast in a stiff breeze, and there read Byron with oneeye, and with the other watch the effect of the tableau onthe female passengers.

I never had a chance to gratify the desire until lately. Inever saw the ocean until the trip that results in this letter;I shall never forget the impression it made on me.

I had imagined that it would be a moment of ecstasy.I had believed that my soul, in the glad recognition ofsomething as infinite, as illimitable as itself, would laughwith joy, and leap to my lips, and burn in my fingers, andtingle in my veins. I wisely reserved the first sight untilwe had steamed out beyond the land, and then with theair of one who unchains himself, I raised my head andlooked out to the future. There, as far as the eye couldreach, aye, and way beyond, as if mocking the finiteness ofsight, stretched the blue waters. Ah! how my fine-spun240fancies crumbled and came tumbling back on me in direconfusion! My soul literally shriveled! My very imaginationwas cowed and driven to its corner, and I sat theredumb and trembling!

No tenant of a cradle was ever more simple or more trustingthan I became at that moment. I literally rejoiced inthe abrogation of all the pride and manliness that I hadboasted of two hours before. I flung away my self-dependence,and my soul ran abashed into the hollow of His hand,even as a frightened child runs to its father’s arms. As Ilooked shuddering upon the vast and restless waste ofwaters in front of me, I felt as if some person had takenme to the confines of that time which human calculationcan compass, and holding me on the chill edge of that gulfcalled the Eternal, had asked me to translate its meaning,and pronounce its uttermost boundary.

I suppose the truth of the matter is that I was aboutscared to death; certain it is that I crouched there forhours, trembling, and yet gazing out beyond me upon thelapping waters, from where they parted before our ship towhere they curled up against the half-consenting sky! Atlast I arose, shook myself, as if throwing off some nightmare,and sought the crowd again.

I can never forget how dissonant and inopportune theflippant conversation of the voyagers seemed to me to beat that time. It was as if some revelers should jest andshout in a great church. With the awful abyss in front,and these prattlers to the rear, one had the two extremes.There was God in the deep and awful stillness ahead, andthe world behind in the chatter and gayety that rang out“like a man’s cracked laughter heard way down in hell.”

The first man’s voice that I heard, as I turned away fromthe solemn hush of the Eternal that yawned before us, wasthat of a young fellow who remarked to his chum rhapsodically(evidently alluding to some female acquaintance),“Why, she had a leg on her like a government mule.”These words bit into my memory as if they were cutthere by white-hot pincers.

I believe I have said somewhere in this letter thatmy soul didn’t leap to my lips when I went out to meetthe ocean. I regret to say that my breakfast did. I donot know whether any writer has addressed himself tosea-sickness. I am certain that no writer of sacred or profaneliterature can do it sufficient injustice. Walt Whitmanmight do it. He’s better on the yawp than any poetI know. Never tell me again that hell is a lake of fire andbrimstone. Eternal punishment means riding on a roughsea, in a steamer that don’t roll well, without a copper-bottomedstomach, and a self-acting stop-valve in thethroat. To have been jostled about in a lake of fire wouldhave been real cheerful business compared to the unutterableanguish that I suffered for three days. I do believethat if I had tied a cannon-ball to a crumb of bread andswallowed them both, the crumb would have come prancingto the front again, and brought the cannon-ball with it. Itat last became a sort of dismal joke to send anything down.But this was not what made it so hard to bear. It was theabject degradation that it brought upon me. The absoluteprostration of every mental, moral and physical activity,of every emotion, impulse and ambition; the reduction ofa system that boasted of some nervous power and of excessivetone, to the condition of a wet dish-clout,—these werethe things that made sea-sickness a misery beyond thepower of words. For three days I lay like an old volcano,still, desolate and haggard; but with an exceedingly activecrater. I was brought to that condition which Chesterfieldsays is the finest pitch to which a gentleman can be brought,that sublime pitch of indifference that enables him to hearof the loss of an estate, or a poodle dog, with the same feeling.Nothing disturbs the man who is sea-sick. He blinksin the face of disaster, and yawps at death itself. He actuallylongs for sensation. To stick him with a pin, or dropice down his back, would be a mercy. He spraddles madlyover the ship, flabbing himself like a mollusk over everything242he stumbles on, and knows not night or morning.As far as I was concerned, I was seized with a yawningthat came very near proving fatal. I was taken with alonging to turn myself wrong-side outwards, and hang myselfon the taffrail. Several times I was on the point ofdoing it; but I struggled against it and saved myself.

THE SIGHTS OF THE SEA.

The “sights” of the sea are not what they are crackedup to be. Some writer, Lowell, I believe, who was seducedinto going seaward, had a sovereign contempt for everythingconnected with the sea. With a charming abandon,he says, “A whale looks like a brown paper parcel—thewhite stripes down his back resembling the pack-thread.”It is not hard to bring everything down to this standard.

The very motion of the waves, the cause of rhymesunnumbered, becomes terribly monotonous after the firstday or two. The rise and relapse of the tinted waterglistening in the sun, and blooming lilies on the wave-crest,is a pretty enough sight at first; but before long one longsto shiver the surface of the deep, and calm its eternal restlessness.The waves, wriggling up like a woman’s regretsfrom nowhere, come dragging themselves over the wearywaste, and, plashing back upon each other, spring off onanother uneasy remonstrance, until the brain of the looker-onis actually addled. I would have given a great deal tohave had the power to have settled the upheaving watersfor one hour, just as a schoolboy has the power, and theinclination, too, to break the inexorable calm of a mill-pondby splashing it with rocks. Nothing tires us like sameness;sameness, inactivity, is intolerable.

We saw some flying-fish. And we saw, what I valuedmuch more, on board with us a man who knew a man whosecousin had seen the great sea-serpent. I have a greatrespect for a man who knows somebody that has seen thesea-serpent. He is a link between us and the supernaturalin the ocean. He is a relic, stranded by the shore of science,of that world of wonders that began with the syrens, was243modernized with the mermaids, and that ends in the devil-fishand sea-serpent. While he lives I want to be near him.When he dies I want his tooth set on my mantel-piece; itwill be a sort of guarantee, under which I can read theweird stories of the old, unexplored ocean, that made boyhoodjoyous. Give me the sea-serpent as a fact, and I willswear to the mermaids, bet on the phantom ship, and pinmy faith to the syrens.

THE LOVERS AND THE PILOT.

The intercourse between the passengers was not pleasant.We got tired of each other. The fact that none of us couldget on or off, gave us a sort of feeling that we were prisoners;or, when locked up at night in our berths, that wewere animals traveling in the same menagerie; broughttogether by chance, and held together through necessity.

There was one couple on board that won my attention.It was a man, full-grown, handsome and accomplished, butwith the deep furrows in his brow that always come aftera man has wrestled with the world; and the girl not morethan fifteen years of age. The girl had not worn off thesubtle bloom of childhood that gave her grace and glow, asthe dew-chrism of early dawn graces the lily. She was notbeautiful, after the approved models, but there was anelastic freshness, a bright charm that would have putbeauty to the blush. She was brimming with the splendidand tender divinity that fills the odorous buds just beforethey burst into life’s beauty. She was full of spring. Shecarried its balms about with her, its aroma hung about herskirts, and its auroral light illuminated her very being.She was April, with all its joys and all its happy tears—itsdear restlessness, and its thrills. I marveled to see howthe man of affairs loved her. It annoyed me to see howthis man, with all his vast concerns, his rugged schemes, hisvaulting ambition, bowed down at the feet of a child. Itwas a very miracle of love that centered all the impulses,aspirations, hopes, and endeavors of this man of the worldin a bright slip of a girl. She understood her power, too;244and taking the reins of affairs in her little fingers, carriedherself with a pretty imperiousness. Not always was shemistress, though. Once in awhile I noticed, when he heldher beneath his words, her eyes softened and fell, and shesat half absorbed and trembling, thrilling under an ecstasythat stirred her soul to its very depths, and yet left herunconscious of what it meant or from what it came. Iwatched this couple with a strange interest, and my heartwent out to the child. But beyond this there was nothinginteresting on shipboard. The people were all tame. Theyseemed to have been planted on the ship, and grown there.They were all indigenous; and hence, when the pilot—abreezy fellow, by the way—jumped on board just outside ofNew York, he brought with him the charm of a rare exotic,and actually acquired a sort of game flavor, by being astranger.

SOME CONCLUSIONS NOT JUMPED AT.

Altogether, a trip on the ocean is a very great bore. Itdoes not compare to the cozy and bustling comforts of aninland trip, especially if one have the benefits of a Pullman.

The ocean is meant to be looked at and enjoyed—fromthe shore, or through books. You may see more of it bygoing on board a ship. It is pretty apt to see more of you,though, than you do of it. There are many moments duringthe first day or two, when, leaning over the taffrail,you yawp into its face, that it can see clear through to yourboots. That’s the way it was with

John, Jr.

AN ACCIDENTAL MEETING ON THE STREET, IN WHICH TWOGREAT MEN ARE RECOGNIZED AS THE TYPES OF TWOCLASHING THEORIES—TOOMBS’S SUCCESSES—BROWN’SJUDGMENT.

THE other day I saw two men meet on the street, bowcordially, and pass. I was struck by the contrastbetween them—by the difference in their walk, appearanceand manner. This suggested that the contrast in their lives,in their lineage and their methods, was even greater thantheir physical make-up. And then, forgetting for the momentthat a gubernatorial campaign of great fierceness wasraging, I fell to wondering if there had ever been two masterfulmen whose paths lay near each other, and whose performancewas so nearly equal, who had been born in such dissimilarconditions, and moved by such dissimilar motives.Joe Brown and Bob Toombs! Both illustrious and great—bothpowerful and strong—and yet at every point, andfrom every view, the perfect opposites of each other.

Through two centuries have two strains of blood, twoconflicting lines of thought, two separate theories of social,religious and political life, been working out the two typesof men, which have in our day flowered into the perfectionof contrast—vivid, thorough pervasive. For seven generationsthe ancestors of Joe Brown have been aggressiverebels; for a longer time the Toombs have been dauntlessand intolerant followers of the king and kingliness. Atthe siege of Londonderry—the most remarkable fastingmatch beyond Tanner—Margaret and James Brown, grandparentsof the James Brown who came to America and wasgrandparent of Joe Brown, were within the walls starving246and fighting for William and Mary; and I have no doubtthere were hard-riding Toombs outside the walls chargingin the name of the peevish and unhappy James. Certain itis that forty years before, the direct ancestors of GeneralToombs on the Toombs estate were hiding good KingCharles in the oak at Boscabel, where, I have no doubt, thefather and uncles of the Londonderry Brown, with croppedhair and severe mien, were proguing about the place withtheir pikes, searching every bush, in the name of Cromwelland the psalm-singers. From these initial points sprangthe two strains of blood—the one affluent, impetuous, prodigal,the other slow, resolute, forceful. From these ancestorscame the two men—the one superb, ruddy, fashionedwith incomparable grace and fulness; the other pale,thoughtful, angular, stripped down to bone and sinew.From these opposing theories came the two types—the onepatrician, imperious, swift in action and brooking no stay;the other democratic, sagacious, jealous of rights and submittingto no imposition. The one for the king; the otherfor the people. It does not matter that the elder Toombswas a rebel in Virginia against the fat George, for thatrevolt was kingly of itself, and the Virginian cavaliers wentinto it with love-locks flying and care cast to the winds,feeling little of the patient spirit of James Brown, who, byhis Carolina fireside, fashioned his remonstrance slowly,and at last put his life upon the issue.

Governor Brown and General Toombs started under circ*mstancesin accordance with the suggestions of the foregoing.General Toombs’s father had a fine estate, givenhim by the State of Georgia, and his son had a fine educationand started in life in liberal trim. Governor Brownhad nothing, and for years hauled wood to Dahlonega;and sold vegetables from a basket to the hotel and whatothers would buy. Young Toombs made money rapidly,his practice for the first five years amounting to much over$50,000. He conquered by the grace of his genius, andwent easily from triumph to triumph. Young Brownmoved ahead laboriously but steadily. He made only247about $1200 his first year, and then pushed his practice to$2000 or $3000. He made no brilliant reputation, but neverlost a client, and added to his income and practice. Hisprogress was the result of hard labor and continuous work.He lived moderately and his habits were simple. GeneralToombs has lived in princely style all his life, and hasalways been fond of wine and cards. Both men are rich,and both are well preserved for their time of life. GeneralToombs is seventy-one and Governor Brown fifty-nine.Each had a lucky stroke early in life, and in both casesit was in a land investment. General Toombs boughtimmense tracts of Texas land, of which he has sold perhaps$100,000 profit and still holds enough to yield doubleor treble that much more. Governor Brown, when veryyoung, paid $450 for a piece of land, and afterward solda half interest in a copper mine thereon for $25,000.This he invested in farms, and thus laid the basis of hisfortune.

The first time these men met was in Milledgeville, in1851 or ’52, when Governor Brown was a young DemocraticState Senator and General Toombs was a Whig Congressman—thenthe idol of his party and the most eloquent manin Georgia. They were then just such men physically asone who had never seen them would imagine from readingtheir lives. General Toombs was, as Governor Brownhas told me, “the handsomest man he ever saw.” Hisphysique was superb, his grand head fit for a crown, hispresence that of a king, overflowing with vitality, hismajestic face illumined with his divine genius. GovernorBrown was then pallid, uncomely—his awkward framepacked closely with nerve and sinew, and fed with atemperate flow of blood. They met next at Marietta, whereToombs had a fiery debate with that rare master of discussion,the late Robert Cowart. Governor Brown wasdeeply impressed with the power and genius of that wonderfulman, but General Toombs thought but little of theawkward young mountaineer. For later, when in Texas,hearing that Joe Brown was nominated for Governor, he248did not even remember his name, and had to ask a Georgia-Texan“who the devil it was.”

But the next time he met him he remembered it. Ofcourse we all remember when the “Know-Nothings” tookpossession of the Whig party, and Toombs and Stephensseceded. Stephens having a campaign right on him, andbeing pressed to locate himself, said he was neither Whignor Democrat, but “was toting his own skillet,” thusintroducing that homely but expressive phrase into ourpolitical history. Toombs was in the Senate and had timefor reflection. It ended by his marching into the Democraticcamp. Shortly afterward he was astounded at seeingthe standard of his party, upon the success of which hisseat in the Senate depended, put in the hands of Joe Brown,a new campaigner, while the opposition was led by BenHill, then as now an audacious and eloquent speaker, incomparableon the stump. Hill and Brown had had a meetingat Athens, I believe, and it was reported that Brownhad been worsted. Howell Cobb wrote Toombs that hemust take the canvass in hand at once, at least until Browncould learn how to manage himself. Toombs wrote toBrown to come to his home at Washington, which he did.General Toombs told me that he was not hopeful when hemet the new candidate, but after talking to him awhile,found that he had wonderful judgment and sagacity.After coquetting with Mr. Hill a while, they started on atour together, going to south Georgia. General Toombshas talked to me often about this experience. He says thatafter two or three speeches Governor Brown was as fullyequipped as if he had been in public for forty years, and hewas amazed at the directness with which he would get tothe hearts of the masses. He talked in simple style, usingthe homeliest phrases, but his words went home everytime. There was a sympathy between the speaker and thepeople that not even the eloquence of Toombs could emphasize,or the matchless skill of Mr. Hill disturb. In Brownthe people saw one of themselves, lifted above them by hissuperior ability, and his unerring sagacity, but talking to249them common sense in a sensible way. General Toombssoon saw that the new candidate was more than able totake care of himself, and left him to make his tour alone—impressedwith the fact that a new element had been introducedinto our politics and that a new leader had arisen.

It is hard to say which has been the more successful ofthe two men. Neither has ever been beaten before thepeople. General Toombs has won his victories with themore ease. He has gone to power as a king goes to histhrone, and no one has gainsaid him. Governor Brownhas had to fight his way through. It has been a struggleall the time, and he has had to summon every resource tocarry his point. Each has made unsurpassed records inhis departments. As Senator, General Toombs was notonly invincible, he was glorious. As Governor, was notonly invincible, he was wise. General Toombs’s campaignshave been unstudied and careless, and were won by hispresence, his eloquence, his greatness. His canvass wasalways an ovation, his only caucusing was done on the hustings.With Governor Brown it was different. He plannedhis campaigns and then went faithfully through them.His victories were none the less sure, because his canvasswas more laborious. His nomination as Governor, whileunexpected, was not accidental. It was the inevitable outcomeof his young life, disciplined so marvelously, so fullof thought, sagacity and judgment. If he had not beennominated Governor then, his time would have come at last,just as sure as cause produces result. His record as Governorproves that he was prepared for the test—just as hisbrilliant record in the Senate proves that he is fitted forany sphere to which he might be called.

To sum it up: Toombs is the embodiment of genius, andBrown is the embodiment of common sense. One is brilliant,the other unerring; one is eloquent, the other sagacious.Toombs moves by inspiration; Brown is governed byjudgment. The first is superb; the latter is sage. Despitethe fact that Governor Brown is by instinct and byinheritance a rebel, he is prudent, conservative, and has a250turn for building things up. General Toombs, despitehis love for kingliness and all that implies, has an almostsavage instinct for overturning systems and tearing thingsdown. It must not be understood that I depreciate GeneralToombs’s wisdom. Genius often flies as true to its markas judgment can go. The wisest speech, and the ablest evermade by an American, in my opinion, is Mr. Toombs’sspeech on slavery, delivered in Boston about ten yearsbefore the war. In that speech he showed a presciencealmost divine, and clad in the light of thirty years of confirmation,it is simply marvelous. His leadership of thesouthern Whigs in the House during the contest of 1850 wasa masterpiece of brilliancy, and even his Hamilcar speech,delivered after the most exasperating insults, was sublimein its lofty eloquence and courage. Safer as a leader,Governor Brown is more sagacious on material points—truerto the practical purposes of government: but no manbut Toombs could have represented Georgia as he did forthe decade preceding 1860.

Messrs. Brown and Toombs have disagreed since the war.That Governor Brown may have been wiser in “reconstruction”than Mr. Toombs, many wise men believe, andevents may have proved. In that matter my heart waswith Mr. Toombs, and I have never seen reason to recall it.That Governor Brown was honest and patriotic in hisadvice, my knowledge of the man would not permit me todoubt. The trouble between these gentlemen came verynear resulting in a duel. While I join with all good menthat this duel was arrested, I confess that I have been wickedenough to speculate on its probable result—had it occurred.In the first place, General Toombs made no preparation forthe duel. He went along in his careless and kingly way,trusting, presumably, to luck and quick shot. GovernorBrown, on the contrary, made the most careful and deliberatepreparation. He made his will, put his estate inorder, withdrew from the church, and then clipped all thetrees in his orchard practicing with the pistol. Had theduel come off—which fortunately it did not—General251Toombs would have fired with his usual magnificence andhis usual disregard of rule. I do not mean to imply thathe would not have hit Governor Brown; on the contrary,he might have perforated him in a dozen places at once.But one thing is sure—Governor Brown would have claspedhis long white fingers around the pistol butt, adjusted it tohis gray eye, and sent his bullet within the eighth of aninch of the place he had selected. I should not be surprisedif he drew a diagram of General Toombs, and marked offwith square and compass the exact spot he wanted to hit.

General Toombs has always been loose and prodigal inhis money matters. Governor Brown has been precise andeconomical all his life, and gives $50,000 to a Baptistcollege—not a larger amount probably than General Toombshas dispensed casually, but how much more compact anduseful! This may be a good fact to stop on, as it furnishesa point of view from which the two lives may be logicallysurveyed. Two great lives they are, illustrious and distinguished—utterlydissimilar. Georgia could have sparedneither and is jealous of both. I could write of themfor hours, but the people are up and the flags are flying,and the journalist has no time for moralizing or leisurelyspeculation.

“YOU are the no-countest, laziest, meanest dog thatever wore breeches! Never let me see you again!”

Thus Mrs. Tag to Mr. Tag, her husband; she standingin the door, her arms akimbo, and, cat-like, spitting thewords at him.

Mr. Tag made no reply. He did not even put up hishands in evasion. He stood dazed and bewildered, as onewho hesitates in a sudden shower, and then turning, pulledhis old hat down over his shoulders, as if she was throwingrocks at him instead of words, and shambled off in silence,quickening his retreat by a pitiful little jerk, every timeshe launched a new volley at him.

This she did as often as her brains could forge them andher tongue send them. She stood there, the very pictureof fury. And at length, with disgust on every feature, sheturned, sprawled a weevilly little child that was clingingto her skirts, and went into the house.

As for Mr. Tag, he hurried on, never once looking backuntil he had reached a hill, against which the sun was setting.He then slowed up a little, lifted the flap of his hatcautiously, as if to be sure he was out of ear-shot—thenstopped. He pulled off his hat, shook it to and fro—unconsciously,I think—in his hand as one who comes out of thestorm. He looked about him a while, as if undetermined,and then browsed about vaguely in the sunset, until hisbent, shambling figure seemed melting into the golden glorythat enveloped it; and his round, chubby head was tippedwith light.

253I thought probably he wanted to see me, so I climbedup the hill. He seemed to approve of my coming, andwalked down in the shade to meet me.

“Ann was sorter rough to me, wan’t she?” he said,with a chuckle of deprecation.

I assented quietly to the lack of smoothness in Ann’sremarks.

“You aint know’d me long,” he said, with a suddenflicker of earnestness; “and you’ve knowed the worst partof me. You’ve knowed the trouble and the fa*g-end. Youwarn’t in at the good part of my life!”

I should think not, poor fellow. Ever since I hadknown him he had been the same shabby, good-for-nothingthat he is now. He had grown a bit more serious of late,and his long face—it was abnormally long between the eyesand the chin—had whitened somewhat, but otherwise hewas about the same shabby, ragged, half-starved old fellowI had known for a year or so. Yes, Bob, I had clearlyknown the worst of you!

“I was a better man once; not a better man, either, asI know of, but I had luck. When me and Ann married,there warn’t a happier couple nowhere. I remember justas well when I courted her. She didn’t think about methen as she does now. We had a buggy to ourselves, andwe turned down a shady road. I fetched it on soon afterwe left the crowd, and she was about as well pleased asme. It seemed like that road was the road to heaven, andwe was so happy that we wasn’t in no hurry to get to theend of it. Ann was handsome then. Oh yes, she was!”—asI winced at this,—“and at first as good a wife to me asever a man had.

“It may a-been me that started the trouble. I wasunfortnit in everything I touched. My fingers slipped offo’ everything and everything slipped off o’ them. I couldget no grip on nothin’. I worked hard, but somethingharder agin me. Ann was ambitious and uppish, and Iused to think when I come home at night, most tired todeath, she was gettin’ to despise me. She’d snap me up254and abuse me till actually I was afraid to come home. Inever misused her or give her a back word. I thoughtmaybe she wasn’t to blame, and that what she said aboutme was true. Things kept a-gitten worse, and we sold offpretty much what we had. Five years ago a big surprisecame to us. It was a baby—a boy—him!” nodding towardthe hut. “It was a surprise to both of us. We’d beenmarried fourteen years. It made Ann harder on me thanever. She never let me rest; it was all the time hard wordsand hard looks. I never raised even a look against her, o’course. I thought she was right about me. He never hada cross word with me. Him and me knowed each other fromthe start. We had a langwidge of our own. Ther wasn’t nowords in it—just looks and grunts. I never could git‘nough, nuther could he. He know’d more an’ me. Therwas a kinder way-off look in his eyes that was solemn anddeep, I tell you. At last Ann got to breaking me up.Whenever she catch me with him she’d drive me off. I’dalways hurry off, ’cause I never wanted him to hear her’spressin herself ’bout me. ’Peared like he understoodevery word of it. Mos’t two years ago, and I ain’t had onesince. I couldn’t git one. Ann commenced takin’ in washing,and one day she said I shouldn’t hang around no morea-eatin’ him and her out of house and home. That wasmore’n a year ago, and I seen him since to talk to him.Every time I go about she hustles me about like she did to-day.I never make no fuss. She’s right about me, Ireckon. I am powerful no ’count. But he has stirredthings in me I ain’t felt movin’ for many a year!”

“What’s his name, Bob?”

“Got none. She never would let me talk to her ’boutit, and I ain’t got no right to name him. I ast her oncehow it would do to call him little Bob, and she said I bettergit him sumpin’ to eat; he couldn’t eat a name, nordress in it neither; which was true. But he’s got my oldface on him, and my look. I know that, and he knows ittoo.”

“Did you ever drink, Bob?”

255“Me? You know I didn’t. I did get drunk once. Theboys give me the wine. They say liquor makes a man savage,and makes him beat his wife. It didn’t take me thatway. I was the happiest fellow you ever see. I felt lightand free. My blood was warm, and just jumped along—andbeat Ann? why, all the old love come back to me, as Iwent to’ards home, feelin’ big as a king. I made as howI’d go up to Ann and put arm aroun’ her neck in the oldway, and tell her if she’d only encourage me a little, I’dget about for her and him and make ’em both rich. Icouldn’t hardly wait to get home, I was so full of it. Shewas just settin’ down a pail of water when I come in. Imade for her, gentle like, and had just got my arms to herneck, when she drawed back, with a few words like themthis evening, and dosed the pail of water full in my face.As I scrambled out o’ the door, sorter blind like, I struckthe edge o’ the gulley there, rolled down head over heels,and fotch up squar’ at the bottom, as sober a man as everyou see!”

I met Bob a few days after that in a state of effusivedelight. He would not disclose himself at first. He followedme through several blocks, and at length, divinginto an alley, beckoned me cautiously to him. He tookoff his old hat, always with him a preliminary to conversation,and glancing cautiously around, said in a hoarsewhisper:

“Had a pic-nic to-day.”

“A pic-nic! Who?”

“Me and him!”

And his wrinkled, weather-beaten old face was brokenby smiles and chuckles, that struggled to the surface, asporpoises do, and then shrunk back into the depths fromwhence they came.

“You don’t know Phenice—the neighbor’s gal asnusses him sometimes? Well, I seed her out with him,to-day, and I tolled her off kinder, till she got beyant thehill, and then I give her a quarter I had got, and purposed256as how she should gi’ me a little time with him. Shesciddled off to town to git her quarter spent, and I tookhim and made for the woods, to meet her thar agin,by sun!”

“He’s a deep one, I tell you!” he said, drawing abreath of admiration; “as deep a one as I ever see. He’dnever been in the woods before, but he jest knowed it all!You orter seed him when a jay-bird come and sot on ahigh limb, and flung him some sass, and tried to sorter tomake free with him. The look that boy give him couldn’ta’ been beat by nobody. The jay tried to hold up to itand chaffered a little, but he finally had to skip, the wustbeat bird you ever saw!”

And so the old fellow went on, telling me about thatwonderful pic-nic; how he had gathered flowers for thebaby, and made little bouquets, which the baby receivedwith a critical air, as if he had spent his life in a florist’sshop, and being a connoisseur in flowers, couldn’t affordto become enthusiastic over pied daisies; how a graysquirrel scampering down a near tree had startled him outof his wits, while the baby, seated still nearer the disturbancethan he, remained a marvel of stolidity and presenceof mind; how the baby was finally coaxed out of his wisereserve by a group of yellow butterflies pulsating in thegolden sunshine, and by the flashing of the silvery brookthat ran beneath them; how all the birds in the countyseemed to have entered into a conspiracy to upset thatbaby’s dignity; and how they would assail him withpert bursts of song and rapid curvetings about his head,while Bob sat off at a distance, “and let ’em fight it out,not helping one side or t’other,” always to see the chatterersretire in good-humored defeat before the sereneimpassibility of the youngster; how the only drawback tothe pic-nic was that there was not a thing to eat, andbesides its being in violation of all pic-nic precedent, therewas danger of the little one getting very hungry; andhow, in the evening—what would have been after dinner ifthey’d had any dinner—the baby, who was sitting opposite257Bob on the grass, suddenly assumed an air of deepersolemnity, even than he had worn before, and gazed atBob with a dense and inscrutable gaze, until he wasactually embarrassed by the searching and fixed characterof this look; and how the round, grave head suddenlykeeled to one side as if it were so heavy with ideas that itcould not be held upright any longer; and how then, suddenly,and without a sign or hint of warning, this self-possessedbaby tumbled over in the grass, shot his littletoes upward, and, before Bob could reach him, was deadasleep! And Bob told me then, with the glittering tearsgathering in his eyes and rolling down his old cheeks, howhe had picked the baby up and cuddled him close to hisold bosom, and listened to his soft breathing, and strokedhis chubby face, and almost guessed the wise dreams thatwere flitting through his round fuzzy head,—hugged himso close, and pressed him to his bosom with such hungry,tender love, that he felt as if he had him “layin’ agin’ mynaked heart, and warmin’ it up, and stirrin’ all its stringswith his little fingers!”

It was late that night when I went home—after oneo’clock; a fearful night, too. The rain was pouring in torrentsand the wind howled like mad. Taking a nearcut home, I passed by the hut where Bob’s wife lived.Through the drifting rain, I saw a dark figure against theside of the house. Stepping closer, I saw that it was Bob,mounted on a barrel, flattened out against the planks, hisold felt hat down about his ears, and the rain pouring fromit in streams—his face glued to the window.

Poor old follow! there he was! oblivious to the storm,to hunger and everything else—clinging like some homelessnight-bird, drifting and helpless, to the outside of hisown home; gazing in stealthily at the bed where the littleone slept, and warming his old heart up with the memory ofthat wondrous pic-nic—of the solemn contest with the impertinentjay-bird, and the grave rapture over the butterfliesthat swung lazily about in their rift of sunshine.

258One morning, many months after the pic-nic, Bob cameto me sideways. His right arm hung limp and inert by hisside, and his right leg dragged helplessly after the left.The yielding muscles of the neck had stiffened and drawnhis head awry. He stumbled clumsily to where I wasstanding, and received my look of surprise shamefacedly.

“I’ve had a stroke,” he said. “Paralysis? It’s mostused me up. I reckon I’ll never be able to do anything forhim! It came on me sudden,” he said, as if to say that ifit had given him any sort of notice, he could have dodged it.

After that Bob went on from worse to worse. His face,all save that fixed in the rigid grasp of the paralysis,became tremulous, pitiful and uncertain. He had lost allthe chirrupy good-humor of the other days, and becameshy and silent. There was a wistfulness and yearning inhis face that would have made your heart ache; a hungrypassion had struggled from the depth of his soul, andpeered out of his blue eyes, and tugged at the corners ofhis mouth. There was, too, a pitiful, scary look about him.He had the air of one who is pursued. At the slightestsigh he would pluck at his lame leg sharply, and shambleoff, turning full around at intervals to see if he was followed.I learned that his wife had become even harder onhim since his trouble, and that he was even more than everafraid of her.

He had never had another “pic-nic.” He had snatcheda furtive interview with the baby, under protection of theoccasional nurse, from each of which he came to me with anew idea of the “deepness” of that infant. “He’s toomuch for me, that baby is!” he would say. “If I justhad his sense!” He was rapidly getting shabbier, andthinner and more woe-begone. He became a slink. Hehid about in the day-time, avoiding everybody, and seemingto carry off his love and his passion, as a dog with abone, seeking an alley. At night he would be seen hanginglike a guilty thief about the hut in which his treasurewas hid.

“I’ve a mind,” he said one morning, “to go home. I259don’t think she” (he had quit calling her “Ann” now)“could drive me out now. All I’d want would be to justsit in a corner o’ the house and be with him. That’s all.”

“Bob,” I said to him one morning, “you rascal, youare starving!”

He couldn’t deny it. He tried to put it off, but hecouldn’t. His face told on him.

“Have you had anything to eat to-day?”

“No, sir.”

“Nor yesterday?”

“No, sir.”

I gave him a half-dollar. A wolfish glare of hungershot into his eyes as he saw the money. He clutched itwith a spasm of haste and started off. I watched his side-longwalk down the street, and then went to work, satisfiedthat he would go off and pack himself full.

It was hardly an hour before he came back, his facebrighter than I had seen it in months. He carried a bundlein his live hand. He laid it on my desk, and then fellback on his dead leg while I opened it. I found in thebundle a red tin horse, attached to a blue tin wagon, onwhich was seated a green tin driver. I looked up in blankastonishment.

“For him!” he said simply. And then he broke down.He turned slowly on his live leg as an axis and leanedagainst the wall.

“Could you send it to him?” he said at last. “If sheknew I sent it, she mightn’t let him have it. He’s neverhad nothin’ o’ this kind, and I thought it might peartenhim up.”

“Bob, is this the money I gave you?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And you were starving when you left here?”

“Oh, I got some bread!”

I suppose every man, woman and child remembers thatterrible night three years ago when we had lightning whilethe snow was on the ground. The flashes plowed great260yellow seams through the gray of the day, and at night afreezing storm of sleet and rain came.

It was a terrible night. I staggered home through it towhere a big fire, and blue eyes and black, and slippers, androasting apples were awaiting me. I thought of Bob—myold night-owl, with a heart in him, and wondered whetherhe was keeping his silent, but uncomplaining vigil aboutthe little hut on the hillside. I even went so far as tospeculate on this point with a certain blue-eyed youngsteron my knee, to whom Bob’s life was a romance and awonder.

Bless me! and all the time I was pitying him, I didn’tknow that he had “gone home” and was all right.

His wife slept uneasily that night, as she has since said.She rolled in her sleep a long time, and at last got up andwent to the window and looked out. She shuddered at thesound of the whizzing sleet and pitiless hum of the rain onthe roof. Then she stumbled sleepily back to her couch,and dreamed of a long shady lane, and a golden-greenafternoon in May, and a bright-faced young fellow thatlooked into her heart, and held her face in his soft fingers.How this dream became tangled in her thoughts that nightof all nights, she never could tell. But there it was gleaminglike a thread of gold through the dismal warp and woofof her life.

It was full day when she awoke. As she turned lazilyupon her side she started up in affright. There was a man,dripping wet, silent, kneeling by her bedside. An old felthat lay upon the floor. The man’s head was bowed deepdown over the bed and his hands were bundled tenderlyabout one of the baby’s fists that had been thrown aboveits head.

The worn, weatherbeaten figure was familiar to her.But there was something that stopped her, as she startedforward angrily. She stood posed like a statue for amoment, then bent down, curiously and tenderly, and withtrembling fingers pulled the cover back from the bed, andlooked up into the man’s face steadily. Then she put her261fingers on his hand furtively and shrinkingly. And thena strange look crept into her face—the dream of the nightcame to her like a flash—and she sank back upon the floor,and dropped her head between her knees.

Ah, yes, Bob had “come home.”

And the poor fellow had come to stay. Not even hisplace in the corner would he want now! No place aboutthe scanty board! Just to stay—that was all; not to offendby his laziness, or to annoy with his ugly, shambling figure,and his no-count ways. Just “come home to stay!”

And there the baby slept quietly, all unconscious of theshadow and the mystery that hung above his wise littlehead—unconscious of the shabby old watcher, and thewoman on the floor, dreaming, perhaps, of the swingingbutterflies and the chaffing birds and the brook flashing inthe sunshine. And there was old Bob—brave, at last,through love—“come home.”

Out of the storm like a night-bird! In the doorstealthily like a thief! Groping his way to the bedsidethrough the dark like a murderer! But there was nodanger in him—no ill-omen about him. It was only oldBob, come home, “come home to stay!”

He had clasped the little hand he loved so well in hisrough palm and cuddled it close, as if he hoped to hold italways—fondled it in his hands, as if he hoped to ride hisown life on the spring-tide that gathered in its rosy palm,or to catch that young life in the ebbing billows that wastedfrom his cold fingers. But no; the baby was “too muchfor him!” And the young heart, all unconscious and allperverse, sent the rich blood through the little arm, downthe slender wrist, and into the dimpled fist, where it pulsedand throbbed uneasily, as it broke against the chill, starkpresence of Death!

IT has long been the fortune of the South to deal withspecial problems—slavery, secession, reconstruction.For fifty years has the settlement of these questions engagedher people, and challenged the attention of the world. Asthese issues are set aside finally, after stubborn and bloodyconflict, during which she maintained her position withcourage, and abided results with fortitude, she finds herselfconfronted with a new problem quite as important aseither of those that have been disposed of. In the cultivationand handling, under the new order of things, of theworld’s great staple, cotton, she is grappling with a matterthat involves essentially her own welfare, and is of thegreatest interest to the general public. To the slaveholderthe growing of cotton was straight and easy, as the productof his land was supplemented by the increase of his slaves,and he prospered in spite of himself. To the Southernfarmer of post-bellum days, impoverished, unsettled, andthrown upon free labor, working feverishly with untriedconditions, poorly informed as to the result of experimentsmade by his neighbors, and too impatient to wait upon hisown experience, it is quite a different affair. After sixteenyears of trial, everything is yet indeterminate. Andwhether this staple is cultivated in the South as a profit ora passion, and whether it shall bring the South to independenceor to beggary, are matters yet to be settled.Whether its culture shall result in a host of croppers withoutmoney or credit, appealing to the granaries of theWest against famine, paying toll to usurers at home, andmortgaging their crops to speculators abroad even beforeit is planted—a planting oligarchy of money-lenders, whohave usurped the land through foreclosure, and hold by263the ever-growing margin between a grasping lender and anenforced borrower—or a prosperous self-respecting race ofsmall farmers, cultivating their own lands, living upontheir own resources, controlling their crops until they aresold, and independent alike of usurers and provisionbrokers—which of these shall be the outcome of cottonculture the future must determine. It is certain only inthe present that the vigor of the cotton producers and thepace at which they are moving are rapidly forcing a settlementof these questions, and that the result of the experimentsnow swiftly working out in the South will especiallyconcern a large part of the human race, from the farmerwho plods down the cotton row, cutting through his doubtswith a hoe, to the spinner in Manchester who anxiouslybalances the totals of the world’s crop.

It may be well to remark at the outset that the productionof cotton in the South is practically without limit. Itwas 1830 before the American crop reached 1,000,000bales, and the highest point ever reached in the days ofslavery was a trifle above 4,500,000 bales. The crop of1880-81 is about 2,000,000 in excess of this, and there arethose who believe that a crop of 8,000,000 bales is amongthe certainties of the next few years. The heavy increasein the cotton crop is due entirely to the increase of cottonacreage brought about by the use of fertilizers. Millionsof acres of land, formerly thought to be beyond the possiblelimit of the cotton belt, have been made the best ofcotton lands by being artificially enriched. In North Carolinaalone the limit of cotton production has been movedtwenty miles northward and twenty miles westward, andthe half of Georgia on which no cotton was grown twentyyears ago now produces fully half the crop of the State.The “area of low production” as the Atlantic States arebrought to the front by artificial stimulation is movingwestward, and is now central in Alabama and Florida.But the increase in acreage, large as it is, will be but asmall factor in the increase of production, compared to theintensifying of the cultivation of the land now in use. Under264the present loose system of planting, the average yield ishardly better than one bale to three acres. This could beeasily increased to a bale an acre. In Georgia five baleshave been raised on one acre, and a yield of three bales tothe acre is credited to several localities. President Morehead,of the Mississippi Valley Cotton Planters’ Association,says that the entire cotton crop of the present yearmight have been easily raised in fourteen counties alongthe Mississippi River. It will be seen, therefore, that thecapacity of the South to produce cotton is practically limitless,and when we consider the enormous demand for cottongoods now opening up from new climes and peoples, we mayconclude that the near future will see crops compared towhich the crop of the past year, worth $300,000,000, willseem small.

Who will be the producers of these vast crops of thefuture? Will they be land-owners or tenants—planters orfarmers? The answer to this inquiry will be made by theaverage Southerners without hesitation. “Small farms,”he will say, “well tended by actual owners, will be therule in the South. The day of a land-holding oligarchyhas passed forever.” Let us see about this.

The history of agriculture—slow and stubborn industrythat it is—will hardly show stronger changes than havetaken place in the rural communities of the South in thepast fifteen years. Immediately after the war between theStates there was a period of unprecedented disaster. Thesurrender of the Confederate armies found the plantationsof the South stripped of houses, fences, stock, and implements.The planters were without means or prospects,and uncertain as to what should be done. The belief thatextensive cotton culture had perished with slavery had putthe price of the staple up to thirty cents. Lured by thedazzling price, which gave them credit as well as hope, theowners of the plantations prepared for vast operations.They refitted their quarters, repaired their fences, summonedhundreds of negro croppers at high prices, andinvested lavishly their borrowed capital in what they felt265sure was a veritable bonanza. The few years that followedare full of sickening failure. Planters who had beenprinces in wealth and possessions suddenly found themselvesirretrievably in debt and reduced to beggary.Under the stimulation of high prices the crops grew, untilthere was a tumble from thirty to ten cents per pound.Unable to meet their engagements with their factors, who,suddenly awakening to the peril of the situation, refusedto make further advances or grant extensions, the plantershad no recourse but to throw their lands on the market.But so terrible had been their experience—many losing$100,000 in a single season—that no buyers were found forthe plantations on which they had been wrecked. Theresult of this panic to sell and disinclination to buy was atoppling of land values. Plantations that had broughtfrom $100,000 to $150,000 before the war, and even since,were sold at $6000 to $10,000, or hung on the hands ofthe planter and his factor at any price whatever. The ruinseemed to be universal and complete, and the old plantationsystem, it then seemed, had perished utterly and forever.While no definite reason was given for the failure—freelabor and the credit system being the causes usually andloosely assigned—it went without contradiction that thesystem of planting under which the South had amassed itsriches and lived in luxury was inexorably doomed.

Following this lavish and disastrous period came theera of small farms. Led into the market by the low pricesto which the best lands had fallen, came a host of smallbuyers, to accommodate whom the plantations were subdivided,and offered in lots to suit purchasers. Never perhapswas there a rural movement, accomplished withoutrevolution or exodus, that equalled in extent and swiftnessthe partition of the plantations of the ex-slave-holders intosmall farms. As remarkable as was the eagerness of thenegroes—who bought in Georgia alone 6850 farms in threeyears—the earth-hunger of the poorer class of the whites,who had been unable under the slave-holding oligarchy toown land, was even more striking. In Mississippi there266were in 1867 but 412 farms of less than ten acres, and in1870, 11,003; only 2314 of over ten and less than twentyacres, and 1870, 8981; only 16,024 between twenty and onehundred acres, and in 1870, 38,015. There was thus in thisone State a gain of nearly forty thousand small farms ofless than one hundred acres in about three years. InGeorgia the number of small farms sliced off of the bigplantations from 1868 to 1873 was 32,824. In LibertyCounty there were in 1866 only three farms of less than tenacres; in 1870 there were 616, and 749 farms between tenand twenty acres. This splitting of the old plantationsinto farms went on with equal rapidity all over the South,and was hailed with lively expressions of satisfaction. Apopulation pinned down to the soil on which it lived, madeconservative and prudent by land-ownership, forced toabandon the lavish method of the old time as it had nothingto spare, and to cultivate closely and intelligently as ithad no acres to waste, living on cost as it had no credit,and raising its own supplies as it could not afford to buy—thisthe South boasted it had in 1873, and this manybelieve it has to-day. The small farmer—who was toretrieve the disasters of the South, and wipe out the lastvestige of the planting aristocracy, between which and thepeople there was always a lack of sympathy, by keepinghis own acres under his own supervision, and using hiredlabor only as a supplement to his own—is still held to bethe typical cotton-raiser.

But the observer who cares to look beneath the surfacewill detect signs of a reverse current. He will discoverthat there is beyond question a sure though gradualrebunching of the small farms into large estates, and atendency toward the re-establishment of a land-holding oligarchy.Here and there through all the Cotton States, andalmost in every county, are reappearing the planter princesof the old time, still lords of acres, though not of slaves.There is in Mississippi one planter who raises annually12,000 bales of cotton on twelve consolidated plantations,aggregating perhaps 50,000 acres. The Capeheart estate267on Albemarle Sound, originally of several thousand acres,had $52,000 worth of land added last year. In the MississippiValley, where, more than anywhere else, is preservedthe distinctive cotton plantation, this re-absorbing of separatefarms into one ownership is going on rapidly. Mr.F. C. Morehead, an authority on these lands, says that notone-third of them are owned by the men who held them atthe close of the war, and that they are passing, one afterthe other, into the hands of the commission merchants. Itis doubtful if there is a neighborhood in all the South inwhich casual inquiry will not bring to the front from tento a dozen men who have added farm after farm to theirpossessions for the past several years, and now own fromsix to twenty places. It must not be supposed that thesefarms are bunched together and run after the old plantationstyle. On the contrary, they are cut into even smallerfarms, and rented to small croppers. The question involvedis not whether or not the old plantation methods shall berevived. It is the much more serious problem as to whetherthe lands divided forever into small farms shall be ownedby the many or by the few, whether we shall have in theSouth a peasantry like that of France, or a tenantry likethat of Ireland.

By getting at the cause of this threatened re-absorptionof the small farmer into the system from which he soeagerly and bravely sought release, we shall best understandthe movement. It is primarily credit—a false creditbased on usury and oppression, strained to a point whereit breeds distrust and provokes a percentage to compensatefor risk, and strained, not for the purchase of land, whichis a security as long as the debt is unpaid, but for provisionsand fertilizers, which are valueless to either secure thelender or assist the borrower to pay. With the failure ofthe large planters and their withdrawal from business,banks, trust companies, and capitalists withdraw theirmoney from agricultural loans. The new breed of farmersheld too little land and were too small dealers to commandcredit or justify investigation. And yet they were obliged268to have money with which to start their work. Commissionmerchants therefore borrowed the money from thebanks, and loaned it to village brokers or store-keepers,who in turn loaned it to farmers in their neighborhood,usually in the form of advancing supplies. It thus cameto the farmer after it had been through three principals,each of whom demanded a heavy percentage for the risk heassumed. In every case the farmer gave a lien or mortgageupon his crop of land. In this lien he waived exemptionsand defense, and it amounted in effect to a deed.Having once given such a paper to his merchant, his creditwas of course gone, and he had to depend upon the manwho held the mortgage for his supplies. To that man hemust carry his crop when it was gathered, pay him commissionfor handling it, and accept the settlement that heoffered. To give an idea of the oppressiveness of this systemit is only necessary to quote the Commissioner ofa*griculture of Georgia, who by patient investigation discoveredthat the Georgia farmers paid prices for suppliesthat averaged fifty-four per cent. interest on all theybought. For instance, corn that sold for eighty-nine centsa bushel cash was sold on time secured by a lien at a dollarand twelve cents. In Mississippi the percentage is evenmore terrible, as the crop lien laws are in force there, andthe crop goes into the hands of the merchant, who chargescommission on the estimated number of bales, whether ahalf crop or a full one is raised. Even this maladjustmentof credits would not impoverish the farmer if he did notyield to the infatuation for cotton-planting, and fail toplant anything but cotton.

Those who have the nerve to give up part of their landand labor to the raising of their own supplies and stock havebut little need of credit, and consequently seldom get intothe hands of the usurers. But cotton is the money crop,and offers such flattering inducements that everythingyields to that. It is not unusual to see farmers come to thecities to buy butter, melons, meal, and vegetables. Theyrely almost entirely upon their merchants for meat and269bread, hay, forage, and stock. In one county in Georgialast year, from the small dépôts, $80,000 worth of meat andbread was shipped to farmers. The official estimate of theNational Cotton Planters’ Association, at its session of1881, was that the Cotton States lacked 42,252,244 bushelsof wheat, 166,684,279 bushels of corn, 77,762,108 bushels ofoats, or 286,698,632 bushels of grain, of raising what it consumed.When to this is added 4,011,150 tons of hay atthirty dollars a ton, and $32,000,000 paid for fertilizers, wefind that the value of the cotton crop is very largely consumedin paying for the material with which it was made.On this enormous amount the cotton farmer has to pay theusurous percentage charged by his merchant broker, whichis never less than thirty per cent., and frequently runs upto seventy per cent. We can appreciate, when we considerthis, the statement of the man who said, “The commissionmerchants of the South are gradually becoming farmers,and the farmers, having learned the trick, will becomemerchants.”

The remedy for this deplorable tendency is first theestablishment of a proper system of credit. The greatWest was in much worse condition than the South someyears ago. The farms were mortgaged, and were being soldunder mortgages, under a system not half so oppressive asthat under which the Southern farmer labors. Boston capital,seeking lucrative investment, soon began to pour towardthe West, in charge of loan companies, and was put out ateight per cent., and the redemption of that section wasspeedily worked out. A similar movement is now startedin the South. An English company, with headquartersat New Orleans, loaned over $600,000 its first year at eightper cent., with perfect security. The farmers who borrowedthis money were of course immensely relieved, andthe testimony is that they are rapidly working out. InAtlanta, Georgia, a company is established with $2,000,000of Boston and New York capital, which it is loaning onfarm lands at seven per cent. In the first three months ofits work it loaned $120,000, and it has now appointed local270agents in thirty counties in the State, and advertises thatit wishes to lend $50,000 in each county. The managerssay that they can command practically unlimited capitalfor safe risks at seven per cent. Companies working onthe same plan have been established elsewhere in the South,and it is said that there will be no lack of capital for saferisks on rural lands in a few years.

The first reform, however, that must be made is in thesystem of farming. The South must prepare to raise herown provisions, compost her fertilizers, cure her own hay,and breed her own stock. Leaving credit and usury out ofthe question, no man can pay seventy-five cents a bushelfor corn, thirty dollars a ton for hay, twenty dollars abarrel for pork, sixty cents for oats, and raise cotton foreight cents a pound. The farmers who prosper at theSouth are the “corn-raisers,” i.e., the men who raise theirown supplies, and make cotton their surplus crop. Agentleman who recorded 320 mortgages last year testifiedthat not one was placed on the farm of a man who raisedhis own bread and meat. The shrewd farmers who alwayshave a bit of money on hand with which to buy any goodplace that is to be sold under mortgage are the “corn-raisers,”and the moment they get possession they rule outthe all-cotton plan, and plant corn and the grasses. Thatthe plan of farming only needs revision to make the Southrich beyond measure is proven by constant example. Acorn-raiser bought a place of 370 acres for $1700. He atonce put six tenants on it, and limited their cotton acreageto one-third of what they had under cultivation. Each oneof the six made more clear money than the former ownerhad made, and the rents for the first year were $1126. Theman who bought this farm lives in Oglethorpe, Georgia,and has fifteen farms all run on the same plan.

The details of the management of what may be thetypical planting neighborhood of the South in the futureare furnished me by the manager of the Capeheart estate inNorth Carolina. This estate is divided into farms of fiftyacres each, and rented to tenants. These tenants are271bound to plant fifteen acres in cotton, twelve in corn, eightin small crops, and let fifteen lie in grass. They pay one-thirdof the crop as rent, or one-half if the proprietorfurnishes horses and mules. They have comfortable quarters,and are entitled to the use of surplus herring and thedressings of the herring caught in the fisheries annexed tothe place. In the center of the estate is a general storemanaged by the proprietor, at which the tenants have sucha line of credit as they are entitled to, of course paying apretty percentage of profit on the goods they buy. Theyare universally prosperous, and in some cases, where byskill and industry they have secured 100 acres, are layingup money. The profits to Dr. Capeheart are large, andshow the margin there is in buying land that is looselyfarmed, and putting it under intelligent supervision. Ofthe $52,000 worth of land added to his estates last year, ata valuation of twenty-five dollars per acre, he will realizein rental nine dollars per acre for every acre cultivated, andcalculates that in five years at the most the rentals of theland will have paid back what he gave for it.

Amid all this transition from land-owner to tenant thereis, besides the corn-raiser, one other steadfast figure, undisturbedby change of relation or condition, holding tenaciouslyto what it has, though little inclined to push formore. This is Cuffee, the darky farmer. There is no moreinteresting study in our agriculture than this same dusky,good-natured fellow—humble, patient, shrewd—as he drivesinto town with his mixed team and his one bag of cotton,on which, drawn by a sympathetic sense of ownership, hiswhole family is clustered. Living simply and frugally,supplementing his humble meal with a ’possum caught inthe night hunt, or a rabbit shot with the old army musketthat he captured from some deserted battle-field, and allowingno idlers in the family save the youngsters who “tendde free school,” he defies alike the usurer and the land-shark.In the State of Georgia he owns 680,000 acres ofland, cut up into farms that barely average ten acres each,and in the Cotton States he owns 2,680,800 acres, similarly272divided. From this possession it is impossible to drivehim, and to this possession he adds gradually as the seasonsgo by. He is not ambitious, however, to own large tractsof land, preferring the few acres that he has constantlyunder his eye, and to every foot of which he feels a rudeattachment.

The relations of the negro to cotton are peculiar.Although he spends the most of his life in the cotton field,and this staple is the main crop with which he is concerned,it does not enter into his social life, catch his sentiment,or furnish the occasion for any of his pleasures. None ofhis homely festivals hinge upon the culture or handling ofthe great staple. He has his corn-shuckings, his log-rollings,his quilting bees, his threshing jousts, and indeedevery special work about the farm is made to yield its elementof frolic, except the making of cotton. None of thosetuneful melodies with which he beguiles his work or gladdenshis play-time acknowledge cotton as a subject or anincident. None of the folklore with which the moonlightnights are whiled away or the fire-lit cabins sanctified, andwhich finds its home in the corn patch or the meadows, hasaught to do with the cotton field. I have never heard anegro song in which the cotton field is made the incidentaltheme or the subject of allusion, except in a broken perversionof that incomparable ballad, “The Mocking-Bird,”in which the name of the heroine, the tender sentiment,and the tune, which is a favorite one with the negroes, arepreserved. This song, with the flower of Southern girlhoodthat points the regretful tenderness changed into adusky maiden idealized by early death, with the “mocking-birdsinging o’er her grave,” and sung in snatchesalmost without words or coherence, is popular with thefield hands in many parts of the South.

But when we have discussed the questions involved inthe planting and culture of the cotton crop, as serious asthey are, we have had to do with the least important phaseof our subject. The crop of 7,000,000 bales, when readyfor the market, is worth in round numbers $300,000,000.273The same crop when manufactured is worth over $900,000,000.Will the South be content to see the whole ofthis added value realized by outsiders? If not, how muchof the work necessary to create this value will she do withinher own borders? She has abundant water-powers, thatare never locked a day by ice or lowered by drought, thatmay be had for a mere song; cheap labor, cheap lands, anunequaled climate, cheap fuel, and the conditions of cheapliving. Can these be utilized to any general extent?

It may be premised that there are questions of theutmost importance to the South outside of the manufactureof the lint, which is usually held to cover the whole questionof cotton manufacture. There is no particle of thecotton plant that may not be handled to advantage. Mr.Edward Atkinson is authority for the statement that if aplant similar to cotton, but having no lint, could be grownin the North, it would be one of the most profitable ofcrops. And yet it is true that up to a late date the seedof the cotton has been wholly wasted, and even now thestalk is thrown away as useless. A crop of 7,000,000 baleswill yield 3,500,000 tons of cotton seed. Every ounce of thisseed is valuable, and in the past few years it has been sohandled as to add very heavily to the value of the crop.The first value of the seed is as a fertilizer. It has beendiscovered of late that the seed that had been formerlyallowed to accumulate about the gin-houses in vast pilesand rot as waste material, when put upon the fields wouldadd twenty-five to thirty-three per cent. to the crop, andwas equal to many of the fertilizers that sell in the marketfor $25 per ton. In 1869 a mill was established in NewOrleans for the purpose of pressing the oil from the cottonseed, and manufacturing the bulk into stock food. Itssuccess was so pronounced that there are now fifty-nineseed-oil mills in the South, costing over $6,000,000, andworking up $5,500,000 worth of seed annually. The productof the seed used sells for $9,600,000, so that the millscreate a value of $4,500,000 annually. They used only one-seventhof the seed produced in the South. A ton of seed274which can be worked for $5.50 a ton, and cost originally$8 to $10, making an average cost when worked of $15, isestimated to produce thirty-five gallons of oil worth $11.50,seed-cake worth $5.50, and lint worth $1.50—a total of$18.50, or profit of $3.50, per ton. The oil is of excellentquality, and is used in the making of soaps, stearine, whiteoils, and when highly refined is a table oil of such flavorand appearance as will deceive the best judges. A qualityhas been lately discovered in it that makes it valuable as adye-stuff. It is shipped largely to Europe, 130,000 barrelshaving been exported last year, chiefly to Antwerp. It isput up carefully, and re-shipped to this country as olive-oilto such an extent that prohibitory duties have been puton it by the Italian government, and it is ruled out of thatcountry. Before it is placed in the oil mill the cotton seedis hulled. The hulls are valuable, and may be used fortanning, made into pulp for paper stock, or used as fuel,and the ashes sold to the soap-makers for the potash theycontain. The mass of kernels left after the hulls have beenremoved and the oil pressed out is made into seed-cake, amost desirable food for stock, which is exported largely toEurope. It is also worked into a fertilizer that yieldsunder analysis $37.50 in value per ton, and can be sold for$22 a ton. It is a notable fact that the ton of seed-cake iseven more valuable as a stock food after the $11.50 worthof oil has been taken from it than before, and quite as valuableas a fertilizer. In the four hundred pounds of lintin a bale of cotton there are but four pounds of chemicalelements taken from the soil; in the oil there is little more;but in the seed-cake and hulls there are forty pounds ofpotash and phosphate of lime. But admirable as is thedisposition of the cotton seed for manufacture, ample as isthe margin of profit, and rapid as has been the growth inthe industry, there exists the same disorganization that isnoticeable in the handling of the whole cotton question.Although less than one-seventh of the seed raised is neededby the mills, they are unable to get enough to keep themrunning. The cotton is ginned in such awkward distribution,275and in such small quantity at any one locality, thatit cannot be gathered promptly or cheaply enough for theoil mills. Of the 3,500,000 tons of seed, 500,000 tons onlyare worked up, and perhaps as much more used for seed.This leaves 2,500,000 tons not worked, and in which is lostnearly $30,000,000 worth of oil. For whether this two anda half million tons is used as a fertilizer or fed to the stock,it would lose none of its value for either purpose if thethirty-five gallons of oil, worth $11.50, were extracted fromeach ton of it.

Even when the South has passed beyond the properhandling of cotton seed, she has very important ground tocover before she arrives at what is generally known as cottonmanufacturing. “The manufacture of this staple,”says a very eminent authority, “is a unit, beginning at thefield where the cotton is picked, and ending at the factoryfrom which the cloth is sent to the merchant.” How littlethis essential truth has been appreciated is apparent fromthe fact that, until the last census, ginning, pressing, andbaling have been classed with the “production” of cotton,and its manufacture held to consist solely of spinning andweaving. Yet there is not a process to which the lint issubmitted after it is thrown from the negro’s “pocket”that does not act directly on the quality of the cloth thatis finally produced, and on the cheapness and efficiencywith which the cloth is made. The separation of the fibrefrom the seed, the disposition made of the fluffy lint beforeit is compressed, the compression itself, and the baling ofthe compressed cotton—these are all delicate operations,involving the integrity of the fibre, the cost of getting itready for the spindle, and the ease with which it may bespun. Indeed, Mr. Hammond, of South Carolina, a mostaccomplished writer, contends that the gin-house is thepivotal point around which the whole manufacture of cottonrevolves. There is no question that with one-tenth of themoney invested in improved gins, cleaners, and pressersthat would be required for factories, and with incomparablyless risk, the South could make one-half the profit, pound276for pound, that is made in the mills of New England. Mr.F. C. Morehead, already alluded to in this article, says:“A farmer who produces 500 bales of cotton—200,000pounds—can, by the expenditure of $1500 on improved ginsand cleaners, add one cent per pound to the value of hiscrop, or $2000. If he added only one-half of one cent, hewould get in the first year over fifty per cent. return of hisoutlay.” Mr. Edward Atkinson—to close this list ofauthorities—says that the cotton crop is deteriorated tenper cent. at least by being improperly handled from thefield to the factory. It is, of course, equally true that areform in this department of the manufacture of cottonwould add ten per cent. to the value of the crop—say$30,000,000—and that, too, without cost to the consumer.Much of the work now done in the mills of New England isoccasioned by the errors committed in ginning and packing.Not only would the great part of the dust, sand, and gritthat get into cotton from careless handling about the gin-housebe kept out if it were properly protected, but thatwhich is in the fibre naturally could be cleaned out moreefficiently and with one-third the labor and cost, if it weretaken before it has been compressed and baled. Beyondthis, the excessive beating and tearing of the fibre necessaryto clean it after the sand has been packed in, weakenand impair it, and the sand injures the costly and delicatemachinery of the mills.

The capital available to the farmers of any neighborhoodin the South is entirely adequate to make thoroughreform in this most important, safest, and most profitabledepartment of the manufacture of cotton. A gin-houseconstructed on the best plan, supplied with the new rollergins lately invented in England, that guarantee to surpassin quantity of cotton ginned as well as quality of lint ourrude and imperfect saw gins, having automatic feeders topass the picking to the gin, and an apron to receive thelint as it comes from the gin and carry it to the beater, orcleaner, where all the motes and dust can be taken fromthe freshly ginned fibre and then, instead of rolling this277fleecy mass on a dirty floor, where it would catch everyparticle of dust and grit, to carry it direct to a Dedrickpress that would compress forty pounds within a cubicfoot, and reduce the little bale of one hundred and twentypounds to the consistency of elm-wood, and as little liableto soak water or catch dirt—an establishment of this sortwould add one cent per pound to every pound of cotton putthrough it, and would be worth more as an example than adozen cotton factories. Annexed to this gin-house shouldbe a huller to take the hulls from the seed and to thishuller the seed should be taken as it comes from the gins.Once hulled, the hulls should be fed to the stock, restoredto the soil, or sold, and the kernels sent to the nearest oilmill, the oil sold, and the meal fed to sheep or stock, orused as a fertilizer. These improvements, costing little,and within the skill of ordinary laborers, would bring asgood a profit as could be realized by a factory involvingenormous outlay, great risk, and the utmost skill of management.The importance of reform here will be seen whenwe state that there is half as much capital—say $70,000,000—investedin machinery for baling, pressing, and ginningcotton as there is invested in the United States inmachinery for weaving and spinning it. So great has beenthe progress in invention, and so sluggish the cotton farmerto reform either his methods or his machinery, that expertsagree that the ginning, pressing, and baling of the cropcould be done with one-half or possibly one-third of thelabor and cost of the present, and done so much better thatthe product would be worth ten per cent. more than it nowcommands, if the best machinery were bought, and thebest methods employed.

The urgency and the magnitude of the reforms neededin the field and about the gin-house have not deterred theSouth from aspiring to spin and weave at least the bulkof the cotton crop. Indeed, there is nothing that so appealsto Southern pride as to urge the possibility that in timethe manufacture of this crop as well as the crop itself shallbe a monopoly of the cotton belt. As the South grows278richer and the conditions of competition are nearer equal,there will be a tendency to place new machinery intendedfor the manufacture of cotton near the field in which thestaple is growing; but the extent to which this tendencywill control, or the time in which it will become controlling,is beyond the scope of this article. We shall ratherdeal with things as they are, or are likely to be in the verynear future. We note, then, that in the past ten years theSouth has more than doubled the amount of cotton manufacturedwithin her borders. In 1870, there were used45,032,866 pounds of cotton; in 1880, 101,937,256 pounds.In 1870, there were 11,602 looms and 416,983 spindles running;in 1880, 15,222 looms and 714,078 spindles. Thisarray of figures hardly indicates fairly the progress thatthe South will make in the next ten years, for the reasonthat the factories in which these spindles are turned areexperiments in most of the localities in which they areplaced. It is the invariable rule that when a factory isbuilt in any city or country it is easier to raise the capitalfor a subsequent enterprise than for the first one. AtAugusta, Georgia, for instance, where the manufacture ofcloth has been demonstrated a success, the progress isremarkable. In the past two years two new mills, theEnterprise and Sibly, with 30,000 spindles each, have beenestablished; and a third, the King, has been organized,with a capital of $1,000,000 and 30,000 spindles. The capitalfor these mills was furnished about one-fourth inAugusta, and the balance in the North. With these millsrunning, Augusta will have 170,000 spindles, and will haveadded about 70,000 spindles to the last census returns. InSouth Carolina the same rapid growth is resulting from theestablishment of one or two successful mills; and in Columbus,Georgia, the influence of one successful mill, theEagle and Phœnix, has raised the local consumption ofcotton from 1927 bales in 1870 to 19,000 bales in 1880. InAtlanta, Georgia, the first mill had hardly been finishedbefore the second was started; a third is projected; andtwo companies have secured charters for the building of a279forty-mile canal to furnish water-power and factory frontsto capital in and about the city. These things are mentionedsimply to show that the growth of cotton manufacturein the South is sympathetic, and that each factoryestablished is an argument for others. There is no investmentthat has proved so uniformly successful in the Southas that put into cotton factories. An Augusta factory justadvertises eight per cent. semi-annual dividend; the Eagleand Phœnix, of Columbus, earned twenty-five per cent.last year; the Augusta factory for eleven years made anaverage of eighteen per cent. per annum. The net earningsof the Langley Mills was $480,000 for its first eight yearson a capital of $400,000, or an average of fifteen per cent.a year. The earnings of sixty Southern mills, large andsmall, selected at random, for three years, averaged fourteenper cent. per annum.

Indeed, an experience varied and extended enough togive it authority teaches that there is absolutely no reasonwhy the South should not profitably quadruple its capacityfor the manufacture of cotton every year in the next fiveyears except the lack of capital. The lack of skilled laborhas proved to be a chimerical fear, as the mills bring enoughof skilled labor to any community in which they are establishedto speedily educate up a native force. It may betrue that for the most delicate work the South will for awhile lack the efficient labor of New England that has beentrained for generations, but it is equally true that no factoryin the South has ever been stopped a week for thelack of suitable labor. The operatives can live cheaperthan at the North, and can be had for lower wages. Assensible a man as Mr. Edward Atkinson claimed lately thatin the cotton country proper a person could not keep atcontinuous in-door labor during the summer. The answerto this is that during the present summer, the hottest everknown, not a Southern mill has stopped for one day orhour on account of the heat, and this, too, when scores ofestablishments through the Western and Northern citieswere closed. One of the strongest points of advantage the280South has is that for no extreme of climate, acting on themachinery, the operatives, or the water-supply, is any ofher mills forced to suspend work at any season. Beyondthis, Southern water-powers can be purchased low, and theland adjacent at a song; there are no commissions to payon the purchase of cotton, no freight on its transportation,and it is submitted to the picker before it has undergoneserious compression. Mr. W. H. Young, of Columbus,perhaps the best Southern authority, estimates that theColumbus mills have an advantage of nine-tenths of a centper pound over their Northern competitors, and this in amill of 1600 looms will amount to nine per cent. on theentire capital, or $120,099. The Southern mills, withoutexception, pulled through the years of depression thatfollowed the panic of 1873, paying regular dividends offrom six per cent. to fifteen, and, it may be said, havethoroughly won the confidence of investors North andSouth. The one thing that has retarded the growth ofmanufacturing in the Cotton States, the lack of capital, isbeing overcome with astonishing rapidity. Within the pasttwo years considerably over $100,000,000 of Northern capitalhas been subscribed, in lots of $1,000,000 and upward, forthe purchase and development of Southern railroads andmining properties; the total will probably run to $120,000,000.There is now being expended in the building ofnew railroads from Atlanta, Georgia, as headquarters,$17,800,000, not one dollar of which was subscribed byGeorgians or by the State of Georgia. The men whoinvest these vast amounts in the South are interestedin the general development of the section into whichthey have gone with their enterprise, and they readilydouble any local subscription for any legitimate localimprovement. By the sale of these railroad properties toNorthern syndicates at advanced prices the local stockholdershave realized heavily in cash, and this surplus isseeking manufacturing investment. The prospect is thatthe next ten years will witness a growth in this directionbeyond what even the most sanguine predict.

281The International Cotton Exposition, opening October 5,of the present year, in Atlanta, must have a tremendousinfluence in improving the culture, handling, and manufactureof the great staple of the South. The Southernpeople do not lack the desire to keep abreast with improvementand invention, but on the contrary have shown precipitateeagerness in reaching out for the best and newest.Before the war, when the Southern planter had a little surplusmoney he bought a slave. Since the war, he buys apiece of machinery. The trouble has been that he wasforced to buy without any guide as to the value of what hebought, or its adaptability to the purposes for which heintended it. The consequence is that the farms are litteredwith ill-adapted and inferior implements and machines,representing twice the investment that, intelligently placed,would provide an equipment that with half the labor woulddo better work. It is the purpose of the exposition tobring the farmers face to face with the very best machinerythat invention and experience have produced. The buildingsthemselves will be models each of its kind, and willrepresent the judgment of experts as to cheapness, durability,safety and general excellence. The past andpresent will be contrasted in the exhibition. The old loomon which the rude fabrics of our forefathers were wovenby hands gentle and loving will be put against the moreelaborate looms of to-day. The spinning wheel of the past,that filled all the country-side with its drowsy music, asthe dusky spinner advanced and retreated, with not ungracefulcourtesy and a swinging sidewise shuffle, will findits sweet voice lost in the hum of modern spindles. Thecycle of gins and ginning will be there completed, inventioncoming back, after a half-century of trial with the brutalsaw, to a perfected variation of the patient and gentleroller with which the precious fleece was pulled from theseed years upon years ago. There are the most wonderfulmachines promised, including a half-dozen that claim tohave solved the problem—supposed to be past finding out—ofpicking cotton by machinery. Large fields flank the282buildings, and on these are tested the various kinds of cottonseed, fed by the various kinds of fertilizers, each put infair competition with the others.

One of the most important special inventions at theexposition will be the Clement attachment—a contrivancefor spinning the cotton as it comes from the gin. Theinvention is simply the marriage of the gin to the spindle.These are joined by two large cards that take the fibre fromthe gin, straighten it out, and pass it directly to the spinningboards, where it is made into the best of yarns. Theannouncement of this invention two years ago created verygreat excitement. If it proved a success, the whole systemof cotton manufacture was changed. If the cottoncould be spun directly from the gin, all the expense ofbaling would be eliminated, and four or five expensivesteps in the process of cotton from field to cloth would berendered unnecessary. Better than all, the South argued,the Clement attachment brought the heaviest part of manufacturingto the cotton field, from which it could neverbe divorced. By the simple joining of the spindles to thegin, the cotton, worth only eight or nine cents as baledlint, in which shape it had been shipped North, becameworth sixteen to eighteen cents as yarns. The home valueof the crop was thus to be doubled, and by such process asNew England could never capture. Several of the attachmentswere put to work, and were visited by thousands.They produced an excellent quality of yarns, and made aclear profit of two cents per pound on the cotton treated.The investment required was small, and it was held that$5000 would certainly bring a net annual profit of $2200.Many of these little mills are still running, and profitably;but difficulties between the owner and his agents, and ageneral suspicion raised by his declining to put the machineon its merits before certain agricultural associations, preventedits general adoption. That this attachment, orsome machine of similar character for spinning thecotton into yarns near the field where it is grown, will begenerally adopted through the South in the near future, I283have not a particle of doubt; that the exposition with itsparticular exhibits on this point will hasten the day, thereis every reason to hope. There are many yarn mills alreadyscattered through the South, but none of them promise theresults that will be achieved when the spindles are weddedto the gin, and the same motive power drives both, carryingthe cotton without delay or compression from seed tothread.

Such, then, in brief and casual review, is King Cotton,his subjects, and his realm. Vast as his concerns and possessionsmay appear at present, they are but the hint ofwhat the future will develop. The best authority puts theamount of cotton goods manufactured in America at aboutfourteen pounds per head of population, of which twelvepounds per capita are retained for home consumption,leaving only a small margin for export. On the Continentthere is but one country, probably—Switzerland—thatmanufactures more cotton goods than it consumes; andthe Continent demands from Great Britain an amount ofcotton cloth that, added to its own supply, exhausts nearlyone-half the product of the English mills. It is hardlyprobable that, under the sharp competition of Americanmills, the capacity of either England or the Continent forproducing ordinary cotton cloths will be greatly increased.But, with the yield of the English and Continental millsat least measurably defined and now rapidly absorbed,there is an enormous demand for machine-made cottonfabrics springing from new and virtually exhaustlesssources. The continents of Asia, Africa, South America,Australia, and the countries lying between the two Americancontinents, contain more than 800,000,000 people,according to general authority. This immense populationis clothed in cotton almost exclusively, and almost asexclusively in hand-made fabrics. That the cheap andsuperior products of the modern factory will displacethese hand-made goods as rapidly as they can be deliveredupon competing terms, cannot be doubted. To supplyChina alone with cotton fabrics made by machine, deducting284the 35,000,000 people or thereabout already supplied,and estimating the demand of the remainder at five poundsper capita, would require 3,000,000 additional bales ofcotton and 30,000,000 additional spindles. The goodsneeded for this demand will be the lower grades of cottons,for the manufacture of which the South is especiallyadapted, and in which there is serious reason to believeshe has demonstrated she has advantages over NewEngland. The demand from Mexico, Central and SouthAmerica, will grow into immense proportions as cotton andits products cheapen under increased supply, and improvedmethods of culture and manufacture. The South will becalled upon to furnish the cotton to meet the calls of thepeoples enumerated. That she can easily do so has beenmade plain by previous estimate, but it may be added thathardly three per cent. of the cotton area is now devoted tocotton, and that on one-tenth of a single Cotton State—Texas—doublethe present crop might be raised. Whetheror not she will do this profitably, and without destroyingthe happiness and prosperity of her former population, andbuilding up a land-holding oligarchy, depends on a reformin her system of credit and her system of planting. Thefirst is being effected by the introduction of capital thatrecognizes farming lands as a safe risk worthy of a lowpercentage of interest; the latter must depend on theintelligence of her people, the force of a few bright examples,and the wisdom of her leaders. She will be calledupon to supply a large proportion of the manufacturedgoods for this new and limitless demand. It has alreadybeen shown that she has felicitous conditions for thiswork.

IT is strange that during the discussion of the negro question,which has been wide and pertinent, no one hasstood up to speak the mind of the South. In this discussionthere has been much of truth and more of error—somethingof perverseness, but more of misapprehension—not alittle of injustice, but perhaps less of mean intention.

Amid it all, the South has been silent.

There has been, perhaps, good reason for this silence.The problem under debate is a tremendous one. Its rightsolution means peace, prosperity, and happiness to theSouth. A mistake, even in the temper in which it isapproached or the theory upon which its solution isattempted, would mean detriment, that at best would beserious, and might easily be worse. Hence the South haspondered over this problem, earnestly seeking with all hermight the honest and the safe way out of its entanglements,and saying little because there was but little to which shefelt safe in committing herself. Indeed, there was anotherreason why she did not feel called upon to obtrude heropinions. The people of the North, proceeding by the rightof victorious arms, had themselves undertaken to settle thenegro question. From the Emancipation Proclamation tothe Civil Rights Bill they hurried with little let or hindrance,holding the negro in the meanwhile under a sort oftutelage, from part in which his former masters were practicallyexcluded. Under this state of things the South hadlittle to do but watch and learn.

We have now passed fifteen years of experiment. Certainbroad principles have been established as wise and just.

286The South has something to say which she can say withconfidence. There is no longer impropriety in her speakingor lack of weight in her words. The people of the UnitedStates have, by their suffrages, remitted to the Southernpeople, temporarily at least, control of the race question.The decision of the Supreme Court on the Civil Rights Billleaves practically to their adjustment important issues thatwere, until that decision was rendered, covered by straightand severe enactment. These things deepen the responsibilityof the South, increase its concern, and confront itwith a problem to which it must address itself promptlyand frankly. Where it has been silent, it now shouldspeak. The interest of every American in the honorableand equitable settlement of this question is second only tothe interest of those specially—and fortunately, we believe—chargedwith its adjustment. “What will you do withit?” is a question any man may now ask the South, and towhich the South should make frank and full reply.

It is important that this reply shall be plain and straightforward.Above all things it must carry the genuine convictionsof the people it represents. On this subject and atthis time the South cannot afford to be misunderstood.Upon the clear and general apprehension of her positionand of her motives and purpose everything depends. Shecannot let pass unchallenged a single utterance that, spokenin her name, misstates her case or her intention. It is toprotest against just such injustice that this article iswritten.

In a lately printed article, Mr. George W. Cable, writingin the name of the Southern people, confesses judgmenton points that they still defend, and commits them to a lineof thought from which they must forever dissent. In thisarticle, as in his works, the singular tenderness and beautyof which have justly made him famous, Mr. Cable is sentimentalrather than practical. But the reader, enchainedby the picturesque style and misled by the engaging candorwith which the author admits the shortcomings of “Weof the South,” and the kindling enthusiasm with which he287tells how “We of the South” must make reparation, is aptto assume that it is really the soul of the South that breathesthrough Mr. Cable’s repentant sentences. It is not my purposeto discuss Mr. Cable’s relations to the people for whomhe claims to speak. Born in the South, of Northern parents,he appears to have had little sympathy with his Southernenvironment, as in 1882 he wrote, “To be in New Englandwould be enough for me. I was there once,—a year ago,—andit seemed as if I had never been home till then.” Itwill be suggested that a man so out of harmony with hisneighbors as to say, even after he had fought side by sidewith them on the battle-field, that he never felt at homeuntil he had left them, cannot speak understandingly oftheir views on so vital a subject as that under discussion.But it is with his statement rather than his personality thatwe have to deal. Does he truly represent the South? Wereply that he does not! There may be here and there inthe South a dreaming theorist who subscribes to Mr. Cable’steachings. We have seen no signs of one. Among thethoughtful men of the South,—the men who felt that allbrave men might quit fighting when General Lee surrendered,—who,enshrining in their hearts the heroic memoriesof the cause they had lost, in good faith accepted the arbitramentof the sword to which they had appealed,—whobestirred themselves cheerfully amid the ruins of theirhomes, and set about the work of rehabilitation,—who havepatched and mended and builded anew, and fashioned outof pitiful resource a larger prosperity than they ever knewbefore,—who have set their homes on the old red hills, andstaked their honor and prosperity and the peace and well-beingof the children who shall come after them on the clearand equitable solution of every social, industrial, or politicalproblem that concerns the South,—among these men,who control and will continue to control, I do know, thereis general protest against Mr. Cable’s statement of the case,and universal protest against his suggestions for the future.The mind of these men I shall attempt to speak, maintainingmy right to speak for them with the pledge that, having288exceptional means for knowing their views on this subject,and having spared no pains to keep fully informedthereof, I shall write down nothing in their name on whichI have found even a fractional difference of opinion.

A careful reading of Mr. Cable’s article discloses thefollowing argument: The Southern people have deliberatelyand persistently evaded the laws forced on them forthe protection of the freedman; this evasion has been theresult of prejudices born of and surviving the institution ofslavery, the only way to remove which is to break downevery distinction between the races; and now the bestthought of the South, alarmed at the withdrawal of thepolitical machinery that forced the passage of the protectivelaws, which withdrawal tempts further and more intolerableevasions, is moving to forbid all further assortmentof the races and insist on their intermingling in all placesand in all relations. The first part of this argument is amatter of record, and, from the Southern stand-point,mainly a matter of reputation. It can bide its time. Thesuggestion held in its conclusion is so impossible, so mischievous,and, in certain aspects, so monstrous, that it mustbe met at once.

It is hard to think about the negro with exactness.His helplessness, his generations of enslavement, his uniqueposition among the peoples of the earth, his distinctivecolor, his simple, lovable traits,—all these combine to hastenopinion into conviction where he is the subject of discussion.Three times has this tendency brought about epochal resultsin his history. First, it abolished slavery. For this allmen are thankful, even those who, because of the personalinjustice and violence of the means by which it was broughtabout, opposed its accomplishment. Second, it made hima voter. This, done more in a sense of reparation than injudgment, is as final as the other. The North demandedit; the South expected it; all acquiesced in it, and, wiseor unwise, it will stand. Third, it fixed by enactment hissocial and civil rights. And here for the first time therevolution faltered. Up to this point the way had been289plain, the light clear, and the march at quick-step. Herethe line halted. The way was lost; there was hesitation,division, and uncertainty. Knowing not which way toturn, and enveloped in doubt, the revolutionists heard theretreat sounded by the Supreme Court with small reluctance,and, to use Mr. Cable’s words, “bewildered by complication,vexed by many a blunder,” retired from the field.See, then, the progress of this work. The first step, rightby universal agreement, would stand if the law that madeit were withdrawn. The second step, though irrevocable,raises doubts as to its wisdom. The third, wrong in purpose,has failed in execution. It stands denounced as nullby the highest court, as inoperative by general confession,and as unwise by popular verdict. Let us take advantageof this halt in the too rapid revolution, and see exactlywhere we stand and what is best for us to do. The situationis critical. The next moment may formulate the workof the next twenty years. The tremendous forces of therevolution, unspent and still terrible, are but held in arrest.Launch them mistakenly, chaos may come. Wrong-headednessmay be as fatal now as wrong-heartedness. Clearviews, clear statement, and clear understanding are thedemands of the hour. Given these, the common sense andcourage of the American people will make the rest easy.

Let it be understood in the beginning, then, that theSouth will never adopt Mr. Cable’s suggestion of the socialintermingling of the races. It can never be driven intoaccepting it. So far from there being a growing sentimentin the South in favor of the indiscriminate mixing of theraces, the intelligence of both races is moving farther fromthat proposition day by day. It is more impossible (if Imay shade a superlative) now than it was ten years ago; itwill be less possible ten years hence. Neither race wantsit. The interest, as the inclination, of both races is againstit. Here the issue with Mr. Cable is made up. He denouncesany assortment of the races as unjust, and demandsthat white and black shall intermingle everywhere. TheSouth replies that the assortment of the races is wise and290proper, and stands on the platform of equal accommodationfor each race, but separate.

The difference is an essential one. Deplore or defend itas we may, an antagonism is bred between the races whenthey are forced into mixed assemblages. This sinks out ofsight, if not out of existence, when each race moves in itsown sphere. Mr. Cable admits this feeling, but doubtsthat it is instinctive. In my opinion it is instinctive—deeperthan prejudice or pride, and bred in the bone andblood. It would make itself felt even in sections wherepopular prejudice runs counter to its manifestation. If inany town in Wisconsin or Vermont there was equal populationof whites and blacks, and schools, churches, hotels,and theaters were in common, this instinct would assuredlydevelop; the races would separate, and each race wouldhasten the separation. Let me give an example thattouches this supposition closely. Bishop Gilbert Haven, ofthe Methodist Episcopal Church, many years ago came tothe South earnestly, and honestly, we may believe, devotedto breaking up the assortment of the races. He was backedby powerful influences in the North. He was welcomed byresident Northerners in the South (then in control ofSouthern affairs) as an able and eloquent exponent of theirviews. His first experiment toward mixing the races wasmade in the church—surely the most propitious field.Here the fraternal influence of religion emphasized hisappeals for the brotherhood of the races. What was theresult? After the first month his church was decimated.The Northern whites and the Southern blacks left it insquads. The dividing influences were mutual. The stoutbishop contended with prayer and argument and threatagainst the inevitable, but finally succumbed. Two separatechurches were established, and each race worshiped toitself. There had been no collision, no harsh words, nodiscussion even. Each race simply obeyed its instinct,that spoke above the appeal of the bishop and dominatedthe divine influences that pulsed from pew to pew. Timeand again did the bishop force the experiment. Time and291again he failed. At last he was driven to the confessionthat but one thing could effect what he had tried so hard tobring about, and that was miscegenation. A few years ofexperiment would force Mr. Cable to the same conclusion.

The same experiment was tried on a larger scale by theMethodist Episcopal Church (North) when it establishedits churches in the South after the war. It essayed tobring the races together, and in its conferences and itschurches there was no color line. Prejudice certainly didnot operate to make a division here. On the contrary, thewhites and blacks of this church were knit together byprejudice, pride, sentiment, political and even social policy.Underneath all this was a race instinct, obeying which,silently, they drifted swiftly apart. While white Methodistsof the church North and of the church South, distantfrom each other in all but the kinship of race and worship,were struggling to effect once more a union of the churchesthat had been torn apart by a quarrel over slavery, so thatin every white conference and every white church on allthis continent white Methodists could stand in restoredbrotherhood, the Methodist Church (North) agreed, withoutserious protest, to a separation of its Southern branchinto two conferences of whites and of blacks, and into separatecongregations where the proportion of either racewas considerable. Was it without reason—it certainly wasnot through prejudice—that this Church, while seekinganew fusion with its late enemies, consented to separatefrom its new friends?

It was the race instinct that spoke there. It spoke notwith prejudice, but against it. It spoke there as it speaksalways and everywhere—as it has spoken for two thousandyears. And it spoke to the reason of each race. Millaud, invoting in the French Convention for the beheading of LouisXVI., said: “If death did not exist, it would be necessaryto-day to invent it.” So of this instinct. It is the pledge ofthe integrity of each race, and of peace between the races.Without it, there might be a breaking down of all lines ofdivision and a thorough intermingling of whites and blacks.292This once accomplished, the lower and the weaker elementsof the races would begin to fuse and the process of amalgamationwould have begun. This would mean the disorganizationof society. An internecine war would be precipitated.The whites, at any cost and at any hazard,would maintain the clear integrity and dominance of theAnglo-Saxon blood. They understand perfectly that thedebasem*nt of their own race would not profit the humbleand sincere race with which their lot is cast, and that thehybrid would not gain what either race lost. Even if thevigor and the volume of the Anglo-Saxon blood would enableit to absorb the African current, and after many generationsrecover its own strength and purity, not all thepowers of earth could control the unspeakable horrors thatwould wait upon the slow process of clarification. Easierfar it would be to take the population of central NewYork, intermingle with it an equal percentage of Indians,and force amalgamation between the two. Let us reviewthe argument. If Mr. Cable is correct in assuming thatthere is no instinct that keeps the two races separate in theSouth, then there is no reason for doubting that if intermingledthey would fuse. Mere prejudice would not longsurvive perfect equality and social intermingling; and theprejudice once gone, intermarrying would begin. Then, ifthere is a race instinct in either race that resents intimateassociation with the other, it would be unwise to force suchassociation when there are easy and just alternatives. Ifthere is no such instinct, the mixing of the races wouldmean amalgamation, to which the whites will never submit,and to which neither race should submit. So that in eithercase, whether the race feeling is instinct or prejudice, wecome to but one conclusion: The white and black races inthe South must walk apart. Concurrent their courses maygo—ought to go—will go—but separate. If instinct didnot make this plain in a flash, reason would spell it outletter by letter.

Now, let us see. We hold that there is an instinct, ineradicableand positive, that will keep the races apart, that293would keep the races apart if the problem were transferredto Illinois or to Maine, and that will resist every effort ofappeal, argument, or force to bring them together. Weadd in perfect frankness, however, that if no such instinctexisted, or if the South had reasonable doubt of its existence,it would, by every means in its power, so strengthenthe race prejudice that it would do the work and hold thestubbornness and strength of instinct. The question thatconfronts us at this point is: Admitted this instinct, thatgathers each race to itself. Then, do you believe it possibleto carry forward on the same soil and under the samelaws two races equally free, practically equal in numbers,and yet entirely distinct and separate? This is a momentousquestion. It involves a problem that, all things considered,is without a precedent or parallel. Can the Southcarry this problem in honor and in peace to an equitablesolution? We reply that for ten years the South has beendoing this very thing, and with at least apparent success.No impartial and observant man can say that in thepresent aspect of things there is cause for alarm, oreven for doubt. In the experience of the past fewyears there is assuredly reason for encouragement.There may be those who discern danger in the distantfuture. We do not. Beyond the apprehensionswhich must for a long time attend a matter so serious, wesee nothing but cause for congratulation. In the commonsense and the sincerity of the negro, no less than in the intelligenceand earnestness of the whites, we find the problemsimplifying. So far from the future bringing trouble,we feel confident that another decade or so, confirmingthe experience of the past ten years, will furnish the solutionto be accepted of all men.

Let us examine briefly what the South has been doing,and study the attitude of the races toward each other.Let us do this, not so much to vindicate the past as to clearthe way for the future. Let us see what the situationteaches. There must be in the experience of fifteen yearssomething definite and suggestive. We begin with the294schools and school management, as the basis of therest.

Every Southern State has a common-school system, andin every State separate schools are provided for the races.Almost every city of more than five thousand inhabitantshas a public-school system, and in every city the schools forwhites and blacks are separate. There is no exception tothis rule that I can find. In many cases the law creatingthis system requires that separate schools shall be providedfor the races. This plan works admirably. There is nofriction in the administration of the schools, and no suspicionas to the ultimate tendency of the system. The roadto school is clear, and both races walk therein with confidence.The whites, assured that the school will not be madethe hot-bed of false and pernicious ideas, or the scene ofunwise associations, support the system cordially, and insiston perfect equality in grade and efficiency. The blacks,asking no more than this, fill the schools with alert andeager children. So far from feeling debased by the separate-schoolsystem, they insist that the separation shall becarried further, and the few white teachers yet presidingover negro schools supplanted by negro teachers. Theappropriations for public schools are increased year afteryear, and free education grows constantly in strength andpopularity. Cities that were afraid to commit themselvesto free-schools while mixed schools were a possibility commencedbuilding school-houses as soon as separate schoolswere assured. In 1870 the late Benjamin H. Hill found hismatchless eloquence unable to carry the suggestion of negroeducation into popular tolerance. Ten years later nearlyone million black children attended free-schools, supportedby general taxation. Though the whites pay nineteen-twentiethsof the tax, they insist that the blacks shall shareits advantages equally. The schools for each race areopened on the same day and closed on the same day.Neither is run a single day at the expense of the other.The negroes are satisfied with the situation. I am awarethat some of the Northern teachers of negro high-schools295and universities will controvert this. Touching theiropinion, I have only to say that it can hardly be consideredfair or conservative. Under the forcing influence of socialostracism, they have reasoned impatiently and have beenhelped to conclusions by quick sympathies or resentments.Driven back upon themselves and hedged in by suspicionor hostility, their service has become a sort of martyrdom,which has swiftly stimulated opinion into conviction andconviction into fanaticism. I read in a late issue of Zion’sHerald a letter from one of these teachers, who declined,on the conductor’s request, to leave the car in which shewas riding, and which was set apart exclusively for negroes.The conductor, therefore, presumed she was a quadroon,and stated his presumption in answer to the inquiry of ayoung negro man who was with her. She says of this:

“Truly, a glad thrill went through my heart—a thrill of pride.This great autocrat had pronounced me as not only in sympathy, butalso one in blood, with the truest, tenderest, and noblest race thatdwells on earth.”

If this quotation, which is now before me, over thewriter’s name, suggests that she and those of her colleagueswho agree with her have narrowed within their narrowingenvironment, and acquired artificial enthusiasm under theirunnatural conditions, so that they must be unsafe as advisersand unfair as witnesses, the sole purpose for which itis introduced will have been served. This suggestion doesnot reach all Northern teachers of negro schools. Somehave taken broader counsels, awakened wider sympathies,and, as a natural result, hold more moderate views. Theinfluence of the extremer faction is steadily diminishing.Set apart, as small and curious communities are set hereand there in populous States, stubborn and stiff for a while,but overwhelmed at last and lost in the mingling currents,these dissenting spots will be ere long blotted out and forgotten.The educational problem, which is their specialcare, has already been settled, and the settlement acceptedwith a heartiness that precludes the possibility of its disturbance.From the stand-point of either race the experiment296of distinct but equal schools for the white and blackchildren of the South has demonstrated its wisdom, itspolicy, and its justice, if any experiment ever made plainits wisdom in the hands of finite man.

I quote on this subject Gustavus J. Orr, one of thewisest and best of men, and lately elected, by spontaneousmovement, president of the National Educational Association.He says: “The race question in the schools isalready settled. We give the negroes equal advantages,but separate schools. This plan meets the reason and satisfiesthe instinct of both races. Under it we have spentover five million dollars in Georgia, and the system growsin strength constantly.” I asked if the negroes wantedmixed schools. His reply was prompt: “They do not. Ihave questioned them carefully on this point, and theymake but one reply: “They want their children in their ownschools and under their own teachers.” I asked whatwould be the effect of mixed schools. “I could not maintainthe Georgia system one year. Both races would protestagainst it. My record as a public-school man is known.I have devoted my life to the work of education. But Iam so sure of the evils that would come from mixed schoolsthat, even if they were possible, I would see the wholeeducational system swept away before I would see themestablished. There is an instinct that gathers each raceabout itself. It is as strong in the blacks as in the whites,though it has not asserted itself so strongly. It is makingitself manifest, since the blacks are organizing a social systemof their own. It has long controlled them in theirchurches, and it is now doing so in their schools.”

In churches, as in schools, the separation is perfect.The negroes, in all denominations in which their membershipis an appreciable percentage of the whole, have theirown churches, congregations, pastors, conferences, bishops,and their own missionaries. There is not the slightestantagonism between them and the white churches of thesame denomination. On the contrary, there is sympatheticinterest and the utmost friendliness. The separation297is recognized as not only instinctive but wise. There is nodisposition to disturb it, and least of all on the part of thenegro. The church is with him the center of social life,and there he wants to find his own people and no others.Let me quote just here a few sentences from a speechdelivered by a genuine black negro at the General Conferenceof the Methodist Episcopal Church (South), in Atlanta,Georgia, in 1880. He is himself a pastor of the AfricanMethodist Church, and came as a fraternal delegate. Thisextract from a speech, largely extempore, is a fair specimenof negro eloquence, as it is a fair evidence of the feeling ofthat people toward their white neighbors. He said:

“Mr. Chairman, Bishops, and Brethren in Christ: Let me herestate a circ*mstance which has just now occurred. When in thevestry, there we were consulting your committee, among whom isyour illustrious Christian Governor, the Honorable A. H. Colquitt[applause], feeling an unusual thirst, and expecting in a few momentsto appear before you, thoughtlessly I asked him if there was water todrink. He, looking about the room, answered, ‘There is none; I willget you some.’ I insisted not; but presently it was brought by abrother minister, and handed me by the Governor. I said: ‘Governor,you must allow me to deny myself this distinguished favor, as it recallsso vividly the episode of the warrior king of Israel, when, with parchedlips, he cried from the rocky cave of Adullam, ‘Oh! that one wouldgive me drink of water of the well of Bethlehem that is at the gate.’And when three of his valiant captains broke through the host of theenemy, and returned to him with the water for which his soul waslonging, regarding it as the water of life, he would not drink it, butpoured it out to the Lord.’ [Applause.] So may this transcendentemblem of purity and love, from the hand of your most honoredco-laborer and friend of the human race, ever remain as a memorialunto the Lord of the friendship existing between the Methodist EpiscopalChurch South and the African Methodist Episcopal Church uponthis the first exchange of formal fraternal greeting. [Applause.]

“In the name of the African Methodist Episcopal Church,—andI declare the true sentiments of thousands,—I say, that for your Churchand your race we cherish the kindliest feelings that ever found a lodgmentin the human breast. [Applause.] Of this you need not be told.Let speak your former missionaries among us, who now hold seatsupon this floor, and whose hearts have so often burned within them asthey have seen the word sown by them in such humble soil burst forthinto abundant prosperity. Ask the hundred thousand of your laymen298who still survive the dead, how we conducted ourselves as tillers of thesoil, as servants about the dwelling, and as common worshipers in thetemple of God! Ask your battle-scarred veterans, who left their all tothe mercy of relentless circ*mstances, and went, in answer to theclarion call of the trumpet, to the gigantic and unnatural strife of thesecond revolution! Ask them who looked at their interests at home[great cheering]; who raised their earthworks upon the field; whoburied the young hero so far away from his home, or returned hisashes to the stricken hearts which hung breathless upon the hour;who protected their wives and little ones from the ravages of wildbeasts, and the worse ravages of famine! And the answer is returnedfrom a million heaving bosoms, as a monument of everlasting remembranceto the benevolence of the colored race in America. [Immenseapplause.] And these are they who greet you to-day, through theirchief organization, the African Methodist Episcopal Church in theUnited States of America. [Loud and continued applause.]

“And now, though the yoke which bound the master and the slavetogether in such close and mutual responsibility has been shivered bythe rude shock of war, we find ourselves still standing by your side asnatural allies against an unfriendly world.” [Applause.]

In their social institutions, as in their churches andschools, the negroes have obeyed their instinct and keptapart from the whites. They have their own social andbenevolent societies, their own military companies, theirown orders of Masons and Odd Fellows. They rally aboutthese organizations with the greatest enthusiasm and supportthem with the greatest liberality. If it were proposedto merge them with white organizations of the same character,with equal rights guaranteed in all, the negroeswould interpose the stoutest objection. Their tastes, associations,and inclinations—their instincts—lead them togather their race about social centers of its own. I amtempted into trying to explain here what I have never yetseen a stranger to the South able to understand. The feelingthat, by mutual action, separates whites and blackswhen they are thrown together in social intercourse is nota repellent influence in the harsh sense of that word. It iscentripetal rather than centrifugal. It is attractive aboutseparate centers rather than expulsive from a common center.There is no antagonism, for example, between white299and black military companies. On occasions they paradein the same street, and have none of the feeling that existsbetween Orangemen and Catholics. Of course the goodsense of each race and the mutual recognition of the possibledangers of the situation have much to do with maintainingthe good-will between the distinct races. The factthat in his own church or society the negro has more freedom,more chance for leadership and for individual development,than he could have in association with the whites,has more to do with it. But beyond all this is the factthat, in the segregation of the races, blacks as well aswhites obey a natural instinct, which, always granting thatthey get equal justice and equal advantages, they obeywithout the slightest ill-nature or without any sense ofdisgrace. They meet the white people in all the avenuesof business. They work side by side with the white bricklayeror carpenter in perfect accord and friendliness.When the trowel or the hammer is laid aside, the laborerspart, each going his own way. Any attempt to carry thecomradeship of the day into private life would be sternlyresisted by both parties in interest.

We have seen that in churches, schools, and social organizationsthe whites and blacks are moving along separatelybut harmoniously, and that the “assortment of the races,”which has been described as shameful and unjust, is inmost part made by the instinct of each race, and commandsthe hearty assent of both. Let us now consider the questionof public carriers. On this point the South has beensharply criticised, and not always without reason. It ismanifestly wrong to make a negro pay as much for a railroadticket as a white man pays, and then force him toaccept inferior accommodations. It is equally wrong toforce a decent negro into an indecent car, when there isroom for him or for her elsewhere. Public sentiment inthe South has long recognized this, and has persistentlydemanded that the railroad managers should providecars for the negroes equal in every respect to thoseset apart for the whites, and that these cars should300be kept clean and orderly. In Georgia a State lawrequires all public roads or carriers to provide equal accommodationfor each race, and failure to do so is made apenal offense. In Tennessee a negro woman lately gaineddamages by proving that she had been forced to takeinferior accommodation on a train. The railroads have,with few exceptions, come up to the requirements of thelaw. Where they fail, they quickly feel the weight ofpublic opinion, and shock the sense of public justice. Thisvery discussion, I am bound to say, will lessen such failuresin the future. On four roads, in my knowledge, evenbetter has been done than the law requires. The car setapart for the negroes is made exclusive. No whites arepermitted to occupy it. A white man who strays into thiscar is politely told that it is reserved for the negroes. Hehas the information repeated two or three times, smiles,and retreats. This rule works admirably and will win generalfavor. There are a few roads that make no separateprovision for the races, but announce that any passengercan ride on any car. Here the “assortment” of the racesis done away with, and here it is that most of the outragesof which we hear occur. On these roads the negro has noplace set apart for him. As a rule, he is shy about assertinghimself, and he usually finds himself in the meanestcorners of the train. If he forces himself into the ladies’car, he is apt to provoke a collision. It is on just one ofthese trains where the assortment of the passengers is leftto chance that a respectable negro woman is apt tobe forced to ride in a car crowded with negro convicts.Such a thing would be impossible where the issue is fairlymet, and a car, clean, orderly, and exclusive, is providedfor each race. The case could not be met by grading thetickets and the accommodations. Such a plan would bringtogether in the second or third class car just the element ofboth races between whom prejudice runs highest, and fromwhom the least of tact or restraint might be expected. Onthe railroads, as elsewhere, the solution of the race problemis, equal advantages for the same money,—equal incomfort, safety, and exclusiveness,—but separate.

301There remains but one thing further to consider—thenegro in the jury-box. It is assumed generally that thenegro has no representation in the courts. This is a falseassumption. In the United States courts he usually makesmore than half the jury. As to the State courts, I canspeak particularly as to Georgia. I assume that she does notmaterially differ from the other States. In Georgia the lawrequires that commissioners shall prepare the jury-list foreach county by selection from the upright, intelligent, andexperienced citizens of the county. This provision was putinto the Constitution by the negro convention of reconstructiondays. Under its terms no reasonable man wouldhave expected to see the list made up of equal percentageof the races. Indeed, the fewest number of negroes werequalified under the law. Consequently, but few appearedon the lists. The number, as was to be expected, is steadilyincreasing. In Fulton County there are seventy-fournegroes whose names are on the lists, and the commissioners,I am informed, have about doubled this number forthe present year. These negroes make good jurymen, andare rarely struck by attorneys, no matter what the clientor cause may be. About the worst that can be chargedagainst the jury system in Georgia is that the commissionershave made jurors of negroes only when they had qualifiedthemselves to intelligently discharge a juror’s duties.In few quarters of the South, however, is the negro unableto get full and exact justice in the courts, whether the jurybe white or black. Immediately after the war, when therewas general alarm and irritation, there may have beenundue severity in sentences and extreme rigor of prosecution.But the charge that the people of the South have, intheir deliberate and later moments prostituted justice tothe oppression of this dependent people, is as false as it isinfamous. There is abundant belief that the very helplessnessof the negro in court has touched the heart and conscienceof many a jury, when the facts should have held themimpervious. In the city in which this is written, a negro,at midnight, on an unfrequented street, murdered a popular302young fellow, over whose grave a monument was placedby popular subscription. The only witnesses of the killingwere the friends of the murdered boy. Had the murdererbeen a white man, it is believed he would have been convicted.He was acquitted by the white jury, and has sincebeen convicted of a murderous assault on a person of hisown color. Similarly, a young white man, belonging toone of the leading families of the State, was hanged for themurder of a negro. Insanity was pleaded in his defense,and so plausibly that it is believed he would have escapedhad his victim been a white man.

I quote on this point Mr. Benjamin H. Hill, who hasbeen prosecuting attorney of the Atlanta, Ga., circuit fortwelve years. He says: “In cities and towns the negrogets equal and exact justice before the courts. It is possiblethat, in remote counties, where the question is one of afight between a white man and a negro, there may be a lingeringprejudice that causes occasional injustice. Thejudge, however, may be relied on to correct this. As tonegro jurors, I have never known a negro to allow hislawyer to accept a negro juror. For the State I haveaccepted a black juror fifty times, to have him rejected bythe opposing lawyer by order of his negro client. This hasincurred so invariably that I have accepted it as a rule.Irrespective of that, the negro gets justice in the courts,and the last remaining prejudice against him in the jury-boxhas passed away. I convicted a white man for voluntarymanslaughter under peculiar circ*mstances. A negromet him on the street and cursed him. The white manordered him off and started home. The negro followedhim to his house and cursed him until he entered the door.When he came out, the negro was still waiting. Herenewed the abuse, followed him to his store, and therestruck him with his fist. In the struggle that followed,the negro was shot and killed. The jury promptly convictedthe slayer.”

So much for the relation between the races in the South,in churches, schools, social organizations, on the railroad,303and in theaters. Everything is placed on the basis of equalaccommodations, but separate. In the courts the blacksare admitted to the jury-box as they lift themselves intothe limit of qualification. Mistakes have been made andinjustice has been worked here and there. This was tohave been expected, and it has been less than might havebeen expected. But there can be no mistake about theprogress the South is making in the equitable adjustmentof the relations between the races. Ten years ago nothingwas settled. There were frequent collisions and constantapprehensions. The whites were suspicious and the blackswere restless. So simple a thing as a negro taking anhour’s ride on the cars, or going to see a play, was fraughtwith possible danger. The larger affairs—school, church,and court—were held in abeyance. Now all this ischanged. The era of doubt and mistrust is succeeded bythe era of confidence and good-will. The races meet in theexchange of labor in perfect amity and understanding.Together they carry on the concerns of the day, knowinglittle or nothing of the fierce hostility that divides laborand capital in other sections. When they turn to sociallife they separate. Each race obeys its instinct and congregatesabout its own centers. At the theater they sit inopposite sections of the same gallery. On the trains theyride each in his own car. Each worships in his ownchurch, and educates his children in his schools. Each hashis place and fills it, and is satisfied. Each gets the sameaccommodation for the same money. There is no collision.There is no irritation or suspicion. Nowhere on earth is therekindlier feeling, closer sympathy, or less friction betweentwo classes of society than between the whites and blacksof the South to-day. This is due to the fact that in theadjustment of their relations they have been practical andsensible. They have wisely recognized what was essential,and have not sought to change what was unchangeable.They have yielded neither to the fanatic nor demagogue,refusing to be misled by the one or misused by theother. While the world has been clamoring over their differences304they have been quietly taking counsel with eachother, in the field, the shop, the street and cabin, and settlingthings for themselves. That the result has not astonishedthe world in the speediness and the facility withwhich it has been reached, and the beneficence that hascome with it, is due to the fact that the result has not beenfreely proclaimed. It has been a deplorable condition ofour politics that the North has been misinformed as to thetrue condition of things in the South. Political greed andpassion conjured pestilential mists to becloud what thelifting smoke of battle left clear. It has exaggerated wherethere was a grain of fact, and invented where there wasnone. It has sought to establish the most casual occurrencesas the settled habit of the section, and has sprungendless jeremiades from one single disorder, as Jenkins filledthe courts of Christendom with lamentations over his disseveredear. These misrepresentations will pass away withthe occasion that provoked them, and when the truth isknown it will come with the force of a revelation to vindicatethose who have bespoken for the South a fair trial,and to confound those who have borne false witnessagainst her.

One thing further need be said, in perfect frankness.The South must be allowed to settle the social relations ofthe races according to her own views of what is right andbest. There has never been a moment when she could havesubmitted to have the social status of her citizens fixed byan outside power. She accepted the emancipation and theenfranchisem*nt of her slaves as the legitimate results ofwar that had been fought to a conclusion. These onceaccomplished, nothing more was possible. “Thus far andno farther,” she said to her neighbors, in no spirit of defiance,but with quiet determination. In her weakestmoments, when her helpless people were hedged about bythe unthinking bayonets of her conquerors, she gatheredthem for resistance at this point. Here she defendedeverything that a people should hold dear. There waslittle proclamation of her purpose. Barely did the whispered305word that bespoke her resolution catch the listeningears of her sons; but for all this the victorious armiesof the North, had they been rallied again from their homes,could not have enforced and maintained among this disarmedpeople the policy indicated in the Civil Rights bill.Had she found herself unable to defend her social integrityagainst the arms that were invincible on the fields whereshe staked the sovereignty of her States, her people wouldhave abandoned their homes and betaken themselves intoexile. Now, as then, the South is determined that, comewhat may, she must control the social relations of the tworaces whose lots are cast within her limits. It is right thatshe should have this control. The problem is hers, whetheror not of her seeking, and her very existence depends onits proper solution. Her responsibility is greater, herknowledge of the case more thorough than that of otherscan be. The question touches her at every point; itpresses on her from every side; it commands her constantattention. Every consideration of policy, of honor, ofpride, of common sense impels her to the exactest justiceand the fullest equity. She lacks the ignorance or misapprehensionthat might lead others into mistakes; all otherslack the appalling alternative that, all else failing, wouldforce her to use her knowledge wisely. For these reasonsshe has reserved to herself the right to settle the stillunsettled element of the race problem, and this right shecan never yield.

As a matter of course, this implies the clear and unmistakabledomination of the white race in the South. Theassertion of that is simply the assertion of the right ofcharacter, intelligence and property to rule. It is simplysaying that the responsible and steadfast element in thecommunity shall control, rather than the irresponsible andthe migratory. It is the reassertion of the moral powerthat overthrew the scandalous reconstruction governments,even though, to the shame of the Republic be it said, theywere supported by the bayonets of the General Government.Even the race issue is lost at this point. If the306blacks of the South wore white skins, and were leaguedtogether in the same ignorance and irresponsibility underany other distinctive mark than their color, they wouldprogress not one step farther toward the control of affairs.Or if they were transported as they are to Ohio, and thereplaced in numerical majority of two to one, they wouldfind the white minority there asserting and maintainingcontrol, with less patience, perhaps, than many a SouthernState has shown. Everywhere, with such temporaryexceptions as afford demonstration of the rule, intelligence,character, and property will dominate in spite ofnumerical differences. These qualities are lodged with thewhite race in the South, and will assuredly remain therefor many generations at least; so that the white race willcontinue to dominate the colored, even if the percentagesof race increase deduced from the comparison of a lamecensus with a perfect one, and the omission of other considerations,should hold good and the present race majoritybe reversed.

Let no one imagine, from what is here said, that theSouth is careless of the opinion or regardless of the counselof the outside world. On the contrary, while maintainingfirmly a position she believes to be essential, she appreciatesheartily the value of general sympathy and confidence.With an earnestness that is little less than pathetic shebespeaks the patience and the impartial judgment of allconcerned. Surely her situation should command thisrather than indifference or antagonism. In poverty anddefeat,—with her cities destroyed, her fields desolated, herlabor disorganized, her homes in ruins, her families scattered,and the ranks of her sons decimated,—in the face ofuniversal prejudice, fanned by the storm of war into hostilityand hatred—under the shadow of this sorrow andthis disadvantage, she turned bravely to confront a problemthat would have taxed to the utmost every resource ofa rich and powerful and victorious people. Every inch ofher progress has been beset with sore difficulties; and ifthe way is now clearing, it only reveals more clearly the307tremendous import of the work to which her hands aregiven. It must be understood that she desires to silenceno criticism, evade no issue, and lessen no responsibility.She recognizes that the negro is here to stay. She knowsthat her honor, her dear name, and her fame, no less thanher prosperity, will be measured by the fulness of the justiceshe gives and guarantees to this kindly and dependentrace. She knows that every mistake made and every errorfallen into, no matter how innocently, endanger her peaceand her reputation. In this full knowledge she acceptsthe issue without fear or evasion. She says, not boldly,but conscious of the honesty and the wisdom of her convictions:“Leave this problem to my working out. I willsolve it in calmness and deliberation, without passion orprejudice, and with full regard for the unspeakable equitiesit holds. Judge me rigidly, but judge me by myworks.” And with the South the matter may be left—mustbe left. There it can be left with the fullest confidencethat the honor of the Republic will be maintained,the rights of humanity guarded, and the problem workedout in such exact justice as the finite mind can measure orfinite agencies administer.

MY special amusem*nt in New York is riding on theelevated railway. It is curious to note how littleone can see on the crowded sidewalks of this city. It issimply a rush of the same people—hurrying this way orthat on the same errands—doing the same shopping or eatingat the same restaurants. It is a kaleidoscope withinfinite combinations but the same effects. You see it to-day,and it is the same as yesterday. Occasionally in themultitude you hit upon a genre specimen, or an odddetail, such as a prim little dog that sits upright all dayand holds in its mouth a cup for pennies for its blind master,or an old bookseller with a grand head and the deliberatemotions of a scholar moldering in a stall—but thegeneral effect is one of sameness and soon tires andbewilders.

Once on the elevated road, however, a new world isopened, full of the most interesting objects. The carssweep by the upper stories of the houses, and, runningnever too swiftly to allow observation, disclose the secretsof a thousand homes, and bring to view people and thingsnever dreamed of by the giddy, restless crowd that sendsits impatient murmur from the streets below. In a courseof several months’ pretty steady riding from Twenty-thirdStreet, which is the station for the Fifth Avenue Hotel, toRector, which overlooks Wall Street, I have made manyacquaintances along the route—and on reaching the citymy first curiosity is in their behalf.

One of these is a boy about six years of age—akin inhis fragile body and his serious mien, a youngster that isvery precious to one. I first saw this boy on a little balconyabout three feet by four, projecting from the windowof a poverty-stricken fourth floor. He was leaning over309the railing, his white, thoughtful head just clearing thetop, holding a short round stick in his hand. The littlefellow made a pathetic picture, all alone there above thestreet, so friendless and desolate, and his pale face camebetween me and my business many a time that day. Ongoing up town that evening just as night was falling, I sawhim still at his place, white and patient and silent. Everyday afterwards I saw him there, always with the short stickin his hand. Occasionally he would walk around the balconyrattling the stick in a solemn manner against the railing,or poke it across from one corner to another and sit onit. This was the only playing I ever saw him do, and thestick was the only plaything he had. But he was neverwithout it. His little hand always held it, and I picturedhim every morning when he awoke from his joyless sleep,picking up his plaything and going out to his balcony, asother boys go to play. Or perhaps he slept with it, aslittle ones do with dolls and whip-tops.

I could see that the room beyond the window was bare.I never saw any one in it. The heat must have been terrible,for it could have had no ventilation. Once I missed theboy from the balcony, but saw his white head, moving aboutslowly in the dusk of the room. Gradually the little fellowbecome a burden to me. I found myself continuallythinking of him, and troubled with that remorse thatthoughtless people feel even for suffering for which theyare not in the slightest degree responsible. Not that I eversaw any suffering on his face. It was patient, thoughtful,serious, but with never a sign of petulance. What thoughtsfilled that young head—what contemplation took the placeof what should have been the ineffable upbringing of childishemotion—what complaint or questioning were livingbehind that white face—no one could guess. In an olderperson the face would have betokened a resignation thatfound peace in the hope of things hereafter. In this child,without hope or estimation, it was sad beyond expression.

One day as I passed I nodded at him. He made nosign in return. I repeated the nod on another trip, waving310my hand at him—but without avail. At length, in responseto an unusually winning exhortation, his pale lips trembledinto a smile—but a smile that was soberness itself. WhereverI went that day that smile went with me. WhereverI saw children playing in the parks, or trotting along withtheir hands nestled in strong fingers that guided and protected,I thought of that tiny watcher in the balcony—joyless,hopeless, friendless—a desolate mite, hanging betweenthe blue sky and the gladsome streets—lifting his wistfulface now to the peaceful heights of the one, and now lookingwith grave wonder on the ceaseless tumult of the other.At length—but why go any further? Why is it necessaryto tell that the boy had no father, that his mother was bedriddenfrom his birth, and that his sister pasted labels in adrug-house, and he was thus left to himself all day? It issufficient to say that I went to Coney Island yesterday, andforgot the heat in the sharp saline breezes—watched thebathers and the children—listened to the crisp, lingeringmusic of the waves as they sang to the beach—ate a robustlunch on the pier—wandered in and out among the booths,tents, and hubbub—and that through all these manifoldpleasures, I had a companion that enjoyed them with agravity that I can never hope to emulate, but with a soulfulnessthat was touching—and that as I came back in theboat, the breezes singing through the cordage, music floatingfrom the fore-deck, and the sun lighting with its dyingrays the shipping that covered the river, there was sittingin front of me a very pale but very happy bit of a boy,open-eyed with wonder, but sober and self-contained, claspingtightly in his little fingers a short battered stick. Andfinally that whenever I pass by a certain overhanging balconynow, I am sure of a smile from an intimate andesteemed friend who lives there.

—F. L. Stanton.

Josephine Pollard.

New York City, Dec. 27, 1889.

James Whitcombe Riley.

In New York Tribune, December 23, 1889.

Montgomery M. Folsom.

Henry O’Meara.

Henry Jerome Stockard.

Graham, N.C.

Belle Eyre.

Boston, Mass.

G. W. Lyon.

Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Jan. 18, 1890.

WHAT THE MASTER MADE.

Mel R. Colquitt.

Henry Clay Lukens.

Jersey City Heights, N. J.

Lee Fairchild.

Seattle, January 14, 1890.

N.C. Thompson.

Elizabeth J. Hereford.

Dallas, Texas.

Mary E. Bryan.

J. M. Gibson.

Vicksburg, January 14, 1890.

E. A. B.

Charles W. Hubner.

Atlanta, Ga.

THE overflowing hearts of a sorrowing people foundexpression in words yesterday.

Memorial services to the memory of the dead Grady wereheld in DeGive’s Opera House, and for three hours eulogieswere pronounced on his name.

Loving lips and dewy eyes told the sorrow of a bereavedpeople gathered to pay the last public tribute to theirdeparted friend.

The service began at 11 o’clock, and continued until 2.

At half-past ten the various escorts assembled at theChamber of Commerce. There they formed and marchedto the Opera House in a body. General Clement A. Evans,D.D., and Rev. Dr. J. W. Lee, D.D., headed the procession.Following them were the speakers of the occasion, pallbearers,honorary escort and members of the Chi Phi Fraternity,headed by Mayor John T. Glenn.

At the Opera House the delegations were ranged on thestage. They were Dr. J. B. Hawthorne, Dr. H. C. Morrison,Dr. N.C. Barnett, General Clement A. Evans, JudgeW. R. Hammond, Judge W. T. Newman, Mayor John T.Glenn, Hon. John Temple Graves, Prof. H. C. White, ofAthens; Hon. Patrick Walsh, of Augusta; Julius L. Brown,W. A. Hemphill, Dr. J. W. Lee, Charles S. Northen, LouisGholstin, T. L. Meador, B. B. Crew, Donald Bain, Hon. N.J. Hammond, Captain J. W. English, Governor Gordon,John C. Calhoun, of New York; Judge Howard Van Epps,Patrick Calhoun, Albert H. Cox, W. R. Joyner, C. A.Collier, John Colvin, Porter King, Captain Everett, S. M.Inman, Professor Bass, Major Jno. A. Fitten, Captain R.I. Lowry, L. J. Hill, W. H. Thompson, J. A. Wright, H.346C. White, W. P. Hill, Arnold Broyles, and other membersof the Chi Phi; W. J. Garrett, W. W. Boyd, W. L. Calhoun,Hon. T. H. Mustin, of Madison; R. D. Spalding,M. C. Kiser, J. J. Griffin, J. R. Wyly, H. B. Tompkins, L.B. Nelson, Charles Keith, Judge George Hillyer, GusLong, Dr. Crawford, J. G. Oglesby, J. J. Spalding, JohnJ. Falvey, Clark Howell, Jr., F. M. O’Bryan, C. A. Fouche,of Rome, and others.

The Opera House, inside and out, was draped in sableand white, and on the stage, forming a fragrant background,was a mass of beautiful flowers and floral pieces.In the center of the group was the lovely offering of thedead man’s associates and employés, standing out from asetting of palms and roses. To the right of this centralpiece was the crown from the people of Boston, and to theleft the tribute from the Virginia Society.

To the front and at each side of the stage was a life-sizecrayon portrait of Mr. Grady, heavily draped, and restingon a gilded easel. Round the base of the easel wereflowers and plants of delicate foliage, perfuming the airwith their fragrant breath, and seeming to send sweetmessages to the loved face above.

The galleries and boxes were all hung in mourning.

General Clement A. Evans opened the service withprayer, full of words of sweetness and comfort, and ofgrateful thanks for the good already accomplished by theone that is gone, even in so short a sojourn on the earth.General Evans prayed calmly and simply, concluding withthe invocation of God’s blessing to those left behind, andan inspiration to those who were to speak of the departedsoul.

Mayor Glenn, who presided over the service, then aroseand announced the order of exercises. He said he was toosick of heart to attempt to offer a tribute to the memory ofhis dead friend, and contented himself with a few simplewords of preface.

Judge W. R. Hammond was introduced, and read the347following tribute of the Chi Phi Fraternity, of which Mr.Grady was one of the charter members at the State University:

THE CHI PHI MEMORIAL.

The following memorial and resolutions were preparedby a committee appointed by a number of members of theChi Phi Fraternity, who assembled in Atlanta upon theannouncement of the death of Henry W. Grady, who wasa member of that Fraternity, and were read by Judge W. R.Hammond:

It is sad beyond the power of expression to be compelled to-day, andfrom this time henceforth, to speak of Henry W. Grady as dead. Butit is with the profoundest pleasure that we take occasion to give utteranceto our appreciation of his virtues, and bear testimony to thosehigh qualities in him that marked him in many respects, not only asone of the leading men of his State and section, but as one of the foremostmen of his times.

It is peculiarly appropriate that his club-mates of the Chi PhiFraternity should perpetuate his memory, because he was one of itscharter members at the State University, and always gave to it a placeof unusual warmth in his affections, ever manifesting, in his attachmentto its principles and to its members, that freshness of enthusiasticardor which so strikingly characterized him in his college days. Howwell do we remember him—those of us who were accustomed to bewith him in those days—as, with buoyant tread and sparkling eye andmerry smile, he went out and came in amongst us, ever bearing in hisfrank, generous, hearty manner, the cheeriest good will to all, and theunmistakable evidence of malice and ill-will toward none. Easily andquickly did he win the hearts of all his club and college-mates, and itwas their delight to do him honor whenever occasion permitted.

As it was then among the boys, so it was afterwards among men.He wore his heart upon his sleeve, and gave it to all without reserve.In some this characteristic would have been weakness, but in him itwas a chief element of strength because of the very fact that he possessedit in such a marked and striking degree. Even those who werehis enemies were won to him when they came into his presence, andhad their dislikes charmed away by the magnetism of his manner andhis open and unreserved frankness.

Henry Grady had eminent characteristics which made him great,and it is proper and right that we should place upon record our estimate348of them, and cannot but be highly beneficial to us to thoughtfullyconsider some of them.

His mind was exceedingly subtle, and his perceptible powers unusuallyand remarkably keen. He comprehended at a glance, and discriminatedas if by intuition. It was this, doubtless, that gave himthat wonderful expressiveness of speech which so completely captivatedall who ever heard him. He saw clearly—therefore he had power tomake others see.

We all have within us at times vague and inexpressible thoughts,and we feel a desire for some one who can interpret them for us, andgive utterance and expression to that which we cannot even put intothe form of a suggestion. We feel the need of a Daniel who can tellus the dream, and then give us the interpretation of it. Who that haslistened to the magic of Grady’s speech, or gathered the subtle thoughtfrom his well-chosen words, has not found in them the expression ofthat which seemed to lie slumbering in his own bosom, only to beawakened by the touch of his master hand! Such is the service whichgenius renders to humanity, and such did he render for us with apower that was almost matchless and unapproachable.

But, superb as were his mental gifts, it was not this alone, or evenchiefly, that made him great and gave him power such as few everpossessed to attract men to him. There have been those who equaledif they did not surpass him here, but who yet have failed to impressthemselves upon humanity with a tithe of the force exerted by him. Itwas his great heart that endeared him to us all and made us love himand rejoice in his success, with a feeling that knew no jealousy, andever prompted us to bid him God-speed in his onward and upwardcareer to the high destiny which seemed to await him.

True love is unmistakable in its manifestations. He who really andtruly loves his fellows need not fear that they will fail to find it out. Itwill manifest itself, not in the arts and wiles of the demagogue, but ina thousand ways which need not be premeditated, and cannot be misjudgedor misunderstood.

Grady loved humanity, and love with him was not weak sentimentality,but strong, over-mastering passion. He loved humanity, not inthe abstract, but in the person of those members of it who came withinreach of him. And this love to them was not a mere sentiment, but areal passion, to which he gave expression in his never-tiring acts ofdevotion and his ceaseless efforts to aid them in every way and by everymeans that lay in his power. It was thus that he grappled his friendsto him with hoops of steel and held them in a grasp which nothingcould loosen.

It was Grady’s strong emotional nature that gave wings to his wordsand carried them so deep into the hearts of his fellow men. Thought349must have feeling back of it before it can have power to stir men’sblood and move them to action. The twain must be married togetheras one, and from their union springs a light and power which arepotent factors in the redemption of humanity. In Grady they wereunited, and hence his words burnt their way into the souls of men.The magnificence of his thoughts, and the untold wealth of feelingwhich sprang from his great heart, were not to be resisted, and easilywon and held the admiration and homage of his fellow men.

But the deep pathos of Grady’s heart, so often stirred into thosegrand utterances which made him famous, seems now to have been butthe prophecy of the far deeper pathos of his untimely death. Oh howsad it was to see him lying there upon his bier mute and motionless,when but yesterday the nation hung upon his words, and men of allsections and political parties delighted to do him honor. Oh howstrong in our breasts is the wish that he might have lived, not only forhimself, his family and friends, but also for the sake of his country,and especially his beloved Southland, just beginning to feel the disenthrallmentfrom her bonds, and to realize that one had arisen whoseemed to have the power to place her before the Nation and the worldin her rightful position, and claim for her that sympathy and forbearancewhich she so much needs in the solution of the great problemwhich has been thrust upon her.

But he is gone, and we can only mourn his loss, and indulge thehope that the good he has done may live after him, and that even thesad bereavement of his death may do much to help seal the truth of hislast public utterance upon the hearts of the people of this great country,and ultimately bring them together as one in a union of fraternalfellowship and love.

Resolved, That in the death of our brother, Henry W. Grady, ourFraternity has lost one of its most honored and devoted members.

Resolved, That we tender to his bereaved family our sincere andheartfelt sympathy.

Resolved, That a copy of this memorial and resolutions be sent tohis family.

Resolved, That the city papers be requested to publish these proceedings,and that a copy be sent to the national organ of the Chi Phi Fraternity.

350Hon. Patrick Walsh was introduced by Mayor Glenn,and said:

ADDRESS OF HON. PATRICK WALSH.

Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Fellow-Citizens: We arehere to pay a tribute to the worth and greatness of thedeparted—to him who did so much for the prosperity ofthe great and goodly city of Atlanta; to him who did somuch for Georgia and the South, and to him who did somuch for the restoration of peace and good will among thepeople of all sections of our common country.

The most gifted and useful public man of his day haspassed away in the person of Henry W. Grady. I willrefer briefly to him as an editor before he electrified thecountry, and won plaudits from his countrymen by themagic of his winsome eloquence.

I met him for the first time about twenty years ago at ameeting of the Georgia Press Association in the city ofAugusta. Although he had not reached his majority, hewas the proprietor and editor of the Rome Commercial,which was his first newspaper venture. He was then astriking and manly youth, and gave promise of a career ofprominence and usefulness in the field of journalism. Hemoved from Rome to Atlanta and was engaged for a fewyears in editing the Herald, one of the brightest and mostenterprising newspapers in the State. He acquired reputationas a correspondent during the period of reconstruction,and subsequently represented one of the leading journalsof the North as its special representative in Florida duringthe memorable campaign of 1876, when the returning boardof that State negatived the will of the people. Mr. Gradygave the country graphic and truthful pictures of the evilswhich the South endured. He strikingly depicted thewrongs imposed upon our people and exposed the usurpationof those placed in authority by the aid of the generalGovernment. During that sad period of the South’s eventfulhistory, he rendered signal service to the people, and the351principles which he advocated, with a steadfast devotion andan exalted patriotism.

His reputation as a journalist is identified with thegrowth and prosperity of that great newspaper, in theupbuilding of which he took such a conspicuous part. TheConstitution stands as a monument to his ability as aneditor. His versatility as a writer was something phenomenal.There was no subject within the range of thepress that he did not discuss with a grace and facility thatwere captivating and with a clearness and vigor that wereconvincing. His imagination glowed with luminousthoughts which were clothed in the diction of polishedrhetoric. Without disparagement to the living or thedead, he won the first place in the ranks of Southernjournalists.

I speak of Mr. Grady as an editor. Others will speakof him as an orator. Oratory was a natural gift with him.It was born in him. Where others struggle to win success,he, by reason of his genius, reached the mountain top, andfrom this great eminence spoke to the ear of the Nation andcaptured the hearts of the people. He achieved greatnessby reason of his vigorous mentality, and his fame as aneditor and as an orator is voiced by the sentiments ofadmiring but sorrowing friends in all sections of the Union.He has been stricken before his time. Already the first ofhis generation, if his life had been spared his opportunityfor greatness would have broadened and given him in “theapplause of listening senates” a field for the exercise ofthose great gifts with which he was so richly endowed.He died too soon for his people and for his country. Buthis name and his fame will be an example and an inspirationto practice and perpetuate the principles of governmentin the advocacy of which he yielded up his life.

“With charity for all and malice toward none,” hewent about among his countrymen doing good. It was hismission to help the poor and to aid the deserving. Everygood work received the support of his impulsive heart andnoble soul. His last speech was an impassioned and eloquent352plea for a peaceful solution of that great problemwhich the South and the South alone can solve. It wasnot to oppress, but to elevate the colored man—to enableboth races to live in peace, and work out their mission inthe regeneration of the South. What he so eloquentlysaid in Boston represents the firm conviction of his Southerncountrymen, and his death but emphasizes the truthand force of his position. The South is free and the intelligenceand courage of her people will preserve her andher institutions for all time from hostile and inferiordomination.

The South mourns the untimely death of Georgia’s brilliantson. The North deeply sympathizes with us in thedeath of him whose last public utterance so feelinglytouched the patriotic heart of the people, and the responsecomes back from all sections of a re-united people and arestored Union. Few men have accomplished so much forthe unification of public sentiment on questions of graveimport, and there is no one who has accomplished more forthe material development of his beloved South. He isdead, but his works will live after him. His name isenshrined in the hearts of his grateful countrymen, whoare saddened and bowed down with unspeakable sorrow.

Henry W. Grady had the zeal of a martyr and valor of apatriot. If it be permitted to mortals who have put onimmortality to look upon this world from their celestialhome, the incense of praise which ascends from our strickenhearts will be grateful to the soul of Henry Grady. Godhas set his seal upon his silver tongue, and no more foreverwill his eloquent voice, stimulating his fellow-countrymento deeds of noble enterprise, be heard on earth.Matchless the fertility of his mind, matchless the magicand power of his presentation, matchless his power oforganization, matchless his power of accomplishment.Truly, indeed, can it be said of him, there is no man leftto fill his place.

May his golden soul rest in the bosom of the God thatgave it, is the humble but heartfelt prayer of one who353admired and respected him living, and who mourns andreveres him dead.

ADDRESS OF HON. B. H. HILL.

I cannot speak in studied phrase of my dead friend.The few simple words I can trust my faltering lips to utterwill come from a heart burdened with grief too deep for languageto express. A grief whose crushing weight, outsideof my own home circle, has taken away from life its brightesthopes and its highest inspiration.

In the summer of 1866 I first met Henry Grady, eventhen giving promise of marvelous gifts of mind and heart.From that summer evening, remembered now as though itwere but yesterday, I have loved him with all a brother’sdevotion and tenderness. During all these years there hasbeen no shadow on our friendship and no secrets in ourhearts. In prosperity he has rejoiced with me, and whensorrow and trouble came no voice was as cheering, no sympathywas as sweet as his. Only a year ago, when deathcame into my home and took the one little blossom thathad bloomed in my heart as my own, he wrote to mymother words of tenderest comfort for her and of love forme—words that are inexpressibly precious to me now. Outof my life into the beautiful beyond have passed the twofriends I loved best on earth—the chivalrous Gordon, thepeerless Grady. God keep my friends and lead themgently through the meadow-lands where the river flowsin song eternal. I know that near its crystal banks,where the birds sing sweetest and flowers bloom brightest,they have clasped hands in blessed and happy reunion.The love with which Henry Grady inspired his friends hasnever been surpassed by mortal man. Beautiful and touchinghave been the expressions of devotion that have cometo his family. I believe that there are hundreds all overthis State who would gladly take his place in yondersilent tomb, if by so doing they could restore him to thepeople who loved him and who need him so greatly. It isnot his great genius, unrivaled as it was; not his fervent354patriotism, unselfish as it was; not his wonderful eloquence,matchless as it was; not his public spirit, willingas it was—these are not the recollections that have movedthe people as they have never been moved before.

But it was the great heart of the man beating in lovingsympathy with suffering, touching with sweetest encouragementthe lowly and struggling, carrying the sunshine of hisown radiant life into so many unhappy lives, that now bowdown the hearts of the people under the weight of a personalloss.

Henry Grady lived in an atmosphere of love. In himthere was greatness—greatness unselfish—unconscious—gentleas the heart of a child. In him there was charity—charitywhite and still as the moonlight that shines intothe shadows of night. In him there was heroism—theheroism of the knight that drew no sword, but waved inhis hand, high above his white plumed brow, the sacredwand of peace, of love, of fraternity. In him there waspatriotism, but a patriotism as pure and steadfast as a flameburning as a passion for the people he loved. As I contemplatethis life through the years that I have known himso well, I feel as one who has seen the sun rise in the cloudlessspring time, warming into beauty all the flowers of theearth, and winning into praise all the songsters of the air,at noonday, when all earth was rejoicing in its light andgrowing in its strength, suddenly fade away, leaving theland in darkness. Henry Grady was the great sun of theSouthland, under whose fervid eloquence the cold heartof the North was melting into patience, confidence, justice,sympathy and love. It is no exaggeration to say that hewas the great hope of the country.

The eyes of the South were looking toward him withhope. The ears of the North were listening to him withfaith. Inscrutable, indeed, are the ways of a Providencethat demanded a life so richly endowed, so potential forgood. And yet it is the finite mind that would questioneither the mercy or wisdom of the Infinite. Our hero couldnot have died at a time when he was dearer to his people.355His last brave, eloquent message will find its way, has foundits way, to the hearts and consciences of his countrymen.His death is a sacrificial offering from whose altar rises evennow the incense of perpetual peace and a perfect union ofbrotherly love. The lessons of his life will ripen with thepassing years. Ages yet to come will compass the fullnessof his fame and time will consecrate the patriotic martyrdomof his death. He sang like one inspired with thesacred memories of the past and the glorious hopes of thefuture. His works and his noble qualities will expand andmultiply from his tomb as the sweet spice rushes from thebroken alabaster vase. His name will become the synonymfor friendship, charity, wisdom, eloquence, patriotism andlove, wherever these virtues are known and treasuredamong men.

To use his own beautiful words, written of another:“Those who loved him best will find him always present.They will see him enthroned in every heart that kindleswith sympathy to others. They will feel his kindly presencein the throb of every hand that clasps their hands inthe universal kinship of grief. They will see his lovingmemory beaming from every eye as it falls on theirs.” Sohe shall live in Georgians and with Georgians forever andforever. On the monument which loving hands will erectto his memory let the inscription be written: “At all timesand everywhere he gave his strength to the weak—hissympathy to the suffering—his life to his country and hisheart to God.” Our hearts go out to-day in tenderestsympathy to the loved ones at home. Those alone whohave had the privilege of entering the charmed circle canknow the void left there.

To the mother who idolized this noble son—and he neverforgot her, for did he not turn aside from questions of stateto tell the Nation that her knees were the truest altar hehad ever found, and her hands the fairest and strongestthat had ever led him; to the sweet and loving sister, thecompanion of his boyhood; to the heart-broken wifealways worthy of his love, devoted to him, ever dear to him;356to the sweet and gentle daughter, the idol of his heart andhousehold; to the noble and manly son—these were hisjewels. And as we loved him so shall we love them. Ihave seen a picture with a shaft of light reaching fromearth to heaven. Up the long, white rays, dazzling inglory and transcendent in beauty, an immortal soul isascending to the illumined heights—ascending to meet itsGod. I think that if there ever was a soul borne upwardupon rays of glory it was the beautiful soul of this friendwe loved. The golden beams of this earthly glory shininginto the pure light of heaven wove his radiant pathway tothe stars. What an ascension for an immortal soul!Earth’s glory under his feet; Heaven’s glory upon his brow.So he, our immortal, becomes God’s immortal. Oh, thoubright, immortal spirit! Thou standeth this day in thepresence of the angels. The King, in his beauty, hathgreeted thee with the welcome: Well done, well done goodand faithful servant; the great and good that have passedfrom earth are thy companions, and thy ears have heardmusic sweeter far than all earthly plaudits. Yet we missthee; we mourn thee; through the rifted heavens we greetthee with grateful tears and undying love.

MR. JULIUS L. BROWN’S SPEECH.

Again we are assembled in the house of mourning. Ourhomes and public buildings are yet black with the symbolsof our grief for him who went before.

“One woe doth tread upon another’s heel, so fast theyfollow.”

Two short weeks ago, while we were assembled in ourcapital covered with the insignia of grief, to do honor tothe memory of one who had been our chief when the stormof war raged, we received a telegram, mingling his griefwith ours, from him, then on his journey of duty to Boston,whose sad death we have met this day to mourn.

Jefferson Davis and Henry Grady are dead. To-daytheir souls commune, and we are left to weep. In theirdeaths the South has lost two of her noblest sons. One357was gathered to his fathers full of years and rich in honor.He had served his country well. He had been the chosenleader of our people, when the storms of war were raging.He, as our representative, had been subjected to insultsand to indignities by the Government he had honored, andin whose service he had spent the best years of his life.He passed away, and the sunset of his life was glorious andbeautiful.

We have not yet put aside the sables of grief we wearfor Jefferson Davis, and yet in two short weeks we have metto mourn the death of him whom we hold dearer; ourtownsman, our daily associate and friend.

Henry W. Grady has gone to his last home.

One was an old man, ready and waiting to be called.His day was over, his work was done, and he was waitingfor his rest. His sun had risen, past its meridian in gloryand was sinking in honor. For him the night in due timehad come. The other, was a young man, full of hope andrich in promise. His sun had just arisen and it gavepromise that before him was yet a glorious day.

One was the chosen representative of our people beforethe storms of war had swept over us. He was the representativeof the South under its old system. The otherwas the acknowledged exponent of the South under itsaltered condition of affairs.

We weep for him to-day.

Of all the young men in America none had such powerfor good. None had the ear of the public so completelyas he to be heard. None had so eloquent a tongue toproduce conviction. None had so magnetic a bearing toinduce followers. He was ambitious, yes, but for what?Not for the spoils of office, not for command of his fellow-man,not for himself, but for his people. Years ago whenhis friends all over Georgia urged him to allow his name tobe presented for a post of honor in the counsels of the Nationhe refused. His letter of declination was so strong, sopatriotic, and so unselfish that it commanded the admirationof the world. I know that even far-off New Zealand358published his words and did him honor. His eloquentspeech in New York completed the structure of his nationalfame. From the night of its delivery the whole countryranked him among its foremost citizens. Even in down-troddenand oppressed Cuba his eloquent words weretranslated into the Spanish tongue and read with delightwhile I was there. The echoes of his last eloquent, matchlessdefense of the South yet linger in Faneuil Hall, and solong as its historic walls shall stand they will be classedwith the best efforts of Everett and of Webster. Hisfriends all over the country read his words, and wonderedthat he was so great. Ambitious; yes, ambitious to beable to present the cause of the South in such a manner asto produce conviction in the minds and in the hearts of itsmost ultra defamers, that our people now in good faithaccept as final the construction placed upon the Constitutionof this country by the victors, and that they are asabsolutely loyal and devoted, as are the people of theNorth, to that Union against which his father had fought.

With no apologies for the past; with no recantation ofthe belief that they were patriots, without in any way castingreproach upon our dead, with a nature grand enoughto admire Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis, he hadtaken for his high mission on this earth, the task ofreconciling the people of the sections. Until this greatmission was accomplished, he had no time to devote to thenarrow duties of a public office. Office, therefore, he didnot seek. Office he would not have. There was but oneoffice in this land great enough for him. Had he liveduntil his sun had reached its meridian splendor therewould have been a complete reconciliation between thesections. Partisan malignity would not have sought toenact laws aimed at only a part of this grand country.Soon would there have been a complete union of heartsbetween those who had been engaged in fratricidal strife,which the most ultra partisanship could not have severed.Too young himself to be in the war, but the son of a gallantConfederate soldier, killed upon the field of battle, he,359more than any one of older years, could by his chosen professionbear the messages of peace to the North, and by hismighty pen, by his eloquent tongue, by his melodiousvoice, and by his commanding presence could he procure ahearing from an audience of strangers and produce conviction.If it be true that,

then his last words, uttered in behalf of his people, willnot have been spoken in vain.

In his death the South has lost its most eloquent advocateand its most powerful defender. America weepsfor one of her noblest sons. Who is there to finish thiswork? God grant that there may rise some one to completehis mission!

He was a man full of impulse and a quick reader of thepopular mind. Well do we all remember the time whenthe result of a presidential election became certainlyknown, how his heart, wild with joy at what he believedto be the beginning of better days for the South, organizeda street procession and proceeded to the legislative halls ofthis State, and with his followers entered the house, and inhis clear, ringing voice announced, “Mr. Speaker: Amessage from the American people,” and adjourned it.’Tis said that history shows that there have been but twomen who have ever adjourned a parliament without a vote,Oliver Cromwell and Henry Grady. One was an act oftyranny—the other the expression of the desire of everymember of the house.

A citizen of Atlanta, he loved Georgia; a Georgian, headored the South; a Southerner, he worshipped the wholeUnion. He was an American in the fullest sense of thatterm. There was no work of public or private charityamong us which he did not aid by his tongue, his pen, hishead or his purse, whether that work was to procure thepardon of an abandoned young girl confined in the chain-gangwith criminals, or canvassing the streets of Atlanta360through snow and ice, accompanied with a retinue ofwagons and drays, to accumulate fuel and provisions toprevent our poor from freezing and from starving. It wasin response to his appeals, more than to all else combined,that a home is now being erected within sight of the domeof yonder capitol for the aged and infirm veterans of theLost Cause. It was to him more than to all others that ourPiedmont Expositions, designed to show to the world thewealth of our undeveloped mineral, agricultural and otherresources, were carried to a successful end. It was throughhis persuasive power that the Chautauqua Association,designed to more thoroughly educate our people, wasestablished.

But in the limited time allotted to me, I cannot go intofurther details. If you seek his monuments, look around.They are in every home and every calling of life. In allthat which has tended to develop the material resources ofthe country, to enrich his people, to encourage educationand a love of the arts, to relieve suffering, to provide forthe poor, and to make our people better and nobler, hedevoted his life, unselfishly and without hope of otherreward than the approval of his conscience.

He was a model citizen. As a member of society, hewas welcomed to every fireside. He was the center ofevery group. His doors were open always to strangers.He was given to hospitality. He was the life, the soulof every enterprise with which he was connected. Asa patriot, his heart was bowed down with grief that hiscountrymen should be estranged. As a humanitarian, hisgreat heart wept at the suffering of the poor, and his voicewas ever raised in behalf of the afflicted and oppressed.As a friend, he was devoted, unselfish and loyal. Now,that he is gone, we know how dear he was to us. We haveawakened to the full appreciation of his great worth, andof the calamity which has befallen us.

Yesterday we stood by his tomb. No private citizen inthis country ever had such a pageant. For miles thestreets were lined with people. We saw the aged and the361young, the rich and the poor, the white and the black,with eyes dimmed by tears, with hearts bowed down withsorrow at loss of him. They had left their homes uponour greatest festal day to pay him the homage of theirtears. To each of them his loss was a personal sorrow.

I knew Henry W. Grady well, and I loved him. To mehis death is a personal grief. He had been my friend formore than twenty-three years. Well do I remember the dayI joined his class in our University. Well do I picture hisfriendly presence as he bade me welcome and invited me tohis home. Well do I recall our meeting in our collegesocieties. Our plans, our struggles, our defeats and ourtriumphs there. Since that time, I have sat with him aroundsocial boards. He has been time and again an honored anda welcomed guest in my house. I shall miss him there.We have been together in public enterprises, we have metin the busy marts of men. We have worked side by side,and we have differed upon questions of policy, but in allthese differences he has been my friend. I loved him, anddeplore his death.

We shall erect in this city a monument to commemoratehis many virtues, and to hold him up as an examplebefore the young and those who come after us; but howeverexalted that monument may be, and however near theskys it may reach, the greatest and best monument to uswho knew him will be the memory of his many virtueswhich we shall always treasure in our hearts.

Judge Emory Speer was on the list of speakers to followMr. Brown, but did not reach the city in time to take partin the exercises.

Twenty-three years ago, poor and painfully uncertain ofeven a broken part of education, but shortly from farm andcamp and captivity, broken-hearted and distrusting allthings, lonesome in a strange place, two companions metme at Athens and made me feel at home. One of themmourns to-day with me the death of the other.

I look across the many years as across a wide and mistyriver made up of many streams, and recall the sunnyface, the glowing eye, the engaging smile, the warm handformed; it seemed to assure a friend of love with its veryclasp—the happy-hearted, the happy-making Henry Grady.

Treasured by his companions are traditions that hisgenerous hands were helpful even then. It is known thathis appeal to the “Great Old Commoner” kept a child ofthe State to the breast of its own Alma Mater. It is knownthat he led the relief corps of kindness to the aid of maimedveterans shivering in bitter winter at the old rock college.To suggest such deeds seemed natural to his heart, and todo them nobly seemed inherent to his hand.

His was the versatile genius of our class. Never fencedin to his text-books, apparently careless of mere curriculum,he roamed the fields of literature more than he tramped theturnpike of studies. Sparkling and popular, genial andbeloved, his mind moved like a stream of poetry, cascadingand flashing, banked in sweet flowers, and singing to sweetmeadows made happy by its song.

His address as final orator of his society, fairly representsthe mind of the man when launched. It was anexquisite fiction of ideal life. He painted in words anisland of beauty; in the sweetness of his sentences thefragrance of flowers sweeter than nature’s own seemed to bewafted to rapt listeners; the loveliness of his creation stoodout so vividly to the eye of intellect that no one view of anygrace in statuary or beauty in picture of any artist wouldbe remembered better. It was an island worthy to lay inthe same sea with Tennyson’s Island of Avilion, where363Knight and King Arthur was to rest his soul, and I wouldwish the soul of my class-mate the sweet and eternal rest ofhis own happy island, embowered in the beauties of hisown sweet fancies forever, did I not believe that he hastouched the pearl-strewn shore of a better and lovelier landthan even this, or even that of which he dreamed; that he“rests in the balm-breathing gardens of God!”

Who would dream that such ideality of mind would becomposed with such powers of business as he had? It iswonderful that the versatile course of his life, while addingto his breadth, did not lessen his depth. To but few,indeed, is it endowed to be both versatile and profound.His varied experience, like tributes, added to the brightnessand to the breadth, and to the depth of his intellect,until before touching the sea it rolled in majestic splendor,wide and clear as the Potomac, deep and burden-bearing asthe Ohio. He had great opportunities. He worked andwon them. Starting without them, he created them bydeserving them. That great journal, through whose columnshe and his associates have done so much to rebuildthe fortunes and hopes of our people, did not make HenryGrady. The Lord made him. But his bereaved associatesthere did all that men can do in the moulding of othermen. They recognized him for what he was and for whathe could become. They participated in the glorious work,They surrendered him, and he surrendered himself to hiscountry. The first duty of the Southern patriot—a nationalduty also—was to recuperate this section. In that duty,no man out of office, perhaps no man at all, has labored withmore credit and with better result than Henry W. Grady.For the complete reconciliation of the sections of thisUnion every patriot ought to strive and every Christianought to pray. Sectional jealousies and angers are theonly enemies of the Union, and those who claim to placethe preservation of the Union above all other duties, oughtto be the foremost forwarders of the fraternity of theAmerican people. They who love the Union should helpto heal its wounds.

364Strange spectacle! Noble culmination of a noble life!From the midst of those charged with hate toward theUnion, Henry W. Grady went forth a minister to plead forlove to all its parts.

“Blessed is the peacemaker.”

His voice was for that peace in our country made perpetualby justice to all and respect for the sacred things ofearth. His voice was for building an American temple ofpeace, not upon the quicksands of comparative power, subjectto the shift from one section to the other, but upon theeverlasting foundations of right to all, respect to all, libertiesand liberality to all!

Oh, what a cause he had! If successful, unfoldedglories of the Union of future times; the sweet and swellingharmonies of the ever-increasing choir of free andhappy States; the grand ideals of the venerable fathers allrealized, and every bloom of American hope fruited in happiness,in love, in liberty, in enduring peace!

And if unsuccessful! If he and those to come mustplead in vain for the unity as well as union of the country,then the dread doubt whether all peace is to be only preparationfor deadly grapplings; the dread doubt whether,as in England and Scotland, these feuds are to harry ourhomes and our hearts for hundreds of years!

What a cause! and, thank God, what an advocate! Itwould seem that our own Southern sun had warmed andsweetened him for the work. He exactly fitted the culminationand mission of his life. His noble soul propelledhis thoughts. His eloquence rushed from mountain-sidefountains, pure and bold and free. His reasoning was soblended with appeal that the one took the shape of statingtruths in sequence, and his appeal seemed responsive tothe heart-beats of his listeners.

Thus the cause, the advocate and the occasion met, andonce more in New England a Southern man was applaudedas an American patriot. With the triple levers of his greatsoul and mind and tongue he moved two mighty sections,with all their weights of passions of victory and passions365of defeat, with all their weights of misconceptions andmisjudgments. With his hands he moved these mightybodies nearer each to the heart of the other—nearer to thattrue Union for which the real heart of this country, inevery part of it, beats with the pulses of a devoted love,never entirely to be stilled.

Oh, how nobly he must have been inspired as he feltthe “rock-ribbed and iron-bound” prejudice of NewEngland quiver to the touch of his magic hand; and as hersnow began to melt under the warmth of his great heart,surely he was the sunshine of this great land!

But, oh, the grief of it—the bitter, bitter grief of it!Just as we knew how noble and great he was, he sankbelow the horizon of life, never to rise again!

I shall always recall him as dying like that lad fromLombardy, pictured by Browning. I shall think that theSouth, decked like a queen in all her jewels of glory andof love, came to his dying couch and said:

ADDRESS OF WALTER B. HILL, OF MACON, GA.

Love was the law of Henry Grady’s life. His splendideminence among his fellows teaches once again that “hewho follows love’s behest far exceedeth all the rest.” Itsstrongest throbs beat in the inner circle of the home; butin widening waves they expand first into friendship, theninto public spirit, then into patriotism, then into philanthropy.When it rises above these forms of human affectionin the incense of worship—we give it once more thesacred name of love, which it bore at its fireside shrine.From Henry Grady’s heart, that first and best and truestand most of all was the home-fond heart, there flowed outin all the prodigality of his generous soul, and yet with theperfect adjustment of due degree, all those currents of feelingwhich bear so many names and yet are one. And as366he loved, so is he mourned—from the hearth of a desolatedhome to the borders of a mighty nation.

What was he to his friends? I dare not answer exceptto muffle my own heart in borrowed words—the words ofCarlyle over the bier of the gifted Edward Irving—“Hiswas the bravest, freest, brotherliest human soul mine evercame in contact with.”

What was he to Atlanta? More than any other man,he built this city which he rightly loved as he loved noother. Although the feudal independence of the oldSouthern life was distinctly promotive of individualism—yetit was reserved for this young leader—but one removefrom that past generation, to give to our common countrythe finest and most conspicuous type which American citizenshiphas yet produced of that high civil virtue—publicspirit. It is a virtue untaught in the schools—a grace anda duty not preached from the pulpit: and yet, as I studyits manifestations in this marvelous man whose suggestionand sagacity planted the cornucopias of plenty amid industrialdesolation and agricultural poverty—to me it seemsfar more in touch with the brotherhood of man and thehelpfulness of Christ than the benevolence which so oftendegrades the recipient and the zeal which burns so fiercelyfor the conversion of opinions. If the Church does notclaim it as the fruit of religion, the State may be proud toown it as the patriotism of peace.

What was he to Georgia? We naturally think of thematerial progress which he inspired throughout the State,and all due emphasis has been accorded to it. But wemust not forget the other forms of progress to which hewas devoted. What a many-sided man he was! He spenthimself to the utmost of his wonderful resources in behalfof the intellectual culture of the State—in the earnest butsweet-spirited championship of that moral issue which hedeclared was “the most hopeful experiment ever undertakenin any American city,” in that magnificent tributeto the value of her young men, which Atlanta has “writlarge” in the stately Association Building. And thus he,367whose pen seemed like the touch of Midas turning to thegold of material wealth every interest to which it pointed,he teaches also that imperative lesson of our needy time—thatto know and to be are greater things than to get andto have.

What was he to the South? Let the laureate answer:

More than any other public man, he was the voice of hispeople. His eloquence in magnetic speech, and that newart his genius had created—the oratory of the editorial!—alongwith the voices in literature of Joel Chandler Harris,Thomas Nelson Page and Harry Stillwell Edwards, haveconquered a hearing at the North. In glowing utteranceand moving story, they have set forth the true and tenderpictures of the old Southern life, the sincere and single-heartedheroism of the Confederate soldier, the cordial butself-respecting loyalty of the South of to-day to the restoredUnion. They have brought it to pass that in the contemporaryfiction of English-speaking peoples the favorite sceneis amid the old plantations, and the popular hero is theboy that wore the gray. By these subtle forces of genius,results have been achieved which no forensic advocacy orparty zeal could ever have accomplished. Old verdicts ofcondemnation and prejudice have been reversed; and intheir stead, comprehension has come, patience is coming,confidence will come.

For the sole but sufficient reason that the whole truthdemands it, I ought to say, that from what seemed to mesome of the implications of his public utterances I hadurged upon him my own dissent; and his letter in reply,permitting me to differ without a discount in his sincereesteem, is now, more than ever, one of the treasures of mylife.

His work for his people could not have been so adequatelydone had office crowned his worth. His advocacywould then have seemed professional and political. Public368station would have put limitations on him—would havenarrowed his audience. A rare lesson of his life is here—alesson needed especially among us whose habit has beento associate official distinction too exclusively with publicservice. The people are greater than Senate or Congress.The official in Washington can speak only to his party.But the audiences which Grady and his generous eulogist,Depew, commands show that a man uncrowned with publicoffice can be great in public life, and perhaps therebydo a greater work.

What was he to the Nation? Compelled by the limitationsof the hour to answer in one word, I choose this:He it was who first taught the rising generation of theSouth to bind the name of Lincoln with that of Washington“as a sign upon their hand and a frontlet on theirbrow.”

We stand face to face with a great mystery. It is thetragedy of early death, like that of Arthur Henry Hallam,which wrung from the sweetest singer of our time thenoblest poem of sorrow, a poem whose pages have been forthree days past luminous to me with new and richermeaning. Accepting the evidence of consciousness in itsreport of the hopes and aspirations of the human soul,there can be but two rational hypotheses for this mysteryof an unfinished life. One has been phrased by Renan inwords like this: “There is at the heart of the universe, aninfinite fiend who has filled the hearts of his creatures withdelusions, in order that in awful mockery he may witnessthe discomfiture of their despair.” The other theory hasbeen phrased by Martineau in words like these: “Theuniverse, which includes and folds us round, is the life-dwellingof an eternal mind and an infinite love; and everyaspiration is but a prophecy of the reality in that overarchingscene where one incompleteness is rounded out inthe greatness of God.” I need not tell you which of thesefaiths Henry Grady accepted, or I accept. I envy not theman who can think that there are in this universe anyshadows dark enough to quench his sunny spirit. I369believe (turning to his picture, on the stage) oh friend ofmine! that I shall look again into that love-lit eye—that Ishall clasp once more thy generous hand!

A poet sings of the echoes of the bugle from cliff andscar as contrasted with the impact of human influence:

In all gratitude we can say that we are happier becausehe lived; in all humility that we are better because his lifetouched ours. And because this is true our children andour fellow men shall be made happier and better; and sothe echoes of his soul, reduplicated in ten thousand hearts,shall abide, a gladdening and beneficent force—

SPEECH OF JUDGE HOWARD VAN EPPS.

Ladies and Gentlemen: The lightning brought thismessage to Atlanta:

“Henry Grady spends Christmas in heaven.”

Who doubts it? What creature whom the Creator hasloved enough to suffer him to hold a Christian’s faith willquestion that he is at this moment in company with thegood and great and virtuous who have preceded him? Ilooked upon his face, the pitifulness of death sealed uponit, and as I turned away with swimming eyes, I saw hiddenin a mass of flowers that loving hands had placed by hisside, these words:

And the fragrant breath around him seemed vocal withtriumphant voices, singing, “Reward without stint!” In370Athens, the home of his boyhood, a few months ago, hesaid, “I am going to Sunday-school. I want to feel that Iam a boy again.” When seated there the children sang,“Shall we gather at the river?” and he sank his face inboth his hands, and tears flooded through his fingers. O,“Great Heart,” we know that when your eyes closed uponthe weariness of the terrestrial, they opened fearless uponthe glories of the celestial. I fancy Mr. Hill sought himwithout delay, fixing upon him the earnest, penetratingglance we know so well, but out of which the pained seriousnesshas been washed away forever, exclaiming,“Why, Henry! You? And so soon! Welcome hometo our Father’s house!” Judge Lochrane has doubtlessalready repaired to his side and regaled him with a bit ofcelestial humor that set the seraphs ashout with laughter.Perhaps he has encountered by this time Mr. Lincoln andMr. Davis with arms interlocked, their differences alladjusted, in wider wisdom, and has been startled to hearthem say: “We were but just now speaking of you andof the future destiny of the American Republic. Mr. Lincolnhad just remarked that the United States were on thethreshold of a more cordial understanding and a closerunion than ever before, and Mr. Davis has just quoted yourprophetic invocation: ‘Let us resolve to crown the miraclesof the past with the spectacle of a Republic compact,united, indissoluble in the bonds of love—loving from theLakes to the Gulf—the wounds of war healed in every heartas on every hill—serene and resplendent at the summit ofhuman achievement and earthly glory—blazing out thepath, and making clear the way, up which all the nationsof the earth must come in God’s appointed time!’”

Oh, that he who alone knew how to describe “a perfectChristmas day,” could come back to his beloved Atlantaand make it all clear to us—the recognitions, the employments,the conversations, the blessedness of the redeemed.What sort of goblet of immortal nectar—of commingled“musk of yellow grain, of flavor of ripening fruits, fragranceof strawberries, exquisite odor of violets, aroma of371all seasons” of the celestial year, did the angels brew outof the material of yesterday to pledge the never-ending fellowshipsof Heaven in? What sort of hug of odorous shinedid Henry get armsful of yesterday, when he flung hishands wide apart in the presence of that Being whom hewas wont to call always in his reverent speech “the LordGod Almighty.”

Oh, well enough for Henry! but for us only the pain ofit all, the bitter pain. I look abroad and Atlanta’s businessmen seem grown suddenly older. The cry of thenewsboys—“Paper, sir?”—is almost a sob. I went late atnight into the Constitution building and the editors’ faceswere graver than they should be, and the composing-roomwas heavy with suggestions of widowhood and orphanage.

I went into a store Christmas eve (for Henry wouldnot have the children neglected) and the merchant couldn’tfind anything he sought for, and said, apologetically, “Ihaven’t had any sense to-day.” The pity of it! We arebereft. Our city is desolate. We had some great publicenterprises in view, that is, Henry had, and we were goingto follow him, and overwork him, as usual.

We are disheartened—almost discouraged. Atlanta isso young and fiery, almost fierce in her civic energy, andpulls so hard on the reins. Who will drive for us now?

We will see more clearly after a little, when our griefis calmer, but now as we see it through our tears, the faceand body of the times are out of joint.

I do not care, in this place and under present limitations,to speak of his kittenish boyhood; of his idyllichome-life; of his rollicsome and irresistible humor; of hissympathy and prodigality of self-sacrifice; of his boundlesslove to his fellow men; of his ability as a writer and super-eminenceas an orator; of his pride in Atlanta and servicesin aid of her material progress; of his patriotic devotion tothe South and to the Union. I want to ask indulgence tosay one thing, which, as I believe, were he here to prescribemy course and dictate my utterances, he would have mesay. I want to say to noble men of all parties, north and372east and west, speaking here from Grady’s bier, that theSouth is no more hostile to the Union than is NewEngland, and that her love, and sympathy, and desire tohelp the dependent class in her midst is deeper, if possible,than the treason of political agitators who seek to fomentrace prejudice to secure party supremacy. “We pledgeour lives, our property, and our sacred honor,” that wewill bring wisdom and humanity to the solution of thegrave problem in government which confronts us, and thatwe “will carry in honor and peace to the end.” Werepeat again and again, in our sadness, with the sacrednessof our grief for his loss around us, the plea ofGeorgia’s son, for patience, for confidence, for sympathy,for loyalty to the Republic, devoid of suspicion andestrangement, against any section.

We send greeting to generous New England. Theyloved him and we love them for it. We have even forgiventhem for being Republicans. We throw his knightlyand Christian gauntlet at their feet. We challenge herbusiness men, in the name of our champion of the doctrineof the brotherhood of men and of Americans, to the nationalglory-fields of the future—to fraternal love that will forgiveerrors of judgment seven times, and seventy times seven;and to a patriotic pride in and devotion to every foot of thesoil of our magnificent Republic, that will brook no suspicionsand no wrath in all her borders except whendirected against a foreign enemy.

Professor White’s address was delivered under verytrying conditions. He had been suffering from a severeheadache all morning and, in fact, he has been unwell forseveral days past. During his speech he suffered painfully,and immediately at its conclusion he was so much overcomeas to be almost completely prostrated. He was ledfrom the stage to the office of Judge Will Haight, wherehe remained until he recovered, leaving for home later inthe afternoon.

The address was delivered with pathos and emotion,373and that part which bore on his close relations with thedead man touched a responsive chord in every heart in thevast audience that sat in listening attention to the words oflove.

REMARKS OF PROF. H. C. WHITE.

My friends—companions in a common grief: My heartis yet too full of sorrow’s bitterness to frame in fittingterms the tribute I would wish to pay the gracious memoryof our beloved dead. Save she who bears my name, hewhom we buried yesterday was my dearest friend on earth.Our friendship, born of close companionship amid academicgroves where we together caught the inspirations that cometo wakening intellects, and nursed the high resolves thatbudding youth projects as guides along the future pathwayof the man, was nourished as we grew to man’s estate, andin these latter years so closely knit by constant intercourse,reciprocal respect each for the other’s judgment, wishesand desires, and mutual confidences of hopes and fears, ofsacred interests and fond ambitions, that when he died agreat and fervent glow seemed gone from out of my life, anddesolation laid its icy touch upon my heart.

In recognition of these sacred ties that closely boundour lives, I am bidden here to-day to join my grief to yoursand say a word of him who was as dear to me as man maybe to man.

How can I speak at Henry Grady’s funeral! What mayI say that others have not said; that will not, in our history,be written; for a Nation mourns him and a continentdeplores his untimely taking off, as the passing of thebrightest hope that cheered the future of our commoncountry’s rehabilitated life.

That he was worthy all the homage cultured men maypay to genius, talent, intellect, and wit, his works andreputation that survive beyond the grave will abundantlyattest. That he was worthy all the plaudits honest menaccord to truth and justness, integrity and honor, nonedare stand here and interpose the faintest shadow of a374doubt. That he was worthy all the sacred tears that gentlewomen and blessed little children may not refrain fromshowering on his grave as tribute to his tenderness, hisgentleness, his abounding love for all things human, we,who knew him best, who shared the golden flood of sunshinehis personality evoked and the sweetest, softestharmonies of the music of his life, we come, a cloud ofwitnesses, to testify.

He was truly great if earthly greatness may be measuredby the lofty aspirations men conceive for bettering theirfellow men’s estate, or by the success with which they realizeideals. His ambition was of the sort that makes menkings—not petty officers—and led him to aim to teach amighty Nation how best its glorious destiny might beachieved. His ample view looked far beyond the narrowpolicies of strife and selfishness and partisan contentionsthat mark the statesmanship of lesser men, and counseledthe broader, more effective lines of peace and love, ofpatience and forbearance. Had he but lived who maydoubt but that his counsels would have prevailed? Thiscity, which he loved so well and which he builded, stands,in its fair proportions, the peer of any on the earth in goodand equitable government, the prosperous home of happy,cultured freemen, as a type of what he wished his neighborsand his fellow-countrymen might strive to makethemselves in contrast with their fellow men; worthy tostand among the bravest and the best. Its massive wallsstand witness to his energy, his skill and his success.

He was wise, and thousands came to him for counsel.The University—his loved and loving Alma Mater—whosesmiles had brightened the endeavors of his youth, calledhim to her councils in his maturer years, and to-day shesits upon her classic hills, a Niobe, in tears and clad inmourning for him—chiefest among her brilliant sons; foremostamong her guardians and advisers.

He was good; and for all the thousand chords of humanemotions he played upon with facile pen and tongue ofmatchless eloquence, he ever held a heart in tender sympathy375with childhood’s innocence, the mother’s love, thelover’s passion, the maiden’s modesty, the sinner’s penitenceand the Christian’s faith.

One consolation comes to us, his sorrowing friends to-day.Around his bier no fierce contentions wage unseemlystrife for offices left vacant by his death. He held no placethat may be filled by gift of man. He filled no office withinthe power of governments or peoples to bestow. He servedthe public but was no public servant. He was a privatecitizen and occupied a unique position in the commonwealth,exalted beyond the meed of patronage, won by virtueof his individual qualities and held at pleasure of hisgenius and by the grace of God.

Full well I know that, in God’s providence, no oneman’s death may halt the march of time to ultimate eventsor change the increasing purpose that through the agesruns, but this I do believe, that this man’s death has slowedthe dial of our country’s progress to full fruition of itshappiness, prosperity, and peace. To those of us whostand in history midway between a national life our fathersfounded and wrecked in throes of revolution and of war,and another in the future, bright with fair promises butill-defined as yet in form, with darkling clouds casting grimshadows across the lines along which it must be achieved,he was our chosen leader and our trusted champion. Noone of us will be tardy in acknowledgment that he stoodhead and shoulders above us all and towered at the veryfront. That time will bring a successor in the leadershipwe reverently pray and confidently hope, but meanwhileour generation is camped in bivouac by the path of historyawaiting the birth and training of another chief.

Of all his usefulness to nation, state and town; of allthat he contributed to the glory of our country’s history—thebrave defense of its unsullied past; the wise directionof its present purposes; the high ideals of its future progress—ofthese, others with equal knowledge, may speakwith greater eloquence than I. I come especially to pay asimple tribute (time and occasion serve for nothing more)376to the man himself—my boyhood’s, manhood’s companion,friend and lover. When on the day he died I nursed myselfish grief within the sacred precincts of a home which hehad often beautified and rendered joyous by his presence;in the city of his birth, among the lanes his boyish feet hadtrod; amid scenes where his genius had first been plumedto flight; where he had felt the first touch of manhood’saspirations and ambitions; where he had pressed his maidensuit of sacred love; where his dead hero-father lay at rest,and where the monumental shaft is reared to the base ofwhich it was his ardent hope that he might bring his son toanoint him with the glories and the graces of a hero race—Ithought no other’s sorrow could be as keen as mine. Butlo! my neighbors shared an universal grief and drapedtheir homes with sable tokens of their mourning hearts;the very children in the streets stopped in their Christmasplay and spoke in whispers as in the presence of a dreadcalamity; and here, I find myself but one among a multitudeto whom that great and noble heart had given of itsgracious bounty and drawn them to himself by bonds ofeverlasting love that caused their tears to flow as freely asmy own, in tribute to the sweetness, gentleness, magneticjoyousness of him that we have lost.

He was the very embodiment of love. A loving man; aman most lovable. Affection for his fellows welled fromout his heart and overwhelmed in copious flood all broughtwithin its touch. His love inspired counter-love in men ofall degree. The aged marked his coming with a brighteningsmile; the young fell down and worshiped him.Unselfishness, the chiefest virtue men may claim—it carriesall the others in its train—was possessed by him in unsurpasseddegree. His generosity passed quick and far beyondthe lines marked out by charity and overflowed the limitsfixed by prudence. In fine, the gentler graces all werehis:

377Science and religion alike declare that force is indestructible.Some catch from one and some the other theinspiration that gives them faith and blessed hope that thatgreat thing we call the Soul may live and work beyond thataccident which we call Death, which comes with all theterrors of unfathomable mystery to free the fretting spiritfrom its carnal chains.

He had no special knowledge—nor cared for none—ofscientific theory or philosophic speculation, but he hadgained from deep religious thought—not technical theologyperhaps, but true religion, the same that taught him to“visit the widows and fatherless in their affliction and tokeep himself unspotted from the world”—he had gainedfrom this a deep, abiding conviction in a life beyond thegrave. That this was true I know; for often we havetalked of these great mysteries and, closeted together, haveweighed the doubts the increasing knowledge of the centurieshas brought, and I have never known a man whoseconvictions were as firm, and who, frankly and squarelymeeting every doubt, retained unshaken faith with all hisheart, soul and mind.

How far this faith held him in loyalty to churchlycreed—the necessary corollary of such faith as his—othersare more competent than I to tell.

Great Spirit—that which was loose but yesterday frommortal tenement we sadly laid to rest—thy sorrowingfriends send after thee, along the shimmering lines thatguide thy flight from earth to glory, this fervent prayer—temperingour agony and comforting our desolation—thatGod, in His infinite wisdom, may count thy faith deservingsuch reward in Heaven as we would measure to thy workson earth.

God rest thee, princely gentlemen! God keep thee,peerless friend!

378When Mr. Graves was introduced, the audience brokeinto applause. His fame as an orator, and his intimatefriendship with Mr. Grady were known, and his eloquenttribute to his dead friend moved the hearts of his hearersas they had seldom by words been moved before. Uponbeing introduced by Mayor Glenn, Mr. Graves said:

SPEECH OF HON. JOHN TEMPLE GRAVES.

I am one among the thousands who loved him, and Istand with the millions who lament his death.

I loved him in the promise of his glowing youth, when,across my boyish vision he walked with winning grace, fromeasy effort to success. I loved him in the flush of splendidmanhood when a Nation hung upon his words—and now,with the dross of human friendship smitten in my soul—Ilove him best of all as he lies yonder under the Decemberskies, with face as tranquil and with smile as sweet aspatrial ever wore.

In this sweet and solemn hour all the rare and kindlyadjectives that blossomed in the shining pathway of his pen,seem to have come from every quarter of the continent tolay themselves in loving tribute at their master’s feet; butrich as the music that they bring, all the cadences of oureulogy

And here to-day, within this hall glorified by the echoesof his eloquence, standing to answer the impulse of myheart in the roll-call of his friends, and stricken with myemptiness of words, I know that, when the finger of Godtouched his eyelids into sleep, there gathered a silenceupon the only lips that could weave the sunbright storyof his days, or mete sufficient eulogy to the incomparablerichness of his life.

I agree with Patrick Collins that he was the most brilliantson of this Republic. If the annals of these times are379told with truth, they will give him place as the phenomenonof his period, the Admirable Crichton of the age in whichhe lived. No eloquence has equaled his since SargentPrentiss faded from the earth. No pen has plowed suchnoble furrow in his country’s fallow fields since the wristof Horace Greeley rested; no age of the Republic has witnessedsuch marvelous conjunction of a magical pen withthe velvet splendor of a mellow tongue, and although thewarlike rival of these wondrous forces never rose withinhis life, it is writ of all his living, that the noble fires of hisgenius were lighted in his boyhood from the gleam thatdied upon his father’s sword.

I have loved to follow, and I love to follow now thepathway of that diamond pen as it flashed like an inspirationover every phase of life in Georgia. It touched thesick body of a desolate and despairing agriculture with theimpulse of a better method, and the farmer, catching theglow of promise in his words, left off sighing and went tosinging in his fields, until at last the better day has come,and as the sunshine melts into his harvests with the tenderrain, the heart of humanity is glad in his hope and theglow on his fields seems the smile of the Lord. Its bravepoint went with cheerful prophecy and engaging manlinessinto the ranks of toil, until the workman at his anvil feltthe dignity of labor pulse the somber routine of the hours,and the curse of Adam softening in the faith of silver sentences,became the blessing and the comfort of his days.Into the era of practical politics it dashed with the graceof an earlier chivalry, and in an age of pushing and unseemlyscramble, it woke the spirit of a loftier sentiment,while around the glow of splendid narrative and the charmof entrancing plea there grew a goodlier company of youth,linked to the Republic’s nobler legends and holding fastthat generous loyalty which builds the highest bulwark ofthe State.

First of all the instruments which fitted his genius toexpression was this radiant pen. Long after it had blazedhis way to eminence and usefulness, he waked the power380of that surpassing oratory which has bettered all the sentimentof his country and enriched the ripe vocabulary ofthe world. Nothing in the history of human speech willequal the stately steppings of his eloquence into glory. Ina single night he caught the heart of the country into itswarm embrace, and leaped from a banquet revelry intonational fame. It is, at last, the crowning evidence of hisgenius, that he held to the end, unbroken, the high fameso easily won, and sweeping from triumph unto triumph,with not one leaf of his laurels withered by time or staledby circ*mstance, died on yesterday—the foremost oratorof all the world.

It is marvelous, past all telling how he caught the heartof the country in the fervid glow of his own! All theforces of our statesmanship have not prevailed for unionlike the ringing speeches of this bright, magnetic man.His eloquence was the electric current over which the positiveand negative poles of American sentiment were rushingto a warm embrace. It was the transparent mediumthrough which the bleared eyes of sections were learningto see each other clearer and to love each other better. Hewas melting bitterness in the warmth of his patrial sympathies,sections were being linked in the logic of his liquidsentences, and when he died he was literally loving aNation into peace.

Fit and dramatic climax to a glorious mission, that heshould have lived to carry the South’s last and greatestmessage to the center of the Nation’s culture, and then,with the gracious answer to his transcendent service lockedin his loyal heart, come home to die among the peoplehe had served! Fitter still, that, as he walked in finaltriumph through the streets of his beloved city, he shouldhave caught upon his kingly head that wreath of Southernroses—richer jewels than Victoria wears—plucked by thehands of Georgia women, borne by the hands of Georgiamen, and flung about him with a loving tendernessthat crowned him for his burial, that, in the unspeakablefragrance of Georgia’s full and sweet approval,381he might “draw the drapery of his couch about him, andlie down to pleasant dreams.”

If I should seek to touch the core of all his greatness, Iwould lay my hand upon his heart. I should speak of hishumanity—his almost inspired sympathies, his sweetphilanthropy and the noble heartfulness that ran like asilver current through his life. His heart was the furnacewhere he fashioned all his glowing speech. Love was thecurrent that sent his golden sentences pulsing through theworld, and in the honest throb of human sympathies hefound the anchor that held him steadfast to all thingsgreat and true. He was the incarnate triumph of a heartfulman.

I thank God, as I stand above my buried friend, thatthere is not one ignoble memory in all the shining pathwayof his fame! In all the glorious gifts that God Almightygave him, not one was ever bent to willing service inunworthy cause. He lived to make the world about himbetter. With all his splendid might he helped to build ahappier, heartier and more wholesome sentiment amonghis kind. And in fondness, mixed with reverence, I believethat the Christ of Calvary, who died for men, has found awelcome sweet for one who fleshed within his person thegolden spirit of the New Commandment and spent hispowers in glorious living for his race.

O brilliant and incomparable Grady! We lay for aseason thy precious dust beneath the soil that bore andcherished thee, but we fling back against all our brighteningskies the thoughtless speech that calls thee dead!God reigns and his purpose lives, and although these bravelips are silent here, the seeds sown in this incarnateeloquence will sprinkle patriots through the years to come,and perpetuate thy living in a race of nobler men!

But all our words are empty, and they mock the air.If we would speak the eulogy that fills this day, let usbuild within this city that he loved, a monument tall ashis services, and noble as the place he filled. Let everyGeorgian lend a hand, and as it rises to confront in majesty382his darkened home, let the widow who weeps there be toldthat every stone that makes it has been sawn from the solidprosperity that he builded, and that the light which playsupon its summit is, in afterglow, the sunshine that hebrought into the world.

And for the rest—silence. The sweetest thing about hisfuneral was that no sound broke the stillness, save thereading of the Scriptures and the melody of music. Nofire that can be kindled upon the altar of speech can relumethe radiant spark that perished yesterday. No blaze bornin all our eulogy can burn beside the sunlight of his usefullife. After all there is nothing grander than suchliving.

I have seen the light that gleamed at midnight from theheadlight of some giant engine rushing onward through thedarkness, heedless of opposition, fearless of danger, and Ithought it was grand. I have seen the light come over theeastern hills in glory, driving the lazy darkness like mistbefore a sea-born gale, till leaf and tree, and blade of grassglittered in the myriad diamonds of the morning ray; andI thought it was grand.

I have seen the light that leaped at midnight athwartthe storm-swept sky, shivering over chaotic clouds, midhowling winds, till cloud and darkness and the shadow-hauntedearth flashed into mid-day splendor, and I knewit was grand. But the grandest thing, next to the radiancethat flows from the Almighty Throne, is the light of anoble and beautiful life, wrapping itself in benediction’round the destinies of men, and finding its home in theblessed bosom of the Everlasting God!

SPEECH OF GOVERNOR GORDON.

Mr. Chairman and Fellow-Citizens: The news of HenryGrady’s death reached me at a quiet country retreat in adistant section of the State. The grief of that rural community,as deep and sincere as the shock produced by hisdeath was great and unexpected, told more feelingly andeloquently than any words of mine possibly can, the universality383of the love and admiration of all her people forGeorgia’s peerless son.

It is no exaggeration to say that the humblest and thehighest, the poorest and richest—all classes, colors andcreeds, with an unspeakable sorrow, mourn his death as apublic calamity. It is no exaggeration to say that no manlives who can take his place. It is no extravagant eulogyto declare that scarcely any half-dozen men, by their combinedefforts, can fill in all departments the places whichhe filled in his laborious and glorious life.

His wonderful intellect, enabling him, without apparenteffort, to master the most difficult and obtuse public questions,and to treat them with matchless grace and power;his versatile genius, which made him at once the leader ingreat social reforms, as well as in gigantic industrial movements—thatgenius which made him at once the eloquentadvocate, the logical expounder, the wise organizer, thevigorous executive—all these rich and unrivaled endowments,justify in claiming for him a place among the greatestand most gifted of this or any age.

But splendid as were his intellectual abilities, it is theboundless generosity of his nature, his sweet and lovingspirit, his considerate and tender charity, exhaustless as afountain of living waters, refreshing and making happy allhearts around him, these are the characteristics on whichI love most to dwell. It is no wonder that his splendidgenius attracted the gaze and challenged the homage of thecontinent. It is perhaps even a less wonder that a manwith such boundless sympathies for his fellow men and soprodigal with his own time and talent and money in theservice of the public, should be so universally and tenderlyloved.

The career of Henry Grady is more than unique. Itconstitutes a new chapter in human experience. No privatecitizen in the whole eventful history of this Republicever wore a chaplet so fadeless or linked his name so surelywith deathless immortality. His name as a journalist andorator, his brilliant and useful life, his final crowning384triumph, especially the circ*mstances of martyrdom surroundinghis death, making it like that of the giant ofholy writ, as we trust, more potential than ever in intellectualprowess of magic of the living man—all these willconspire not more surely to carry his fame to posterity,than will his deeds of charity and ready responses to thosewho needed his effective help, serve to endear to our heartsand memories, as long as life shall last, the memory ofHenry W. Grady.

Governor Gordon’s tribute was the last of the sadoccasion.

At its conclusion Dr. H. C. Morrison pronounced thebenediction, and the curtain was drawn on the final publicexercises of the most memorable funeral service the Southhas ever known.

But the memory of the loved and illustrious dead willlinger long with his bereaved people.

A GRADY Memorial Meeting was held at Macon, Ga.,on the evening of Thursday, December 26, 1889. TheAcademy of Music was filled with an assemblage of citizensof all classes. The meeting was called to order by Mr. F.H. Richardson, and the exercises were opened with animpressive prayer by Rev. T. R. Kendall, pastor of MulberryStreet Church. In announcing the object of the meeting,Mr. Richardson, who presided, said:

ADDRESS OF MR. RICHARDSON.

Fellow-Citizens: We have assembled to-night to honorthe memory of a good and useful man; to express oursincere regrets that death has closed a high career in themeridian of its splendor; to voice our sympathy with thegrief which this public loss has carried to every part of ourState.

This is an occasion without precedent in the history ofMacon. Never before have its people given such tribute tothe memory of a private citizen. But when has such aprivate citizen lived, when has such a one died in Georgia?In speaking of my dear, dead friend I trust I do not passthe bounds of exact and proper statement when I say thatthere was not within the limits of these United States anyman unburdened by office, unadorned by the insigniaof triumphs in the fields of war, or the arena of politics,whose death would have been so generally deplored as isthat of Henry W. Grady. It will be our privilege andpleasure to hear testimony of his genius and his virtuesfrom the representatives of five organizations; the Press,the Chamber of Commerce of Macon, the resident alumni386of the State University, the City Government, and the ChiPhi Fraternity. Each of these has good reason to honorthe memory of Henry Grady. The press can fashion noeulogy richer than his desert, for his was the most illustriouspen that has flashed in Southern journalism duringthis generation. The Chamber of Commerce cannotaccord him too much praise, for, though himself unskilledin the science of trade, he was the chief promoter ofpublic enterprise in his city and set an example worthythe emulation of any man whose ambition looks to the promotionof commercial and industrial progress. Surely theAlumni of the State University should honor him, for hewas the most famous man who has left the classic halls ofAthens in many a year. It is well that the City Governmentjoins in this general tribute to the lamented dead.He led his own city to high ideals and to large achievements.He preached the gospel of liberality as well as thecreed of progress. While his devotion to his own city wassupreme, from his lips there fell no word of scorn or malicefor any other community. Let us emulate the catholicityof his patriotism. Atlanta was its central force and fire,but it extended to all Georgia, to all these States and,passing beyond the boundaries of his own county, wastransformed into a love for all mankind. The Chi PhiFraternity had much cause to love Henry Grady. Onlythose of us who know the full meaning of the mystic bondsof that brotherhood can appreciate the ardor and enthusiasmof his devotion to it. There was that in him whichwas nobler and worthier of commemoration than even hisradiant genius. Powerful as he was with the pen, persuasiveas he was in his masterful control of the witchery ofeloquence, fascinating as was his personality, he had a stillbetter claim to honor than could be founded on these distinctions.After all, the best fame is that which, thoughnot sought, is won by goodness, charity, and brotherlylove. Leigh Hunt’s Abou Ben Adhem is lovelier than themightiest of the Moorish Kings. Henry Grady concernedhimself to do good unto others. He kindled the fire on387cold hearth stones, he cared for the sick and the forsaken,he visited the prisoner, he carried consolation to the desolate.His works of mercy, tenderness, and love do liveafter him, and they are the crowning beauty of his work inthis world. The tear of gratitude that trickles down thecheek of the orphan is a purer jewel than ever sparkled inthe crown of political fame. The simple thanks of thefriendless and oppressed make sweeter music to the soulthan the applause of senates. These priceless rewards wereshowered upon him in recognition of many an untold deedof charity and grace. His life has been concluded when,according to human wisdom, it seemed most desirable thathe should linger among the walks of men. Silence has setit* seal on his eloquent lips when their words seemedsweetest. His great, tender heart has been hushed forever,when from the life it quickened there were going forthinfluences of large and increasing beneficence.

Capt. J. L. Hardeman was then introduced, and heread the following resolutions framed by the committeefrom the meeting of the various bodies held last Tuesday:

RESOLUTIONS.

The death of Henry Grady is a great blow to the hopes of the South.He had become one of the foremost men of the day in her behalf. Hisleadership was as unique as it was controlling. He held no office, hesought no preferment, and yet he was a leader. History furnishes butfew examples like this, none that can excel him in the sublime usefulnessof his career. His patriotism was so lofty that one cannot measureit by the standards of the hour. His soul was filled to running overwith a deep love for his people and the sufferings they had endured,and those to which fanaticism might expose them. This love was hisinspiration. It moved, it commanded the largest exercise of his versatilegenius under an infinite variety of circ*mstances. And in all ofthese, whether as editor, writer, orator or citizen, he buried far out ofsight every consideration of self and wrought for the people’s good.And his work was on a plane as exalted as his highest aspirations. Notaint of gain ever touched his hand; no surrender of principle evermarred the colors of the banner he bore. What though in a passingmoment he may have differed with others upon minor matters, yet inall the great and burning questions which so vitally concern the people388of the South and of the Union, he was abreast and ahead of nearly allothers. In his life every element of success was materialized, anenergy as untiring as the tides of the sea; a courage like the eagle’sthat gazes with eye undimmed upon the glare of the noonday sun; agenius so comprehensive that it grasped with equal facility the smallestdetail and the broadest of human issues, and above all, a patriotismpure, heroic, unsectional, drawing its inspiration from the sacred fountainhead of American liberty, and spreading its benign influencewherever the Constitution is obeyed and the rights of mankind respected.And thus he worked in the fore front till death overtookhim. In this hour of mourning, how heavily do we feel his loss. Thegreat purpose of life was just planned out. The certainty of its fulfillmentcould rest alone with him. To lead his people onward and upwardthrough all the harassing difficulties which beset them to the fullfruition of constitutional liberty in its widest meaning, was his purpose.Not alone by his splendid oratory did he seek to attain this end; to thisend he devoted his pen as an editor, and to this end he also devotedthose beautiful traits of his private character, which made him lovedby all who knew him. His unfinished work is yet to be accomplished.The young Moses of the Southland is gone, and may the people notwander from his teachings. The people of Macon assembled to dohonor to the illustrious dead

Resolve, That in the death of Henry W. Grady, the State of Georgiahas lost one of her noblest sons, the Union a man who was a patrioticlover of constitutional liberty.

Resolve, That in the death of Henry W. Grady, the city of Atlantahas been deprived of a noble, energetic and unselfish citizen, who wasdevoted to her interests.

Resolve, That we tender our sympathies as a people to the family ofthe deceased, and that a copy of these resolutions be forwarded tothem.

In moving the adoption of the resolutions, he said:

Mr. Chairman: In moving the adoption of this, thereport of your committee, I can but say that to-nightemphasizes the words of Jerusalem’s King: “A goodname is better than precious ointment, and the day ofdeath than the day of one’s birth.” Death came to himas a benediction that followed a sacrifice. Warned by hisphysician that he was ill, cavalier of the South alone he389marched to battle for her, uninspired by the enthusiasmof a battle array, yet within cannon shot of Bunker Hill,and where he could feel the spray from Plymouth Rock,he fought a gallant fight for us, and leaving the field victor,amidst the plaudits of those he had conquered, hehastened home to complete his sacrifice; and the sameangel that bade him leave this world spoke not only to thesoul of Henry W. Grady, but to all the people North andSouth: “Peace, be still.”

The resolutions were unanimously adopted by a risingvote.

Professor G. R. Glenn was then introduced and readthe following preamble and resolution on the part of thecommittee of alumni:

ALUMNI RESOLUTIONS.

It is no ordinary occasion that calls us together. That was noordinary light that went out in the gray mists of early dawn. It wasno ordinary life that has so suddenly and so strangely come down toits close. To those of us who were University students with him, whoknew his University career, the story of his splendid accomplishmentshas more than ordinary significance, and the heart-breaking tragedy ofhis sudden taking off a profound meaning.

We had a personal sympathy in every stride of his struggling manhood:we carried a personal pride to every wonderful achievement ofhis growing genius: we hailed with fraternal joy every popular triumphof his intellectual prowess; we joined in every glad shout thattold how victoriously his unselfish love was commanding sway overthe American heart; and when he is stricken down we bow our headsin sorrow, as only those can who know the sources from which hedrew the inspirations of his life.

He came from the University of Georgia in those palmy days from’66 to ’72, when Lipscomb and Mell and W. L. Brown and Waddelland Rutherford and Charbonnier and Jones and Smead—names thatsome of us will teach our boys to pronounce tenderly and reverently—wereat their greatest and best. In this company gathered here arethose who know the meaning and the moulding power of great characterbuilders like these. The great soul of the venerable ChancellorLipscomb, that grand arch priest of higher learning, made its impresson the soul of the young man at Athens. Some of us can trace thatimpress, and the impress of the University of those days, through all390his after life down to that Boston speech, aye, even to the delirium ofthat last sickness, when his thought was for others rather than ofhimself.

Moulded to be generous, broad-minded, tolerant, unselfish, magnanimous,aspiring, noble, who may tell us what climax this divinelygifted, sunny soul might not have reached if his rich and kingly lifemight have been spared to his race. The education that he receivedwas an evolution of the best and most royal in manhood. It wasfashioned on this pattern—the germ thoughts of his life took root inhis home and branched out to his friends, overshadowed this city,sent their far-reaching and strengthening arms over every portion ofhis State, and then towered grandly above his section. Yea, and hadbegan to bear fruit for the healing of the nation, when alas, alas, aninscrutable Providence cuts him down. But, thank God, that matchlesstongue, now silent forever, was not hushed till, above Atlanta,above Georgia, above the South, above the whole country, the undyingeloquence of that Boston speech rose in majestic waves over city,state, section and country, and sent the far-thrilling echoes into theeternal depths of our common humanity. There it is—from his home,through the university life, through the splendid work in his editorialchair, on the rostrum, in every forward movement of his soul tothat last grand plea to the national heart, and down into the deliriumof the death chamber, it is the evolution of the noblest and the best.The heart that made the sunniest home in Atlanta warmed everythingit touched, from the son of the Puritan on Plymouth Rock, to thegrey-haired old freedman that goes with tottering step and slow to joinold master and old missus behind the sunset hills.

The University has sent out many sons who have honored her infilling large places in the history of our State and country. Hill andStephens and Toombs, the Cobbs, and Jacksons, and Lumpkins, andCrawfords, and Gordons, and a long line of immortal names, have illustratedher worth in the professions, in the field, and in the forum. Ofthe many bright and brightening names of her younger sons, the nameof Grady easily led all the rest, and now that he is gone, the almostuniversal cry is, who among those that are left is great enough to fillhis place. In the words of one who had much to do in moulding hisintellectual life: “Ulysses is away on his wandering and there is noneleft in Ithaca strong enough to bend his bow.”

Resolved, That in the death of Henry W. Grady the Alumni of theUniversity of Georgia have lost from their ranks a man who illustratedthe best that comes from University education.

Resolved, That his career furnishes to our young men a shining exampleof one who, choosing his life-work, loved it with an unwaveringlove, believed in it with an unalterable and tireless devotion and reachedsuccess and eminence before he had rounded two-score years.

391Resolved, That we recognize and commend the unselfish and generouslove of our brother for his own race and for the human race—alove that was so warm and genial that it won men to him as if bymagic. Here was the motive power that developed and drove hisgreat brain. Here was the “open sesame” that unlocked for himthose treasure-houses of grand thoughts for humanity that are foreverbarred to cold-hearted and self-seeking men.

Resolved, That we very tenderly and lovingly commend to ourHeavenly Father the loved ones about his own hearthstone. We cannotunderstand this blow, but we bow in submission to the Judge of allthe earth, who will do right.

Resolved, That copies of this preamble and resolutions be furnishedto his family, and to the Macon and Atlanta papers for publication.

These resolutions were also unanimously adopted.

Mr. John T. Boifeuillet, representing the press of Macon,spoke as follows:

ADDRESS OF MR. BOIFEUILLET.

Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen: The silver cordis loosed, the golden bowl is broken, and the most brilliantlight in American journalism is veiled in darkness. Thecrystal spirit has returned to the bright realm from whenceit came, as an evangel of peace, hope and mercy.

The star was rapidly ascending to the zenith of itsgreatest brilliancy and magnitude when suddenly it disappearedbelow the horizon, but across the journalisticfirmament of the country it has left an effulgent trackwhose reflection illuminates the world.

Henry Grady’s sun-bright intellect shone with a splendorthat dazzled the eyes of men, and made luminous the pagestraced by his magnetic pen. The cold type sparkled withthe fires of his genius. His writings breathed a spirit ofsweetness and good-will. They were inspired by lofty purposesand earnest endeavor, free from all suspicion of selfishnessor insincerity. No shadow of doubt fell across thesunshine of his truth.

392Wherever a sunbeam wandered, or a tear-drop glistened;wherever a perishing life trod upon the ebbing tide; whereverbeauty sat garlanded, or grief repined, there Gradywas, singing his loves and binding rainbow hopes aroundthe darkest despair. His harp was strung in harmony withthe chords of the human heart.

When God in his eternal council conceived the thoughtof man’s creation, he called to him the three ministers whowait constantly upon the throne, Justice, Truth, and Mercy,and thus addressed them: “Shall we make man?” Thensaid Justice: “O God, make him not, for he will trampleupon the laws.” Truth made answer also: “O God, makehim not, for he will pollute the sanctuaries.” But Mercy,dropping upon her knees, and looking up through hertears, exclaimed: “O God, make him—and I will watchover him with my care through all the dark paths whichhe may have to tread!” Then God made man, and saidto him: “O man, thou art the child of Mercy; go and dealwith thy brother.”

So, Henry Grady, a ministering angel of mercy on earth,faithfully tried, throughout his life, in his conduct towardhis fellow-man, to follow the Divine injunction given atman’s creation morn. His pen was never dipped in maliceor bitterness, but was always lifted in behalf of charity,love and kindness; in behalf of progress, industry andenterprise; in behalf of the South and her institutions—hisState and her people.

Some men burst to shatters by their own furious notion,others in the course of nature simply cease to shine; somedart through the period of their existence like meteorsthrough the sky, leaving as little impression behind andhaving with it a connection equally as slight, while othersenter it so thoroughly that the time becomes identifiedwith them. To this latter class belonged Henry Grady.

His pen improved the agriculture of the South; it393advanced the material interest and substantial growth ofGeorgia; it advocated industrial training for the youthsand maidens of the land; it developed the poetry of theState; it elevated the morals of men and purified theircharacter; it created noble aspirations in the human heart;it implanted seeds of benevolence, charity and liberality;it taught the lesson of self-abnegation and forgiveness; itinculcated principles of patriotism and love of country; itsoftened animosities between the North and South, andclasped the hands of the two sections in fraternal greeting.His pen built Atlanta, it aided in building up Georgia; itestablished expositions that were a credit to the State anda glory to her people; it accumulated by one editorial$85,000 for the erection of a Y. M. C. A. building; it collectedthe fund for the erection of the Confederate soldiers’home, which will ever stand as a monument to his patriotismand fidelity. When winter clasped Atlanta in its icyembrace, and the poor were suffering from hunger and cold,his pleading pen made the God-favored people of that city,who sat within places of wealth and comfort, by glowingfires and bountifully laden tables, hear the wail of theorphan and the cry of the widow; purse-strings wereunfastened, cold hearts thawed under the magneticwarmth of his melting pathos, and in a few hours therewas not an empty larder or a fireless home among the poorof Georgia’s great capital. Whether engaged in makinggovernors and senators, or preparing a Christmas dinnerfor newsboys, whether occupied in building a church orforming a Chautauqua; whether constructing a railroad orerecting some eleemosynary institution, his pen was powerfuland his influence potent. It has left its impress uponthe tablets of the world’s memory, and the name of HenryGrady, the great pacificator, will live in song and storyuntil the sundown of time.

According to a contemporary, Henry Grady, while abeardless student at college, wrote a letter to the AtlantaConstitution, which was his first newspaper experience.The sparkle and dash of the communication so pleased the394editor of the paper, that when the first press conventionafter the war was tendered a ride over the State road, theeditor telegraphed his boyish correspondent, who had thenreturned to his home in Athens, that he wished to have himrepresent the Constitution on that trip, and write up thecountry and its resources along the line of the road. Mr.Grady accepted the commission, and of all the hundreds ofletters written on the occasion, his, over the signature of“King Hans,” were most popular and most widely copied.He became editor and one of the proprietors of the RomeDaily Commercial, a sprightly, newsy, and enterprisingjournal. Rome, however, was at that time too small tosupport a daily paper on such a scale, and in 1872 Mr.Grady purchased an interest in the Atlanta Herald. Herehe found room and opportunity for his soaring wings, andthe Herald became one of the most brilliant papers everpublished in Georgia. In 1876 he became connected withthe Constitution. By this time his editorial abilities hadmade him many friends at home and abroad, and JamesGordon Bennett at once made him the Southern representativeof the New York Herald. On this journal Mr.Grady did some of the best work of his life. He rapidlyregained all that he had lost in his ventures, and in 1880purchased a fourth interest in the Constitution, taking theposition of managing editor, which he held at the time ofhis death. His career in that capacity is a matter of proudand brilliant history. He had just commenced an interestingseries of valuable letters to the New York Ledger whenhe was stricken down with fatal sickness, even while theplaudits of the admiring multitude were ringing in his earsand the press of the country was singing his praises.

The last editorial Grady wrote was the beautiful andsoulful tribute on the death of Jefferson Davis; and on theeve of Mr. Grady’s departure from Atlanta for Boston hesounded the bugle-call for funds to help erect a monumentto the peerless champion of the “Lost Cause.” Howstrange, indeed, that the illustrious leader and sage of theOld South and the brilliant and fearless apostle of the New395South, should pass away so near together. Ben Hill died,and his place has never been supplied in Georgia. Mr.Grady approached nearer to it than any other man. NowGrady is gone, and his duplicate cannot be found in theState. Society was blessed by his living and his Stateadvanced by his usefulness and excellence.

Like the great Cicero, who, when quitting Rome, tookfrom among his domestic divinities the ivory statue ofMinerva, the protectress of Rome, and consecrated it in thetemple, to render it inviolable to the spoilers, so HenryGrady, when leaving his college halls to enter upon a brilliantlife in the journalistic world, took with him to theoracles the statue of pure thought, and after its consecration,to protect and preserve it in his bosom, it became tohim a shield and buckler. Thus armed he went forward tothe battle of life, determined to do his whole duty to hiscountry, his God and truth. How well he succeeded, thevoice of admiring humanity proclaims, and the angels ofheaven have recorded. He vanquished all opposition andwaved his triumphant banner over every field of conflict.

His thoughts were sparks struck from the mind ofDeity, immortal in their character and duration. Theywere active, energizing, beautiful, and refined. His mindwas like a precious bulb, putting forth its shoots and bloomingits flowers, warmed by the sunshine and watered by theshowers. It was like a beautiful blade, burnished andbrightened, and as it flashed in the sunlight it mirrored hiskingly soul and knightly spirit.

Looking back at the ages that have rolled by in therevolutions of time, what have we remaining of the pastbut the thoughts of men? Where is magnificent Babylonwith her palaces, her artificial lakes and hanging gardensthat were the pride and luxury of her vicious inhabitants;where is majestic Nineveh, that proud mistress of the Eastwith her monuments of commercial enterprise and prosperity?Alas! they are no more. Tyre, that great city,into whose lap the treasures of the world were poured, shetoo is no more. The waves of the sea now roll where once396stood the immense and sumptuous palaces of Tyrian wealth.Temples, arches and columns may crumble to pieces and beswept into the sea of oblivion; nature may decay and racesof men come and go like the mists of the morning beforethe rising sun, but the proud monuments of Henry Grady’smind will survive the wrecks of matter and the shocks oftime.

On the Piedmont heights peacefully sleeps the freshnessof the heart of the New South, cut down in the grandeurof his fame and in the meridian of his powers, in the gloryof his life and in the richest prime of his royal manhood.His brow is wreathed with laurel. Costly marble willmark the place of his head, and beautiful flowers bloom athis feet. There the birds will carol their vespers, andgentle breezes breathe fragrance o’er his grave. The sun inhis dying splendor, ere sinking to rest amid the clouds thatveil the “golden gate,” will linger to kiss the majesticmonument reared by loving hearts, and with a flood ofbeauty bathe it in heavenly glory. And then the blushfades, even as it fades from the face of a beautiful woman.Shadows begin to climb the hillside, and nature sleeps,lulled by the soft music of the singing wind. The stars, thebright forget-me-nots of the angels, come out to keep theirvigils o’er the sleeping dust of him whose soul hath gone

Major J. F. Hanson, as the representative of the Chamberof Commerce, said:

ADDRESS OF MAJOR HANSON.

It would be impossible at this short distance in point oftime from the final struggle in which Mr. Grady yieldedup his life, to form a just estimate of his character, hisattainments and his work. These have passed into history,and will survive the mournful demonstrations of his people,because of their loss in his sudden and unexpected death.

To many of you he was personally known, while, with397the people of Georgia, his name was a household word. Inhis chosen profession he will rank with Lamar and Watterson.With these exceptions, in the field of Southern journalism,he was without a rival or a peer, while, as an orator,his brilliant efforts had attracted the attention and won theplaudits of the entire country.

His speeches before the New England Society, at Dallas,Texas, Augusta, Georgia, the University of Virginia, andfinally at Boston, constitute the record upon which mustrest his claim to statesmanship.

While the people of the South, with one voice, approvethe purpose manifested in these matchless efforts to maintainthe supremacy of the Anglo-Saxon in the public affairsof this section, there are differences of opinion with referenceto the methods, which, by implication at least, hewas supposed to have approved, for the accomplishment ofthis purpose. If, at this point, there was real or apparentconflict with the broad spirit of nationalism, for which atother times he pleaded so often and so eloquently, it is butfair to attribute it to the supreme conviction on his partthat, through white supremacy in the South, by whatevermeans maintained, this end was to be secured.

However we may differ with reference to the methodswhich, as a last alternative, he would have employed, ortheir final effect upon the institutions of our country, werecognize the great purpose which inspired his efforts inour behalf. Because this is true, the people of the Southwill keep his memory green, whatever the opinion of theworld may be with reference to this question.

In the material development of the South, and herfuture prosperity, power and glory, his faith was complete.He labored without interruption during his entire career topromote these great results, and impressed himself uponhis section in its new growth and new life, more than anyman of his time. The wonderful growth of his own citywas due to the broad liberality and supreme confidence inits future with which he inspired the people of Atlanta.

Phenomenal as his career has been during the past few398years, he had not reached the zenith of his powers, andwhat he accomplished gave promise of greater achievementswhich the future had in store for him, of increasingfame, and for his State a richer heritage in his name. Itis doubtful if he fully understood, or had ever tested tothe limit his power as an orator. As occasion increasedthe demand upon him, he measured up to its full requirements,until his friends had grown confident of new andgreater triumphs.

We shall miss him much. His faults (and faults he hadlike other men) are forgotten in view of his service to hisfriends, his home, his State and his country, and of hisuntimely death, when the highest honors which his peoplecould bestow were gathering about him.

If he had not reached the meridian of his powers, hedied in the fullness of a great fame, and we turn from hisgrave sorrowing, but not without hope, for we leave him inthe hands of that Providence which knoweth best, anddoeth all things well.

Judge Emory Speer, for the resident alumni of the Universityof Georgia, said:

JUDGE SPEER’S ADDRESS.

Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: It is instinctivewith civilized humanity to honor the illustrious dead. Thisanimating impulse is as practical and beneficent in itsresults to the living, as it is righteous and compensating tothose glorious natures who have consecrated their lives tothe service of their country and of mankind.

The youthful Athenian might contemplate the statue toDemosthenes, and with emulation kindled by the story ofhis eloquence and his courage, might resolve that his ownlips shall be touched as with the honey of Hybla, and thathe will, if needful, lead the people against another Phillip.The Switzer lad, bowed before the altar in the chapel ofWilliam Tell, will unconsciously swear forever to defendthe independence of his mountain home. The American399youth, standing where the monument to the Father of hisCountry throws its gigantic shadow across the tranquilbosom of the Potomac, with elevation of soul and patrioticanimation will exclaim: I, too, am an American and a freeman.And, sir, this characteristic of a generous and greatpeople finds unexampled expression in the conduct of ourcountry towards the memory of its soldiers, its statesmen,its patriots, its philanthropists. They are enshrined in thehearts of a grateful people.

In obedience to this vitalizing and commanding influenceof a noble people, in deference to the designation of hisbrothers and mine, in the beautiful association and sacredmemories of alma mater, I come to place a simple chapletupon the grave of Henry Grady, an humble votive offeringat the shrine he has merited and won in the Valhalla ofthe American people. Perhaps, sir, in all this vast congregationthere is not one man who knew as I knew our deadbrother in the happy and halcyon days of our childhood.Thirty years ago we were boys together. Together weattended the little school in the shadow of the great universitybuildings, taught by a noble woman, the daughterof the venerable Dr. Church, the president of FranklinCollege. Henry was then remarkable for his sunny nature,his generous disposition, his superabundant flow of good-humorand spirited energy. Beautifully proportioned,agile, swift of foot, sinewy and strong for his age, he waseasily the leader of our childish sports. Among his youngcompanions he was even then the popular favorite he hasever been. In the revolution of the “Great Iron Wheel,”(an allusion which all good Methodists will understand), Iwas borne away at the end of the year, and Henry Grady400for years went out of my life. A year later the dun cloudsof war enveloped the country. Five years elapsed, andwhen I returned to Athens in September, 1866, to enter thesophom*ore class at the University, there was Grady risingjunior. The beautiful boy had become a beautiful youth.His sunny nature had become even brighter. His generosityhad become a fault. When I had known him in ’59,his father was perhaps the most successful and enterprisingmerchant of Northeast Georgia. He was a sturdy NorthCarolinian with that robustness and shrewd vigor of intellectualitywhich, with men from that section, has seemed,in many instances, to dispense with the necessity of elaborateculture. A soldier and officer of the confederacy, hehad fallen at the head of his regiment, in one of the desperatebattles on the lines at Petersburg, when the immortalarmy of Northern Virginia had, in the language of the gallantGordon, been “fought to a frazzle.” The brave soldierand thrifty merchant had left a large estate. Grady wasliving with his mother, in that lovely, old-fashioned homeof which, in Boston, he caught the vision, “with its loftypillars, and white pigeons fluttering down through thegolden air.”

His college life was a miracle of sweetness and goodness;never did a glass of wine moisten his lips. Neverdid an oath or an obscene word defile that tongue whosehoneyed accents in time to come were to persuade themillions of the fidelity and patriotism of the people heloved. Well do I remember the look of amazement, ofindulgent but all intrepid forbearance, which came intohis face when one day a college bully offered to insult him.In those days of innumerable college flirtations he had butone sweetheart, and she the beautiful girl who became hiswife and is now the mother of his children, and his bereavedand disconsolate widow.

This sweetness of disposition ran through his whole life.If the great journal of which he became an editor wasengaged in an acrimonious controversy, some other writerwas detailed to conduct it. Grady had no taste for controversy401of any acrid sort, and I recall but perhaps one exceptionin his whole editorial life. But while he would neverquarrel, I had the best right to know, when the emergencycame, he had the intrepidity of a hero. Well do Iremember the outcome of a thoughtlessly cruel practicaljoke, which resulted in showing me and many others thesplendid fire of his courage. Early in my college life, asGrady and I were walking in a dark night on the lonelystreets of Cobham to a supposed meeting of the Chi PhiFraternity we were waylaid by a number of our college-mates.I was in the secret, Grady was not. A huge navyrevolver, with every cylinder loaded with blank cartridges,had been thrust upon him as a means of defense from aband of mythical outlaws, who had made purely imaginarythreats of the bloodiest description against everybody ingeneral and the students of the university in particular.Grady put the revolver in his pocket and promised to standby me, and well did he redeem the promise. We startedand as we passed a dark grove near the residence of GeneralHowell Cobb the band of supposed assassins rushed uponus with demoniac yells, and firing a veritable mitraille ofpistol shots with powder charges. Thoughtless boy that Iwas. I shouted a defiance to the assassins and called toGrady to stand by me, and I gave shot for shot as fast as Icould pull the trigger. The dear fellow had not the slightestdoubt that we were assailed by overwhelming odds byarmed desperate foes, but he stood by my side, firingstraight at the on-rushing foe, until, and not until, afterseveral volleys I was shot dead and dropped to the ground;when, being overpowered by numbers, and his ally killed,he made a masterly retreat. Dear, kindly, gallant nature,little didst thou deem that this boyish prank, practiced bythose whose familiar love embolden them, and all in theriotous exuberance of careless youth would so soon berecalled when thou wert gone, recalled with sighs and tearsto testify that thy gentle life had under its kindly surfacea soul as fearless as ever “swarmed up the breach atAscalon.”

402Grady, as a writer and orator, was surpassed by no studentof the University, although he was doubtless theyoungest member of his class. Always, however, moresuccessful in his efforts to advance the political fortunesof others than of himself, he was defeated for anniversarianof the Phi Kappa society by one vote; but, as I remember,he bore off the equal distinction of commencement orator,each society, at that time, having the right to elect one ofits members to that position. He did not graduate withclass honor, and perhaps fortunately. It is too often truethat honor men mistake the text-books which are merelythe keys to the understanding, for objects worthy of ultimatepursuit and mastery, and we sometimes find thesegentlemen grubbing for Greek roots and construing abstruseproblems, while the great, busy, throbbing world is passingthem by, and has forgotten their existence. From theUniversity of Georgia, Grady went to the University ofVirginia. Great tidings of his success came back to us;we did not doubt that in any contest which would try thetemper of the man he would roll the proud scions of thefirst families of Virginia in the humiliating dust of defeat.Sore indeed were the lamentations, vociferous our denialsof a free ballot and a fair count, when we learned that hehad been defeated in the society contest there; again, as Iremember, by one vote. He came back to Georgia and tojournalism, and from that moment his history is commonproperty. Others have spoken, or will speak, of his accomplishmentsin turning the Pactolian streams of capital intothe channels of Southern investment, of the numberlessenterprises to which he brought his lucidity of statement,his captivating powers of argumentation, his magneticmethods for the inspiration of others. The monuments ofthe vast and far-reaching designs stand out all over thisbroad land; gigantic factories, their tall chimneys toweringtoward the sky, mighty railroads stretching throughthe mountains of Georgia, where Tallulah and Tugalo rushdownward toward the sea, where hard by Toccoa dashesits translucent waves to spray. Others, far away toward403the shore of the Mexican Gulf, whose languid waves, impelledby the soft winds of the tropics, cast the sea foamon the snowy blossoms of the magnolia and the goldenfruitage of the orange, mines have been opened and earthmade to surrender from subterranean stores her hiddenwealth at the touch of his magical wand. Unnumberedbeneficent projects attest his genius and his philanthropy.But, not content to evolve the treasures of physical nature,he labored incessantly to provide methods to develop thementality of the youth of the State. As a trustee of theUniversity, and an active member of its Alumni society;as one in control of that mighty engine of public thought,the great paper of which he was an editor, his influencewas looking and moving ever toward the light. He knewthat popular ignorance was the greatest danger to liberty,the greatest foe to national prosperity. He knew that ifthe terrible potency of its groping in darkness and prejudicecould but once, like the blind Samson, grasp the pillarof society in its muscular arms, it would put forth itsbaleful strength and whelm every social interest in crushing,appalling disaster and irremediable ruin.

The most tolerant of men, the life of our dear brotherwas one of long protest against the narrowness of partisanshipand sectional bigotry. He was the most independentof thinkers.

He demonstrated to the people of both sections of ouronce divided country, that we might love and honor thetraditions of our Confederacy, and with absolute loyaltyand devotion to the Union as restored. He made it plainto the minds of the Northern people that while it was impossiblefor an ex-Confederate soldier or the children of hisblood, to recall without a kindling eye and a quickeningpulse the swift march, the stubborn retreat, the intrepidadvance, the charging cry of the gallant gray lines as theyswept forward to the attack, the red-cross battle-flags astheir bullet-torn folds were borne aloft in the hands ofheroes along the fiery crest of battle. But he made it plainalso that these are but the emotions and expressions of404pride that a brave people cherish in the memories of theirmanhood, in the record of their soldierly devotion. Arewe less imbued with the spirit of true Americanism on thisaccount? No, forever, no! Are the sons of Rupert’s cavaliers,or Cromwell’s Ironsides less true to England and herconstitution, because their fathers charged home in opposingsquadrons at Edgehill and Naseby? Do not Englishmenthe world over cherish the common heritage of theircommon valor? Have Scotchmen, who fought side by sidewith the English in the deserts of the Soudan, or the junglesof Burmah, forgotten the memories of Bannockburn, ofBruce, and of Wallace?

The time will come—aye, it is present—when the heroismof the gray and of the blue, is a common element of America’smilitary power. I repeat, it is now. There is not awar officer in the civilized world in comparing the power ofhis own country with that of ours, who does not estimateman for man as soldiers of the Union, the fighting strengthof the Confederacy.

The statesmen of the Old World know that underlyingall of the temporary questions of the hour—underlying allthe resounding disputes, whether in the language of Emerson,“James or Jonathan shall sit in the chair and holdthe purse,” the great patriotic heart of the people is trueto the constitution of the fathers, true to republican government,true to the sovereignty of the people, true to thegorgeous ensign of our country.

In the presence of this knowledge, in the presence ofthat mighty mission which under the providence of Godhas grown and expanded day by day and century by centurysince Columbus, from his frail caravel, beheld rising beforehis enraptured vision the nodding palms and gleamingshores of another continent, the mission to confer uponhumanity the power and privilege of government by thepeople and for the people, should be the chiefest care ofour countrymen. Of this mission Grady spoke with aneloquence so elevated and so inspired that it seemed as ifthe voices of the waiting angels were whispering to his405prophetic intelligence messages of peace, joy and gladnessto his countrymen. He said:

“A mighty duty, and a mighty inspiration, impels everyone of us to-night to lose in patriotic consecration whateverestranges, whatever divides. We, sir, are Americans—andwe fight for human liberty! The uplifting force ofthe American idea is under every throne on earth. France,Brazil—these are our victories. To redeem the earth fromkingcraft and oppression—this is our mission! And weshall not fail. God has sown in our soil the seed of Hismillennial harvest, and He will not lay the sickle to theripening crop until His full and perfect day has come.Our history, sir, has been a constant and expanding miraclefrom Plymouth Rock and Jamestown all the way—aye,even from the hour when, from the voiceless andtrackless ocean, a new world rose to the sight of the inspiredsailor. As we approach the fourth centennial ofthat stupendous day—when the old world will come tomarvel and to learn, amid our gathered treasures—let usresolve to crown the miracles of our past with the spectacleof a Republic compact, united, indissoluble in the bondsof love—loving from the Lakes to the Gulf—the wounds ofwar healed in every heart as on every hill—serene andresplendent at the summit of human achievement andearthly glory—blazing out the path and making clear theway, up which all nations of the earth must come in God’sappointed time!”

We may imagine that this inspired utterance completed,there came to his glorious mentality anotherthought, another vision. Again he exclaims as oncebefore to a mighty throng, and now to his own people:

“All this, my country, and no more can we do for you.As I look the vision grows, the splendor deepens, the horizonfalls back, the skies open their everlasting gates, andthe glory of the Almighty God streams through, as Helooks down on His people who have given themselves untoHim, and leads them from one triumph to another untilthey have reached a glory unspeaking, and the whirling406stars, as in their courses through Arcturus they run to theMilky Way, shall not look down on a better people or ahappier land.”

Thus saying, his work was ended—his earthly pilgrimagewas o’er. He went to sleep

Mr. Hugh V. Washington, representing the City Government,said:

ADDRESS OF MR. WASHINGTON.

Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen: There is a songsterpeculiar to Southern woodland, who is without a rival.I have heard his song on a still summer night, and when itdied away, the silence seemed deeper and more impressive.Georgia has given to the country an orator whose eloquencewas peculiar to himself, and charmed every audienceNorth, South and West, but that which made him dearestto Southern hearts was the theme he delighted to present;that voice was never raised except in behalf of the honor,the interest and the prosperity of his people, and to-nightwe know that that voice is silent forevermore. I have nowords to measure the profound sorrow I feel for the deathof Henry Grady; to say that his loss to the country cannotbe estimated, and that there is no one to take his place,is but to express a thought common to all. His career asan orator dawned as that other great Georgian, Benn Hill,passed away. The first time I ever looked upon JeffersonDavis was when he stood in Atlanta amid a vast concourseto honor the memory of the eloquent and faithful Hill.I shall never forget that scene: there stood before me twotypes of Southern manhood, the one of the old, the otherof the new; the venerable ex-president came upon theplatform, and a glad shout arose from thousands ofvoices,—he stood the emblem and personification of all weheld most dear in the past, but he belonged to the past.There arose to welcome him a young Georgian; his speech407of welcome was a masterpiece, every nerve in that vastaudience vibrated, and every voice was raised in deafeningapplause when Mr. Grady declared that the rising of thatmorning’s sun, bringing with it our beloved ex-president,brought greater joy to Southern hearts than any since theresurrection morn. Mr. Grady, cherishing in his heart ofhearts the history of the Confederacy, seemed an inspirationof hope and promise; he seemed to stand for thePresent and Future; and now within a few days of eachother these noble men have gone to their rest, and the closeof a joyous year finds our people bowed in sorrow overtheir graves. Mr. Grady’s mission in life traveled beyondState bounds. He was too big, too broad, too patriotic tobe narrow or partisan; but he was a Georgian to thecore,—he sprung from the red hills of classic Athens; hedrank at the fountain of knowledge at the State University;what was nearest to Georgia was nearest to him, andhe gave his life that the position of Georgia and her sisterStates of the South might be made clear to our brethren atthe North; and to-night, by strange providence, his greatwork is closed, and he is sepulchered in the bosom of hisnative State, in Atlanta, whose greatness is due more tohis efforts than to any other man.

The life of Henry Grady was like a rare and beautifulgem whose every side was resplendent with light; as a sonhe was what every mother might hope for in her boy; as afather he was tender and true; as a friend he was open-heartedand generous as the day; as a member of his oldcollege fraternity none exceeded him in zeal and generosity;as an alumnus of the State University his fertile penand brain were tireless in promoting its interests; as awriter he was at once forcible and fascinating in the highestdegree; in journalism he disregarded old methods, and seta higher standard for American journalism; as an orator hehad the force of Northern logic, and the beauty of Southerndiction; but as much as we may admire him for these nobletraits, yet it is in the life of Henry Grady, as a private citizen,that he reached the highest points of his character. I408know of no other American citizen in the private walksof life comparable to him. He never sought or held publicoffice; he had no record of a hundred battle-fields to makehim famous; his life was filled with private charities, andevery enterprise of his native State or city found a willingand powerful sympathizer in him. The many charitableinstitutions of Atlanta are before us as monuments to hiszeal and generosity in behalf of the poor, the needy, andthe forsaken. After twenty-five years, when the ranks ofthe Confederate veterans had been decimated to a handfulby the hand of time, and our State was unable to providea home for the scattered remnant, he conceived the plan ofbuilding in our capital city, by private benefaction, theConfederate Home. Wherever there is a man who worethe gray, there will his name be honored and revered. Butit is useless to attempt an enumeration of the many enterpriseswhich he fostered; wherever there was work to bedone to promote the interest of his city, his State, or hiscountry, he was ready to give his time, his labor, and hismoney. But there is another feature in the life of HenryGrady of which I would speak,—he was pre-eminently aman of the times and for the times, and in this criticaljuncture of our history he seemed to have been raised upby a special providence to carry the message of the Southto the people of our common country; his aspirations werenot only for the success and prosperity of his native section,but he desired to see all the States combined togetherin a community of interest, of prosperity, of thought, ofaim, and of destiny; he brought to the attention of thecountry the most gigantic problem of this or any othertime; he declared to the people of the North that thewhite people of the South were one people with those ofthe North; that they had the same traditions; the sameblood; the same love of freedom, and the same lofty resolveto preserve their race unpolluted and free; and he broughtto the discharge of this duty such masterful eloquence,such sincerity of conviction, such kindness of heart andliberality of thought, as to gain for him not only the409applause, but the admiration and sympathy and attentionof the whole country. Though the matchless orator liesstill in death, the South owes to him a debt of gratitude,which could not be paid though a monument were erectedto his memory higher than that which rises in the sunlightabove Potomac’s wave. Though his voice be still, hiswords, his example, and his patriotism shall be cherishedin the hearts of many generations. If I was asked to pointto a man whose life should stand as a model to the youngmen of the South, I would point to that of the youngGeorgian, who has but so lately passed from among us.

The city of Macon, which I have the honor to represent,may well sorrow with our sister city of Atlanta, and wetender to his bereaved people our heartfelt sorrow andsympathy. Henry Grady stood as a prophet on the vergeof the promised land, bidding the Southland leave thedesert of reconstruction, of gloom and poverty behind it,and to enter with hope, and courage, and cheerfulness uponthe rich inheritance that the future holds in store for us;and wherever truth, and courage, and unselfish performanceof duty are appreciated, there will his name find an honoredplace on the roll of our country’s great names. And turningour thoughts and hearts toward his new-made grave,let us say, “Peace to his ashes, and honor to his memory.”

The Hon. R. W. Patterson spoke as follows for themembers of the Chi Phi Fraternity residing in Macon:

ADDRESS OF MR. PATTERSON.

Ladies and Gentlemen: When Death like Nature’schastening rod hath smitten our common humanity, werealize the eternal truth that “silence is the law of being,sound the breaking of the rule.” Standing here as therepresentative of those who were knit to the distinguisheddead by as close a tie as that of natural brotherhood, whilea continent is yet vocal with the echoes of his eloquence,my heart tells me that the infinite possibilities of silenceconstitute the only worthy tribute which I can pay to the410memory of Henry Grady. The most distinguished memberof our fraternity is lost to us forever. O, Death, there isthy sting; O, Grave, there is thy victory. Though ourranks are full of gifted and famous men, in all the tribesof our Israel, there is no Elisha upon whom the mantle ofthis translated Elijah can descend.

My fellow Georgians, how shall I speak to you of him?It is meet that sympathy should veil her weeping eyes,when she mourns the darling child who bore her gentleimage ever mirrored in his life. As well may the tonguespeak when the soul has departed, as Southern oratorydeclaim when Southern eloquence is buried in the grave ofGrady. Even American patriotism is voiceless as shestands beside the coffined chieftain of her fast-assemblinghost. Was he good? Let his neighbors answer. To-nightAtlanta is shrouded in as deep a pall as that whichwrapped Egypt in gloom when the angel of the Lordsmote the first-born in every house. In the busiest city ofthe State the rattle of commerce to-day was suspended, thehum of industry was hushed, and in that gay capitalbright pleasure hath stayed her shining feet to drop a tearupon the grave of him the people loved so well. Was hegreat? From the pinnacle of no official station has hefallen; the pomp and circ*mstance of war did not placehim upon a pedestal of prominence; no book has he givento the literature of the nation; no wealth has he amassedwith which to crystallize his generosity into fame; and yetto-night a continent stands weeping by his new-madegrave, and as the waves come laden with the message ofthe Infinite to the base of the now twice historic PlymouthRock, the sympathetic sobbing of the sea can onlywhisper to the stricken land, “Peace, be still; my everlastingarms are round you.”

His greatness cannot be measured by his speeches,though they were so masterful that they form a portion ofhis country’s history. It will rather be gauged by thatpatient, brilliant daily work, which made it possible forhim to command the nation’s ear, that power of which411these public utterances were but the exponents; his dailytoil in his private sanctum in the stately building of theConstitution, that magnificent manufactory of publicthought, which he wielded as a weaver does his shuttle.A small and scantily furnished room, with nothing in itsave Grady, his genius and his God,—and yet thus illumined,it warmed with the light of fraternal love bothsections of a Republic, compared to which that of historicGreece was but as a perfumed lamp to the noontide splendorof the sun. As a journalist Mr. Grady had no superiorin America. As a writer he exercised the princelyprerogative of genius which is to create and not obeythe laws of rhetoric. As well attempt to teach the nightingaleto sing by note, or track the summer lightning aswe do the sun, as measure Grady’s style by any rhetorician’srule. I have thought that Mr. Grady was more ofan orator than a writer, and brilliant as his success injournalism was, it was but the moonlight which reflectedthe sun that dawned only to be obscured by death. Certainlyno man in any country or in any age, ever won fameas an orator faster than he. With a wide reputation as awriter, but scarcely any as a speaker, even in his ownState, he appeared one night at a banquet in New York,made a speech of twenty minutes, and the next day wasknown throughout the United States as the foremost ofSouthern orators. No swifter stride has been made tofame since the days of David, for like that heroic stripling,with the sling of courage and the stone of truth, heslew Sectionalism, the Goliath which had so long threatenedand oppressed his people.

Since Appomattox two historic speeches have been madeby Southern men; the one was that delivered in the Congressof the United States upon the proposition to strikefrom the general amnesty of the government the name ofJefferson Davis, when Benjamin H. Hill broke the knightliestlance ever shivered in a people’s honor, full on thehaughty crest of the plumed knight; the other was theBoston speech of Mr. Grady which, like a magic key, will412yet unlock the shackles that have so long manacled apeople who, strangest paradox in history, were enslaved bythe emancipation of their slaves. The logic of Hill waspowerful as the club of Hercules; the eloquence of Gradywas irresistible as the lyre of Orpheus.

My countrymen, if it shall be written in the history ofAmerica that by virtue of the genius of her Toombs andCobb and Brown, on the breast of our native State wascradled a revolution which rocked a continent, uponanother page of that history it will be recorded thatGeorgia’s Grady was the Moses who led the Southernpeople through a wilderness of weakness and of want atleast to the Pisgah whence, with prophetic eye, he coulddiscern a New South true to the traditions of the past aswas the steel which glittered on the victorious arm, atManassas, but whose hopeful hearts and helpful handsshall transform desolation into wealth and convert thedefeat of one section of our common country into thehaughty herald of that country’s future rank in the civilizationof the world.

Even, when prompted by the tender relations of thefraternity which I represent, I cannot trust myself to speakof Mr. Grady’s private and social life. He was my friend.Nearly ten years since his kindly glowing words revealedto me an ambition, which I had scarcely dared to confessunto myself. As the summer days still linger with us, sodoes the daily intercourse which it was my fortune to enjoywith him some three months since—seem yet to “compassme about.” By the royal right of intellect he commandedthe homage of my admiration; with the clarion voice ofpatriotism he challenged my reverence, but with the magnetismof his munificent manhood he bade Confidence, thatsentry which guards the human heart, surrender this citadelat discretion. I trust that it will not be deemed inappropriatefor me, man of the world as I am, to bear mypublic testimony to the power of Christianity illustrated inhis life. Familiar in his youth with every phase of pleasure,with the affluent blood of early manhood yet running413riot through his veins, with the temptations of a continentspread like a royal feast, to which his talent and his famegave him easy access, yet when he bowed his head in reverenceto the meek and lowly Nazarene, his life was theunimpeachable witness of his creed. A thousand sermonsto me were concentrated in the humanized Christianity ofhis faith and his works. And God was good to him.—Themagnificent success of the Piedmont Exposition was to himthe exponent of that industrial progress which he hadlabored to establish. The bountiful harvest of this closingyear had seemed to set the seal of God’s commendationupon his labors for the agricultural interests of the South.Such was his fame that sixty million Americans reveredhim as a patriot. With a wife beautiful and brilliant,adoring him as only a woman can love a genius whom shecomprehends; with two children just verging into adolescence,and reverencing him as an neophyte does his faith;with the highest official station within his grasp; with thecurule chair of the Governorship already opening its armsto receive him; with the future lifting the senatorial togato drape his eloquence; with possibilities of the WhiteHouse flashing through the green vista of the comingyears,—with all of these he made no murmur at the summonsof his God.

A widow weeps where yesterday a wife adored. Twoorphans mourn to-day where yesterday two children leanedupon a father’s arm. A nation’s hope is turned to mourning.It needed the great heart of Grady to gently murmur,“Thy will, not mine, be done.”

But by all that he has accomplished, and by all that hehas projected, which the coming years will yet work out, Itell you to-night, my fellow Georgians, that Henry Gradystill lives an abiding influence in the destinies of hiscountry. Greatest enemy of monopoly while he lived, thegrandest of all monopolies shall be his after death, forevery industrial enterprise hereafter inaugurated in theSouth must pay its royalty of fame to him. Sleep on, myfriend, my brother, brilliant and beloved; let no distempered414dream of unaccomplished greatness haunt thy longlast sleep. The country that you loved, that you redeemedand disenthralled, will be your splendid and ever growingmonument, and the blessings of a grateful people will bethe grand inscription, which shall grow longer as thatmonument rises higher among the nations of the earth.Wherever the peach shall blush beneath the kisses of theSouthern sun, wherever the affluent grape shall don theroyal purple of Southern sovereignty, a votive offering fromthe one and a rich libation from the other, the gratefulhusbandman will tender unto you. The music of nomachinery shall be heard within this Southland which doesnot chant a pæan in your praise. Wherever Eloquence,the deity whom this people hath ever worshiped, shallretain a temple, no pilgrim shall enter there, save he bearthy dear name as a sacred shibboleth on his lips. So longas patriotism shall remain the shining angel who guardsthe destinies of our Republic, her starry finger will point toGrady on Plymouth Rock, for Fame will choose to chiselhis statue there, standing as the sentinel whom God hadplaced to keep eternal watch over the liberties of a re-unitedpeople!

The exercises were concluded with the benedictionby the Rev. G. A. Nunnally, D.D., President of MercerUniversity.

MEN of genius often die early. Keats died at twenty-six,Shelly at thirty, Byron at thirty-six, and Burnsat thirty-seven. Henry Grady was born May 24th, 1850,and hence was a little more than thirty-nine years of ageat his death.

In the opinion of many, no more brilliant man has livedsince Byron died. In the power of intense, beautiful andstriking expression he has had no equal among us. Hadhe turned his attention to poetry he would have writtensomething as beautiful as Childe Harold.

Take, for instance, a sentence or two, written eight orten years ago, in an article from New York to the Constitution,entitled “The Atheistic Tide.” The whole articleis exceptionally brilliant. I select at random a paragraphor two:

“We have stripped all the earth of mystery andbrought all its phenomena under the square and compass,so that we might have expected science to doubt the mysteryof life itself, and to plant its theodolite for a measurementof the Eternal, and pitch its crucible for an analysisof the Soul. It was natural that the Greek should be ledto the worship of his physical Gods, for the earth itselfwas a mystery that he could not divine, a vastness and avagueness that he could not comprehend. But we havefathomed its uttermost secret—felt its most hidden pulse,girdled it with steel, harnessed and trapped it to ourliking. What was mystery is now demonstration—whatwas vague is now apparent. Science has dispelled illusionafter illusion, struck down error after error, made plain all418that was vague on earth and reduced every mystery todemonstration. It is little wonder then that, at last,having reduced all the illusions of matter to an equation,and anchored every theory to a fixed formula, it shouldassail the mystery of life itself and warn the world thatscience would yet furnish the key to the problem of thesoul. The obelisk, plucked from the heart of Egypt, restsupon a shore that was as vaguely and infinitely beyondthe knowledge or aspiration of its builders, as the shoresof a star that lights the spaces beyond our vision are to usto-day. The Chinaman jostles us in the streets, and thecenturies that look through his dreamy eyes have lost allsense of wonder—ships that were freighted in the heart ofAfrica lie in our harbors, and our market-places are vocalwith more tongues than bewildered the builders of Babel—aletter slips round the earth in ninety days and the messagesof men flash along the bed of the ocean—we tell thesecrets of the universe as a woman tells her beads, andthe stars whirl serenely through orbits that science hasdefined—we even read of the instant when the comet thatplunged in dim illimitable distance, where even the separatestars are lost in mist and vapor, shall whirl again intothe vision of man, a wanderer that could not shake off theinexorable supervision of science, even in the chill andmeasureless depths of the universe.”

This brilliancy, this dazzling, meteoric imagination, madeagainst his reputation in the earlier years of his career.The impression got abroad that he was simply fanciful andsuperficial—that he could paint his productions in thegorgeous imagery of poetry, but that he had no great intellectualstrength and force. It took some time to dispelthis illusion. It was only after the great breadth of hismind displayed itself in his powerful speeches in NewYork, Dallas, Tex., Augusta, Ga., and Boston, that thepublic began to see that, back behind his rich and brilliantimagination, there was a masterful intellect, able to comprehendthe profoundest questions of social and politicalpolicy.

419His development as an orator was indeed phenomenal.Nothing has ever been known like it since Sheridan quitplay-writing to enter the English House of Commons, anddelivered, according to the judgment of Fox and Burke, themost eloquent oration ever spoken to an English auditory.Grady’s whole preparation had been in the line of journalism.He had never practiced at the bar, in the forum, oron the hustings. Yet such was his genius, that, from thevery moment he got before the American public, he leapedfrom the base to the very summit of oratorical fame.

His oratory was sué generis. Like all great men hehad no prototype. There was nothing sonorous inhis tones of voice—he had nothing of the declamatorypomp of Toombs, the stately periods of Hill, the slow,measured cadences of Stephens. Like Mark Antony hetalked along; but such talk—as sweet as the harp of Orpheuswhose melody swayed the trees of the forest and rentasunder the solid rocks. Like a fountain unsealed, histhought flowed forth in gushing opulence, and in everyrhythmic period his soul voiced itself in perfect music. Hecould awake all the sleeping passions of the heart and setthem astir with his own enthusiasm. Like a pendulum,he swung betwixt a smile and a tear, now convulsing allwith his humor and anon melting all with his pathos.

Added to such brilliant gifts as a writer and a speaker,he had the genius of common sense. He could project amovement of great practical interest, and perfect andaccomplish it with the same marvellous facility that hecould indite a morning editorial. He saw in our uncutquarries the marble halls and palaces of the rich—in ourmountains of ore the matchless steam engines and theirtracks of steel along which our growing commerce was tobe borne to the distant marts of the world—in our wavingforests of pine, the cities of majestic splendor and beautythat were to adorn and enrich our vast domain. AsWebster said of Hamilton, in reference to the public credit,he touched the dead corpse of our industries and they aroseand stood upon their feet.

420To all these gifts of head, there was an added heart ofboundless sympathies. In his writings there is always anundertone of sentiment, bespeaking a moral nature asopulent as was his intellectual endowment. His imaginationcaught up the good, the beautiful and the true.With the alchemy of his genius he could transmute thesimplest flower into a preacher of righteousness, and getfrom it some lessons of wisdom and truth. To lift up andcrown humanity was the supremest aspiration of his life.This ruling passion was strong in death, and even in thedelirium preceding dissolution, his brain was rife with itsown desiring phantasies, and he died in the midst ofdreams born of yearnings to help and bless the needy andthe heavy laden.

Perhaps no one has lived among us who possessed moreof the elements which go to make up the hero, the popularidol. Noble in presence, gracious in manner, gentle inspirit, manly in everything, he commanded not only theadmiration but the love of all. If all who tenderly lovedhim could lay a garland upon his grave his ashes wouldrest beneath a mountain of flowers.

To die so wept and mourned were more to be desiredthan the glittering honors of splendid obsequies. To live,as he will live, embalmed in the immortality of love, isbetter far than enshrinement in the cold emblazonry ofmarble.

Loving hands and hearts will erect to his memory thegranite shaft, cut and chiselled with words of eulogy, buthis most enduring monument is his grand, historic life,standing out imperishably based upon the affections andthe love of a grateful people, and pointing unborn generationsto the same heights of purity and honor he soworthily attained.

HISTORY repeats itself, and genius does the same.The light which shines with electric brilliancy in oneportion of a country, though suddenly extinguished, soonblazes forth with life and hope, in genial air and underpropitious skies.

Eminent in illustration of this truth, is the very greatsimilarity in the mental structure, the physical temperamentand the personal qualities of Seargent S. Prentissand Henry W. Grady. The first was born in bleak andsterile Maine, and yet his great heart was not hemmed inby the hills around which clung the memories of his Pilgrimfathers. It took within its spacious chambers, andnurtured in patriotic affection the new-found friends of hisadopted home, in the semi-tropical valleys of the lowerMississippi. The other was born on Georgia soil, andSouthern traditions, memories and methods of thoughtseemed but a second nature with him. It did not preventhis fullness to the brim with that Promethean flame and“milk of human kindness,” which caused him in boundlessAmericanism, to wear a constant smile, born of infinitehope and faith in the future of a great Republic, stretchingfrom the rugged coast of Maine to the broad plazas ofTexas—from the noble forests of Oregon to the coral reefsof Florida.

Each of these men combined with deep research andintuitive perception, an imagination as luxuriant as a tropicalgarden, and while each put forth “thoughts thatbreathed in words that burned,” he was ever careful in theexercise of his great gifts, that they should always be422directed in the promotion of human happiness, and to stimulatethe loftiest human exertion. When Prentiss orGrady spoke every listener felt the touch of the master handas it played upon his heart-strings—felt the tinglingof the blood in his fingers’ ends, and could not fail to enjoythe delightful silence of universal and spontaneous admiration.The eloquence of these two men was not of thatschool which deals in thundergusts of word-painting,devoid of reason, sense, or consistency. Their ideas arealways comely, well-proportioned, clear in outline and yetnot angular in structure. They spoke for God and humanity—forliberty—for love—for law. They did not perverttheir great gifts from the purposes that Nature intended.They used their magic power to smooth and soften therough, hard places of human life, to promote all ends andobjects catholic, worthy, commendable—to charm and persuadethe morose and unwilling—to denounce like Nathan—towarn like Cassandra—to encourage like an angel of light.When either of them spoke, he seemed to realize the sublimestpurpose of his mission; and condensed his giantelectric power, as the heat charges the summer cloud withthe bolts that are soon to flash and shiver.

Prentiss died in the same year that Grady was born;and when he first closed his brilliant career at forty-twoyears of age, the second was but a smiling infant six weeksold. Each, cut off before he had reached the zenith, was

The glorious sun of each “went down while it was yet day.”

Some extracts are here given, from an address deliveredby Prentiss before the New England Society of New Orleans,on December 22, 1845. These will be followed by some fromGrady’s Boston speech. Prentiss at the time named, wasabout the same age that Grady was when he died. Inopening Prentiss said: “This is a day dear to the sons ofNew England, and ever held by them in sacred remembrance.On this day, from every quarter of the globe, they423gather in spirit around the Rock of Plymouth, and hangupon the urn of their Pilgrim fathers, the garlands offilial gratitude and affection. We have assembled for thepurpose of participating in this honorable duty—of performingthis pious pilgrimage. To-day we will visit thatmemorable spot. We gaze upon the place where a feebleband of persecuted exiles founded a mighty nation; andour hearts will exult with proud gratification, as we rememberthat on that barren shore our ancestors planted not onlyempire, but freedom.

“Of the future but little is known; clouds and darknessrest upon it. We yearn to become acquainted with itshidden secrets—we stretch out our arms toward its shadowyinhabitants—we invoke our posterity, but they answer usnot. We turn for relief to the past, that mighty reservoirof men and things. There we are introduced into Nature’svast laboratory, and witness her elemental labors. Wemark with interest the changes in continents and oceans,by which she has notched the centuries. With curiouswonder we gaze down the long aisles of the past, upon thegenerations that are gone. We behold as in a magic glass,men in form and feature like ourselves, actuated by thesame motives, urged by the same passions, busily engagedin shaping out both their own destinies and ours. Weapproach them, and they refuse not our invocation. Wehold converse with the wise philosophers, the sage legislators,and divine poets. But most of all among theinnumerable multitudes that peopled the past, we seek ourown ancestors, drawn toward them by an irresistible sympathy.With reverent solicitude we examine into theircharacter and actions, and as we find them worthy orunworthy, our hearts swell with pride or our cheeks glowwith shame.”

Speaking of the simplicity of the Pilgrim habits, Prentissgoes on: “In founding their colony they sought neitherwealth nor conquest; but only peace and freedom. Fromthe moment they touched the shore, they labored withorderly, systematic and persevering industry. They cultivated,424without a murmur, a poor and ungrateful soil, whicheven now yields but a stubborn obedience to the dominionof the plow. They brought with them neither wealth norpower, but the principles of civil and religious freedom.They cherished, cultivated and developed them to a fulland luxuriant maturity; and furnished them to their posterityas the only sure and permanent foundations forfree government. We are proud of our native land, andturn with fond affection to its rocky shores. Behold thethousand temples of the Most High, that nestle in its happyvalleys and crown its swelling hills. See how their glitteringspires pierce the sky—celestial conductors ready toavert the lightning of an angry heaven!”

Himself the son of a ship-builder, he thus speaks ofthe enterprise of the Pilgrims: “They have wrestled withNature, till they have prevailed against her, and compelledher reluctantly to reverse her own laws. The sterile soilhas become productive under their sagacious culture, andthe barren rock, astonished, finds itself covered with luxuriantand unaccustomed verdure. Upon the banks of everyriver they build temples of industry, and stop the squanderingsof the spendthrift waters. They bind the Naiadesof the brawling stream; they drive the Dryades fromtheir accustomed haunts, and force them to desert eachfavorite grove: for from river, creek, and bay they arebusy transforming the crude forests into staunch and gallantvessels. From every inlet and indenture along therocky shore, swim forth these ocean-birds—born in thewildwood—fledged upon the wave. Behold how theyspread their white pinions to the favoring breeze, and wingtheir flight to every quarter of the globe—the carrier pigeonsof the world!”

But lastly how brimming with pathos, how pregnantwith patriotic ardor, is the following: “Glorious NewEngland! Thou art still true to thy ancient fame, andworthy of thy ancestral honors. We thy children haveassembled in this far-distant land to celebrate thy birthday.A thousand fond associations throng upon us, roused425by the spirit of the hour. On thy pleasant valleys rest,like sweet dews of the morning, the gentle recollections ofour early life; around thy hills and mountains cling likegathering mists the mighty memories of the Revolution;and far away on the horizon of the past, gleam like thineown Northern lights, the awful virtues of our Pilgrim sires.But while we devote this day to the remembrance of ournative land, we forget not that in which our happy lot iscast. We exult in the reflection that, though we count bythousands the miles which separate us from our birthplace,still our country is the same. We have but changedour chamber in the paternal mansion; in all its rooms weare at home, and all who inhabit it are our brothers. Weare no exiles meeting upon the banks of a foreign river, toswell its waters with our home-sick tears. Here floats thesame banner which nestled above our boyish heads, exceptthat its mighty folds are wider, and its glittering starsincreased in number.”

The sound of this eloquent tongue was stilled, but the“divine afflatus” with which it was tuned was transferredto, and continued in another. Near the birthplace of thenoble Prentiss, and surrounded by those who were proudof his fame, Grady referred to those surroundings and theobjects of his visit, when he said: “Happy am I that thismission has brought my feet at last to press New England’shistoric soil, and my eyes to the knowledge of her beautyand her thrift. Here within touch of Plymouth Rock andBunker Hill—where Webster thundered and Longfellowsang, Emerson thought, and Channing preached—here inthe cradle of American letters, and almost of Americanliberty, I hasten to make the obeisance that every Americanowes New England, when first he stands uncovered inher mighty presence. Strange apparition! This stern andunique figure, carved from the ocean and the wilderness,its majesty kindling and growing amid the storms of wintersand of wars,—until at last the gloom was broken, itsbeauty disclosed in the sunshine, and the heroic workersrested at its base,—while startled kings and emperors gazed426and marveled that from the rude touch of this handful,cast on a bleak and unknown shore, should have come theembodied genius of human government, and the perfectedmodel of human liberty! God bless the memory of thoseimmortal workers, and prosper the fortunes of their livingsons, and perpetuate the inspiration of their handiwork.”

Faithful to the memories of his childhood, and to thedevotion of his mature years, visions of his distant homerise to his mental eye, and with a master’s magic touch hespreads the picture on the glowing canvas: “Far to theSouth, Mr. President, separated from this section by a lineonce defined in irrepressible difference, once traced in fratricidalblood, and now, thank God, but a vanishing shadow,lies the fairest and richest domain of this earth. It is thehome of a brave and hospitable people. There is centeredall that can please or prosper human kind. A perfect climateabove a fertile soil, yields to the husbandman everyproduct of the temperate zone. There, by night, the cottonwhitens beneath the stars, and the wheat locks the sunshinein its bearded sheaf. In the same field the clover steals thefragrance of the wind, and the tobacco catches the quickaroma of the rains.”

In speaking of southern citizenship, and the perils of itspresent environment, Grady says: “The resolute, clear-headed,broad-minded men of the South, the men whosegenius made glorious every page of the first seventy years ofAmerican history—whose courage and fortitude you testedin five years of the fiercest war—whose energy has madebricks without straw, and spread splendor amidst the ashesof their war-wasted homes—these men wear this problemin their hearts and their brains, by day and by night.They realize, as you cannot, what this problem means,what they owe to this kindly and dependent race, themeasure of their debt to the world in whose despite theydefended and maintained slavery. And though their feetare hindered in its undergrowth, and their march encumberedwith its burdens, they have lost neither the patiencefrom which comes clearness, nor the faith from which comescourage. Nor, sir, when in passionate moments is disclosed427to them that vague and awful shadow, with its lurid abyssesand its crimson stains, into which I pray God they maynever go, are they struck with more of apprehension thanis needed to complete their consecration!”

The conclusion of that grand address, so powerful inscope and faultless in diction, is a forcible reminder ofWebster’s great peroration in his reply to Hayne on Foot’sResolution. Grady here says: “A mighty duty, sir, anda mighty inspiration impels every one of us to-night tolose in patriotic consecration whatever estranges, whateverdivides. We, sir, are Americans, and we fight for humanliberty. The uplifting force of the American idea is underevery throne on earth. France, Brazil—these are our victories.To redeem the earth from kingcraft and oppression,this is our mission. And we shall not fail. God has sownin our soil the seed of his millennial harvest, and he willnot lay the sickle to the ripening crop until his full andperfect day has come. Our history, sir, has been a constantand expanding miracle from Plymouth Rock andJamestown, all the way, aye, even from the hour when,from the voiceless and trackless ocean, a new world rose tothe sight of the inspired sailor. As we approach the fourthcentennial of that stupendous day—when the old world willcome to marvel and to learn, amid our gathered treasures—letus resolve to crown the miracles of our past with thespectacle of a Republic compact, united, indissoluble in thebonds of love—loving from the Lakes to the Gulf—thewounds of war healed in every heart as on every hill,serene and resplendent at the summit of human achievementand earthly glory, blazing out the path and makingclear the way up which all the nations of the earth mustcome in God’s appointed time!”

The love and respect of the Mississippians and Louisianans,and of the entire Southwest for Prentiss was onlyequaled by the admiration of the North for Grady. Allhonor to their memories, and peace to their patriot shades!The “clods of the valley will be sweet unto them” untilthe resurrection morn.

Columbus, Ga., Feb. 5, 1890.

THE great Academy of Music, Brooklyn, N.Y., wascrowded to-day, February 23, as it never had beenbefore. Prominent in the congregation were most of thegentlemen who had attended the banquet of the SouthernSociety. Their presence was due to the intimation thatDr. Talmage was going to preach on the life and characterof the Constitution’s late editor, Mr. Henry W. Grady.Dr. Talmage was at his best, in splendid voice, and hisrounded periods made a deep impression upon all present.Taking for his text Isaiah viii., 1, “Take thee a great roll,and write in it with a man’s pen,” the preacher said:

To Isaiah, with royal blood in his veins and a habitantof palaces, does this divine order come. He is to take aroll, a large roll, and write on it with a pen, not an angel’spen, but a man’s pen. So God honored the pen and so hehonored the manuscript. In our day the mightiest roll isthe religious and secular newspaper, and the mightiest penis the editor’s pen, whether for good or evil. And Godsays now to every literary man, and especially to everyjournalist: “Take thee a great roll and write in it with aman’s pen.”

THE NEWS ON THE MEDITERRANEAN.

Within a few weeks one of the strongest, most vividand most brilliant of those pens was laid down on the editorialdesk in Atlanta, never again to be resumed. I wasfar away at the time. We had been sailing up from theMediterranean Sea, through the Dardanelles, which regionis unlike anything I ever saw for beauty. There is not anyother water scenery on earth where God has done so manypicturesque things with islands. They are somewhat likethe Thousand Islands of our American St. Lawrence, but429more like heaven. Indeed, we had just passed Patmos, theplace from which John had his apocalyptic vision. Constantinoplehad seemed to come out to greet us, for yourapproach to that city is different from any other city. Othercities as you approach them seem to retire, but this city,with its glittering minarets and pinnacles, seems almost tostep into the water to greet you. But my landing there,that would have been to me an exhilaration, was suddenlystunned with the tidings of the death of my intimate friend,Henry W. Grady. I could hardly believe the tidings, forI had left on my study table at home letters and telegramsfrom him, those letters and telegrams having a warmthand geniality, and a wit such as he alone could express.The departure of no public man for many years has soaffected me. For days I walked about as in a dream, andI resolved that, getting home, I would, for the sake of hisbereaved household, and for the sake of his bereaved profession,and for the sake of what he had been to me, andshall continue to be as long as memory lasts, I would speaka word in appreciation of him, the most promising ofAmericans, and learn some of the salient lessons of hisdeparture.

I have no doubt that he had enemies, for no man canlive such an active life as he lived, or be so far in advanceof his time without making enemies, some because hedefeated their projects, and some because he outshone them.Owls and bats never did like the rising sun. But I shalltell you how he appeared to me, and I am glad that I toldhim while he was in full health what I thought of him.Memorial orations and gravestone epitaphs are often meanenough, for they say of a man after he is dead that whichought to have been said of him while living. One garlandfor a living brow is worth more than a mountain of japonicasand calla lilies heaped on a funeral casket. By alittle black volume of fifty pages, containing the eulogiumsand poems uttered and written at the demise of Clay andWebster and Calhoun and Lincoln and Sumner, the worldtried to pay for the forty years of obloquy it heaped upon430those living giants. If I say nothing in praise of a manwhile he lives I will keep silent when he is dead. Myrtleand weeping willow can never do what ought to have beendone by amaranth and palm branch. No amount of“Dead March in Saul” rumbling from big organs at theobsequies can atone for non-appreciation of the man beforehe fell on sleep. The hearse cannot do what ought to havebeen done by chariot. But there are important things thatneed to be said about our friend, who was a prophet inAmerican journalism, and who only a few years ago heardthe command of my text: “Take thee a great roll, andwrite in it with a man’s pen.”

A RETROSPECT OF LIFE.

His father dead, Henry W. Grady, a boy fourteen yearsof age, took up the battle of life. It would require a longchapter to record the names of orphans who have come tothe top. When God takes away the head of the householdHe very often gives to some lad in that household a specialqualification. Christ remembers how that His own fatherdied early, leaving Him to support Himself and His motherand His brothers in the carpenter’s shop at Nazareth, andHe is in sympathy with all boys and all young men in thestruggle. You say: “Oh, if my father had only lived Iwould have had a better education and I would have had amore promising start, and there are some wrinkles on mybrow that would not have been there.” But I have noticedthat God makes a special way for orphans. You wouldnot have been half the man you are if you had not beenobliged from your early days to fight your own battles.What other boys got out of Yale and Harvard you got inthe university of hard knocks. Go among successful merchants,lawyers, physicians and men of all occupations andprofessions, and there are many of them who will tell you:“At ten, or twelve, or fifteen years of age, I started formyself; father was sick, or father was dead.” But somehowthey got through and got up. I account for itby the fact that there is a special dispensation of God431for orphans. All hail, the fatherless and motherless!The Lord Almighty will see you through. Early obstaclesfor Mr. Grady were only the means for development of hisintellect and heart. And lo! when at thirty-nine years ofa*ge he put down his pen and closed his lips for the perpetualsilence, he had done a work which many a man wholives on to sixty and seventy and eighty years neveraccomplishes. There is a great deal of senseless praise oflongevity, as though it were a wonderful achievement tolive a good while. Ah, my friends, it is not how long welive, but how well we live and how usefully we live. Aman who lives to eighty years and accomplishes nothing forGod or humanity might better have never lived at all.Methuselah lived nine hundred and sixty-nine years, andwhat did it amount to? In all those more than nine centurieshe did not accomplish anything which seemed worthrecord. Paul lived only a little more than sixty, but howmany Methuselahs would it take to make one Paul? Whowould not rather have Paul’s sixty years than Methuselah’snine hundred and sixty-nine? Robert McCheyne died atthirty years of age and John Summerfield at twenty-sevenyears of age, but neither earth nor heaven will ever hear theend of their usefulness. Longevity! Why, an elephantcan beat you at that, for it lives a hundred and fifty andtwo hundred years. Gray hairs are the blossoms of thetree of life if found in the way of righteousness, but thefrosts of the second death if found in the way of sin.

MR. GRADY AS A CHRISTIAN.

One of our able New York journals last spring printeda question and sent it to many people, and, among others,to myself: “Can the editor of a secular journal be aChristian?” Some of the newspapers answered no. Ianswered yes; and, lest you may not understand me, I sayyes again. Summer before last, riding with Mr. Gradyfrom a religious meeting in Georgia on Sunday night, hesaid to me some things which I now reveal for the firsttime, because it is appropriate now that I reveal them.432He expressed his complete faith in the gospel, and expressedhis astonishment and his grief that in our day so many youngmen were rejecting Christianity. From the earnestnessand the tenderness and the confidence with which he spokeon these things I concluded that when Henry W. Gradymade public profession of his faith in Christ, and took hisplace at the holy communion in the Methodist Church, hewas honestly and truly Christian. That conversation thatSunday night, first in the carriage and then resumed in thehotel, impressed me in such a way that when I simplyheard of his departure, without any of the particulars, Iconcluded that he was ready to go. I warrant there wasno fright in the last exigency, but that he found what iscommonly called “the last enemy” a good friend, andfrom his home on earth he went to a home in heaven. Yes,Mr. Grady not only demonstrated that an editor may be aChristian, but that a very great intellect may be gospelized.His mental capacity was so wonderful it was almost startling.I have been with him in active conversation while atthe same time he was dictating to a stenographer editorialsfor the Atlanta Constitution. But that intellect was notashamed to bow to Christ. Among his last dying utteranceswas a request for the prayers of the churches in hisbehalf.

There was that particular quality in him that you do notfind in more than one person out of hundreds of thousands—namely,personal magnetism. People have tried to definethat quality, and always failed, yet we have all felt its power.There are some persons who have only to enter a roomor step upon a platform or into a pulpit, and you are thrilledby their presence, and when they speak your nature respondsand you cannot help it. What is the peculiar influence withwhich such a magnetic person takes hold of social groupsand audiences? Without attempting to define this, whichis indefinable, I will say it seems to correspond to the wavesof air set in motion by the voice or the movements of thebody. Just like that atmospheric vibration is the moral orspiritual vibration which rolls out from the soul of what we433call a magnetic person. As there may be a cord or ropebinding bodies together, there may be an invisible cordbinding souls. A magnetic man throws it over others as ahunter throws a lasso. Mr. Grady was surcharged withthis influence, and it was employed for patriotism andChristianity and elevated purposes.

GREAT MEN MAY BE CHRISTIANS.

You may not know why, in the conversation which Ihad with Mr. Gladstone a few weeks ago, he uttered thesememorable words about Christianity, some of which werecabled to America. He was speaking in reply to thisremark: I said: “Mr. Gladstone, we are told in Americaby some people that Christianity does very well for weak-mindedmen and children in the infant class, but it is notfit for stronger minded men; but when we mention you, ofsuch large intellectuality, as being a pronounced friend ofreligion, we silence their batteries.” Then Mr. Gladstonestopped on the hillside where we were exercising, and said:“The older I grow, the more confirmed I am in my faith inreligion.” “Sir,” said he, with flashing eye and upliftedhand, “talk about the questions of the day, there is butone question, and that is the Gospel. That can and willcorrect everything. Do you have any of that dreadfulagnosticism in America?” Having told him we had, hewent on to say: “I am profoundly thankful that none ofmy children or kindred have been blasted by it. I am gladto say that about all the men at the top in Great Britain areChristians. Why, sir,” he said, “I have been in publicposition fifty-eight years, and forty-seven years in thecabinet of the British government, and during those forty-sevenyears I have been associated with sixty of the masterminds of the century, and all but five of the sixty wereChristians.” He then named the four leading physiciansand surgeons of his country, calling them by name andremarking upon the high qualities of each of them andadded: “They are all thoroughly Christian.” My friends,I think it will be quite respectable for a little longer to be434the friends of religion. William E. Gladstone, a Christian;Henry W. Grady, a Christian. What the greatest of Englishmensaid of England is true of America and of allChristendom. The men at the top are the friends of Godand believers in the sanctities of religion, the most eminentof the doctors, the most eminent of the lawyers, the mosteminent of the merchants, and there are no better men inall our land than some of those who sit in editorial chairs.And if that does not correspond with your acquaintanceship,I am sorry that you have fallen into bad company.In answer to the question put last spring, “Can a secularjournalist be a Christian?” I not only answer in theaffirmative, but I assert that so great are the responsibilitiesof that profession, so infinite and eternal the consequencesof their obedience or disobedience of the words of my text,“Take thee a great roll and write in it with a man’s pen,”and so many are the surrounding temptations, that themen of no other profession more deeply need the defensesand the reinforcements of the grace of God.

THE OPPORTUNITIES OF JOURNALISM.

And then look at the opportunities of journalism. Ipraise the pulpit and magnify my office, but I state a factwhich you all know when I say that where the pulpittouches one person the press touches five hundred. Thevast majority of people do not go to church, but all intelligentpeople read the newspapers. While, therefore, theresponsibility of the minister is great, the responsibilitiesof editors and reporters is greater. Come, brother journalist,and get your ordination, not by the laying on ofhuman hands, but by the laying on of the hands of theAlmighty. To you is committed the precious reputationof men and the more precious reputation of women.Spread before our children an elevated literature. Makesin appear disgusting and virtue admirable. Believegood rather than evil. While you show up the hypocrisiesof the church, show up the stupendous hypocrisiesoutside of the church. Be not, as some of you are,435the mere echoes of public opinion; make public opinion.Let the great roll on which you write with a man’s pen bea message of light and liberty, and kindness and an awakeningof moral power. But who is sufficient for thesethings! Not one of you without Divine help. But getthat influence and the editors and reporters can go up andtake this world for God and the truth. The mightiestopportunity in all the world for usefulness to-day is openbefore editors and reporters and publishers, whether ofknowledge on foot, as in the book, or knowledge on thewing, as in the newspaper; I pray God, men of the newspaperpress, whether you hear or read this sermon, thatyou may rise up to your full opportunity and that you maybe divinely helped and rescued and blessed.

Some one might say to me: “How can you talk thus ofthe newspaper press when you yourself have sometimesbeen unfairly treated and misrepresented?” I answer thatin the opportunity the newspaper press of this country andother countries have given me week by week to preach thegospel to the nations, I am put under so much obligationthat I defy all editors and reporters, the world over, towrite anything that shall call forth from me one word ofbitter retort from now till the day of my death. My opinionis that all reformers and religious teachers, instead ofspending so much time and energy in denouncing the press,had better spend more time in thanking them for what theyhave done for the world’s intelligence, and declaring theirmagnificent opportunity and urging their employment of itall for beneficent and righteous purposes.

A TYPE OF CHRISTIAN PATRIOTISM.

Again, I remark that Henry W. Grady stood forChristian patriotism irrespective of political spoils. Hedeclined all official reward. He could have been Governorof Georgia, but refused it. He could have been Senatorof the United States, but declined it. He remainedplain Henry Grady. Nearly all the other orators of thepolitical arena, as soon as the elections are over, go to436Washington, or Albany, or Harrisburg, or Atlanta, to getin city or state or national office, reward for their services,and not getting what they want spend the rest of the timeof that administration in pouting about the managementof public affairs or cursing Harrison or Cleveland. Whenthe great political campaigns were over Mr. Grady wenthome to his newspaper. He demonstrated that it is possibleto toil for principles which he thought to be right,simply because they were right. Christian patriotism is toorare a commodity in this country. Surely the joy of livingunder such free institutions as those established hereought to be enough reward for political fidelity. Amongall the great writers that stood at the last Presidentialelection on Democratic and Republican platforms, youcannot recall in your mind ten who were not themselveslooking for remunerative appointments. Aye, you cancount them all on the fingers of one hand. The most illustriousspecimen of that style of man for the last ten yearswas Henry W. Grady.

Again, Mr. Grady stood for the New South, and wasjust what we want to meet three other men, one to speakfor the New North, another for the New East, and anotherfor the New West. The bravest speech made for the lastquarter of a century was that made by Mr. Grady at theNew England dinner in New York about two or threeyears ago. I sat with him that evening and know somethingof his anxieties, for he was to tread on dangerousground, and might by one misspoken word have antagonizedboth sections. His speech was a victory that thrilled allof us who heard him and all who read him. That speech,great for wisdom, great for kindness, great for pacification,great for bravery, will go down to the generations withWebster’s speech at Bunker Hill, William Wirt’s speechat the arraignment of Aaron Burr, Edmund Burke’s speechon Warren Hastings, Robert Emmett’s speech for his ownvindication.

Who will in conspicuous action represent the NewNorth as he did the New South? Who will come forth437for the New East and who for the New West? Let oldpolitical issues be buried, let old grudges die. Let newtheories be launched. With the coming in of a new nationat the gates of Castle Garden every year, and the wheatbin and corn crib of our land enlarged with every harvest,and a vast multitude of our population still plunged inilliteracy to be educated, and moral questions abroadinvolving the very existence of our Republic, let the oldpolitical platforms that are worm-eaten be dropped, andplatforms that shall be made of two planks, the onethe Ten Commandments, and the other the Sermon on theMount, lifted for all of us to stand on. But there is a lotof old politicians grumbling all around the sky who don’twant a New South, a New North, a New East, or a NewWest. They have some old war speeches that they preparedin 1861, that in all our autumnal elections they feelcalled upon to inflict upon the country. They growl louderand louder in proportion as they are pushed back furtherand further and the Henry W. Gradys come to the front.But the mandate, I think, has gone forth from the throneof God that a new American Nation shall take the place ofthe old, and the new has been baptized for God and liberty,and justice and peace and morality and religion.

THE APOTHEOSIS.

And now our much lamented friend has gone to giveaccount. Suddenly the facile and potent pen is laid downand the eloquent tongue is silent. What? Is there nosafeguard against fatal disease? The impersonation ofstout health was Mr. Grady. What compactness of muscle!What ruddy complexion! What flashing eye!Standing with him in a group of twenty or thirty personsat Piedmont, he looked the healthiest, as his spirits werethe blithest. Shall we never feel again the hearty graspof his hand or be magnetized with his eloquence? Men ofthe great roll, men of the pen, men of wit, men of power,if our friend had to go when the call came, so must youwhen your call comes. When God asks you what have438you done with your pen, or your eloquence, or your wealth,or your social position, will you be able to give satisfactoryanswer? What have we been writing all these years?If mirth, has it been innocent mirth, or that which tearsand stings and lacerates? From our pen have there comeforth productions healthy or poisonous! In the last greatday, when the warrior must give account of what he hasdone with his sword, and the merchant what he has donewith his yard stick, and the mason what he has done withhis trowel, and the artist what he has done with his pencil,we shall have to give account of what we have donewith our pen. There are gold pens and diamond pens, andpens of exquisite manufacture, and every few weeks I seesome new kind of pen, each said to be better than the other;but in the great day of our arraignment before the Judgeof the quick and dead, that will be the most beautiful pen,whether gold or steel or quill, which never wrote a profaneor unclean or cruel word, or which from the day itwas carved or split at the nib, dropped from its pointkindness and encouragement, and help and gratitude toGod and benediction for man.

May God comfort that torn up Southern home, and allthe homes of this country, and of all the world, which havebeen swept by this plague of influenza, which has deepenedsometimes into pneumonia and sometimes into typhus, andthe victims of which are counted by the ten thousand,Satan, who is the “prince of the power of the air,” hasbeen poisoning the atmosphere in all nations. Though itis the first time in our remembrance, he has done the samething before. In 1696 the unwholesome air of Cairo, Egypt,destroyed the life of ten thousand in one day, and in Constantinoplein 1714 three hundred thousand people died ofit. I am glad that by the better sanitation of our cities andwider understanding of hygienic laws and the greater skillof physicians these Apollyonic assaults upon the humanrace are being resisted, but pestilential atmosphere is stillabroad. Hardly a family here but has felt its lighter orheavier touch. Some of the best of my flock fell under its439power and many homes here represented have been crushed.The fact is the biggest failure in the universe is this world,if there be no heaven beyond. But there is, and the friendswho have gone there are many, and very dear. Oh, tearfuleyes, look up to the hills crimsoning with eternal morn!That reunion kiss will more than make up for the partingkiss, and the welcome will obliterate the good-by. “TheLamb which is in the midst of the throne shall lead themto living fountains of water and God shall wipe away alltears from their eyes.” Till then, O departed loved ones,promise us that you will remember us, as we promise toremember you. And some of you gone up from this cityby the sea, and others from under southern skies and othersfrom the homes of the more rigorous North and some fromthe cabins on great western farms, we shall meet again whenour pen has written its last word and our arm has done itslast day’s work and our lips have spoken their last adieu.

And now, thou great and magnificent soul of editor andorator! under brighter skies we shall meet again. FromGod thou camest, and to God thou hast returned. Notbroken down, but ascended. Not collapsed, but irradiated.Enthroned one! Coroneted one! Sceptered one! Emparadisedone! Hail and farewell!

AS the soldier falls upon the battle-field in the line ofduty, so died Henry Woodfin Grady, the progressiveeditor of the Atlanta Constitution. Mr. Grady cameto the North twelve days ago, with his fatal illnessupon him, against the entreaties of his family, to speaka word for the South, to the mind and conscience ofNew England. He performed his task in splendid spirit,and with the effective and moving eloquence that werealways his, and then returned home to die. It ishighly probable that if he had not gone to Boston hewould be living and writing to-day. It is as morethan a journalist or an orator, that Mr. Grady is to becounted. He was admirable as both, but he was morethan a Southerner, a peacemaker between the sections.He was intensely Southern, filled full of all the traditionsof his people, proud of them and their past, but he acceptedthe new order with the magnificent enthusiasm of his intensenature, and became the embodiment of the spirit ofthe New South. More than any other man of this section,he had the ear of the people of the North. They believedthe patriotic assurances which he made in behalf of hispeople, because they knew him to be honest and sincereand thoroughly devoted to all that makes for the best inpublic affairs. His influence in Atlanta and throughoutthe South was deservedly great. No Southerner couldhave been so ill-spared as this young man, whose futureonly a day or two ago seemed brilliant to a degree. Hisdeath is a wonderfully great bereavement, and not onlyto his family and the community in which he lived andlabored, but the whole country, whose peace and unity andkindly sentiment he did so much to promote.

Mr. Grady’s death will be deeply and justly regrettedall over the country. He had, though still a youngman, made for himself a national reputation, and byhis steadfast counsels for peace and good will, and by hisintelligent devotion to the development of his State andof the South, had won the good will of North and Southalike.

It is seldom that so good a journalist is at the same timeso brilliant and effective an orator as Mr. Grady was. Thereason probably is that when he spoke he had something tosay, and that he was of so cheerful and hopeful a spiritthat he was able to affect his hearers with his own optimism.In that he was a thorough American, for, as one of theshrewdest New Yorkers once said, “This is a bull country,and the bears have the wrong philosophy for the Americanpeople.”

For that training which made him not only a brilliantand successful, but, what is better, a broadly intelligentand useful journalist, the Herald claims a not inconsiderableshare of credit, which Mr. Grady himself was accustomedto give it. The Herald was his early and best school.As a correspondent of this journal he first made his markby the fearless accuracy of his reports of some excitingscenes in the reconstruction period. He showed in thosedays so keen an eye as an observer, united with such rapidand just judgment of the bearings of facts, that his reportsin the Herald attracted general attention and were recognizedfreely, even by those whom they inconvenienced, asthe clearest, the most truthful, and the most just reports445made of those events. He was then still a very young man;but he quickly saw that the province of a newspaper, andof a reporter of events for it, is to tell the exact truth, totell it simply and straightforwardly, and without fear,favor or prejudice. This is what he learned from his connectionwith the Herald, and this lesson he carried into hisown able journal, the Atlanta Constitution.

It does not often happen that so young a man as Mr.Grady was makes so great and widespread a reputation,and this without any of the tricks of self-puffery whichare the cheap resort of too many young men ambitious offame, or what they mistake for fame—notoriety.

In Mr. Grady’s untimely death the country loses oneof its foremost and most clear-headed journalists, and hisState one of its most eminent and justly admired citizens.

A LOSS TO THE WHOLE COUNTRY.

The death of Henry Grady is a loss to the whole country,but there is some consolation in the general recognitionof this fact. During his brief career as a public man hehas said many things that it was profitable for both Northand South to hear, and he has said them in such a way asto enhance their significance. As editor of one of the fewwidely influential papers of the South, he possessed anopportunity, which he had also in great measure created, ofimpressing his opinions upon Southern society, but it wasto a few occasional addresses in Northern cities that hechiefly owed his national reputation. His rhetorical giftswere not of the highest order, but he had command of astyle of speaking which was most effective for his purposes.It was marked by the Celtic characteristic of exuberance,but it was so agreeable and inspiring that he was able to446command at will audiences at home and abroad. Whenso endowed he has also a significant message to deliver, andis, moreover, animated by a sincere desire to serve hisgeneration to the full measure of his ability, the loss whichhis death inflicts is not easily repaired. The wholecountry will unite in deploring the sudden extinction of afaithful life. Mr. Grady’s zeal, activity and patriotismwere fully recognized in the North, as we have said, butyet it was pre-eminently to his own people that he was anexample and inspiration. His loyalty to the cause in whichhis father fell was untinged with bitterness, and he neverpermitted himself to imagine that vain regrets were moresacred than present obligations. He was an admirableillustration of that sagacious and progressive spirit whichis gradually, but surely, renewing the South, and which,though it still lacks something of being altogether equal toits opportunities, does nevertheless recognize the fact that“new occasions teach new duties, time makes ancient gooduncouth.”

WHAT HENRY W. GRADY REPRESENTED.

What undoubtedly interested and fascinated peoplemost in the late Henry W. Grady was the fact that herepresented an order of genius now almost extinct in ourcountry, and yet one in which some of the favorite episodesof its history are entwined. The orator who appealed atonce to the reason and the feelings was beyond questionthe foremost power of our early national century of history.He was not predominant in the councils which founded ourgovernment, nor in the first decade of its administration;because the duties of that period called for the calm deliberationsof statesmen rather than the arousing of voters toaction. As this era of national infancy drew to its close,447and the gigantic problems, destined at a later day to involvethe nation in civil war, came forth into sudden prominence,the orator became the central figure of the nationalstage. The rank and file gave their allegiance to theirchosen oratorical leader. He spoke in their behalf in Congress;he defined in all political gatherings the will andpurposes of his constituents; and not less powerfully washis influence exerted to shape those opinions and purposes.Indeed, the speeches of Clay, Calhoun and Webster, andat a later day of Douglas and Lincoln, are better understoodwhen regarded as shaping public opinion than as followingthe popular will already formed. The speeches ofthese leaders supplied the need which is now met by thenewspaper editorial in journals of influence and publicspirit. Like the newspaper of this later day, the Americanorator of half a century ago was quick to note a changein the trend of public sentiment, and at his best fearless inleading the movement even before the popular mind hadgiven assent.

The civil war brought to a close the epoch in whichflourished this interesting and impressive figure of our earlierpolitics. To-day, partly because of the greater diffusionof news and intelligence, partly by reason of the moretechnical and analytical character of the national problemswhich confront us, he has quite disappeared from thepolitical stage. One need only recall the congressional orcampaign speeches of our ablest public speakers to appreciatethe truth of this. It was Mr. Grady’s good fortunethat he, equipped with the keen insight and fervid eloquenceof our old public leaders, was placed in an epochand a community where the reconciling of the North andthe South called for just these powers. Presently, whenthe wave of closer commercial intercourse and the bettermutual understanding shall have swept with unprecedentedrapidity over the whole nation, the feelings which madesuch mediation necessary will be quite dead. But thework of the men who led the way is not likely to be forgotten.

The death of Henry W. Grady is a very much greaternational loss than the public will at first concede; andwhile his death will be regretted, not only by the Democracyof the country, but by all patriotic citizens, few willrecognize that he was one of the few prominent young men,who were children during the War, who labored to obliterateabsolutely the animosity it engendered. We believethat if the circ*mstance of his prominent position had notsilenced Jefferson Davis, who died almost simultaneouslywith this youth, he, too, would have been found advocatingthe truth that the Union of these States is hom*ogeneous,and that Union is worth all the sacrifices it cost.

The young Atlanta editor has, during the past few years,done as much as any other public man toward the accomplishmentof perfect reunion and for the prosperity of hisState and section. His later addresses had been speciallycharacterized by a broad grasp of political and industrialproblems that entitled him to high rank as an accomplishedand far-sighted statesman.

There have been few more interesting personalities in thelife of the country in the past decade, and there was noman of his years with brighter prospects than Grady at thetime of his last visit to the North, which will be memorableas the occasion of his most comprehensive and effectiveaddress on his constant theme of American prosperitythrough fraternity.

AN APOSTLE OF THE NEW FAITH.

Few men who have never entered the public servicewere more widely known throughout the country thanHenry W. Grady, who died at Atlanta, and the death of only449a few even of those who have won the honors and the prominenceof public life would be more sincerely deplored. Tenyears ago Mr. Grady had made himself known in the Southby the fervency of his devotion to her interests and by theunusual ability he displayed in his newspaper work, andthe people of the South met his devotion with characteristicwarmth of affection and generosity of praise. A littlelater he was recognized in the North as an eloquentinterpreter of the new spirit which had awakened andpossessed the South. His speech at the dinner of the NewEngland Society three years ago was only an expressionfrom a more conspicuous platform of the sentiments whichhad long inspired his daily writing. And it was not merelyas an interpreter of Southern feeling that Mr. Grady wasentitled to recognition. In a large measure he was thecreator of the spirit that now animates the South. He wasan apostle of the new faith. He exhorted the people of theSouthern States to concern themselves no longer about whatthey had lost, but to busy themselves with what they mightfind to do, to consecrate the memories of the war if theywould, but to put the whole strength of their minds andbodies into the building up of the New South. To histeaching and his example, as much as to any other singleinfluence perhaps, the South owes the impulses of materialadvancement, of downright hard work, and that well-nighcomplete reconciliation to the conditions and duties of thepresent and the future that distinguish her to-day.

THE FOREMOST LEADER.

The death of Henry W. Grady, at Atlanta, on Mondayof this week, was a loss, not only to his own section, butto the country. Although a young man, and not in politicallife, Mr. Grady had already acquired a national reputation.It is only three years since he delivered the speechat the New England dinner in this city, which gave a sudden450expansion to a reputation already rapidly extending,and made his name known in every State in the Union.Mr. Grady was a typical Southern man, ardent in his lovefor his own section, loyal to the memory of those whofought in the struggle of a quarter of a century ago, butequally loyal to the duties and the nation of to-day.Warm-hearted, generous, and of a fervid imagination, Mr.Grady’s oratory recalled the best traditions of the Southernstyle; and the sincerity and geniality of his natureevoked the confidence and regard of his audience, whilehis eloquence thrilled them. His latest speech was deliveredin Boston two weeks ago, on the race question, andwas one of those rare addresses which carry with them animmediate broadening of the views of every auditor.Among the men of his own section Mr. Grady was probablythe foremost leader of progressive ideas, and his deathbecomes for that reason a national loss.

A GLORIOUS MISSION.

All who admire true patriotism, brilliant talents, goldeneloquence and ripe judgment, will regret the untimelytaking off of the gifted Southern journalist and orator,Henry W. Grady, in the very zenith of his powers andfame. His eloquent address at the annual banquet of theBoston Merchants’ Association is still fresh in the mindsof those who listened to him or read his glowing words inthe columns of the press. It was the last and grandesteffort of the brilliant young Southerner. It was thedefense of his beloved South against the calumnies castupon her, and the most lucid, convincing exposition of therace question ever presented at a public assemblage. Impassionedand heartfelt was his plea for Union and theabandonment of all sectionalism. These closing words of451his address might fitly be inscribed upon his tomb: “Letus resolve to crown the miracles of our past with the spectacleof a Republic, compact, united, indissoluble in thebonds of love—loving from the Lakes to the Gulf—thewounds of war healed in every heart as on every hill—sereneand resplendent at the summit of human achievementand earthly glory—blazing out the path, and makingclear the way up which all the nations of the earth mustcome in God’s appointed time.” The words were all themore emphatic and convincing because they were spokenin the presence of an ex-president whose entire administrationhad been consecrated to such a Union of all sections,and who accomplished more in the grand work of obliteratingthe last traces of sectional strife and division thanany other man who sat in the national executive chair.

Well may the South mourn over this fervid advocate ofher honor, her rights, her interests, and regard his death apublic calamity. Eloquence such as his is rarely given tomen, and it was devoted wholly to his beloved land. Ithas done more to break down the barriers of prejudice andpassion than a decade of homilies, dry arguments andelaborate statistics could effect. His was a most gloriousmission, the bringing together in the closest bonds of fraternallove and confidence the sections which partisanmalice, political selfishness and unconscionable malignitywould keep apart. Whenever he spoke, the earnestnessof his convictions, expressed in the noblest language,impressed itself upon the intelligence of his hearers. Hislast appeal, made, as he described it, “within touch ofPlymouth Rock and Bunker Hill, where Webster thunderedand Longfellow sang, and Emerson thought andChanning preached,” melted away the most hardenedprejudice and enkindled in the New England heart thespirit of respect and sympathy for the brave, single-mindedpeople of the South, who are so patiently and determinedlyworking out their destiny to make their beautiful land theabode of unalloyed peace and prosperity. Journalism willalso mourn the loss of one of its brightest representatives.452Henry W. Grady shone in the columns of his newspaper,the Atlanta Constitution, with no less brilliancy than hedid as an orator. Under his guidance that paper hasbecome one of the brightest in the land. It will be difficultfor the South to supply his place as patriot, journalistand orator. He was an effective foil to the Eliza Pinkstonclass of statesmen in and out of Congress.

HIS LOFTY IDEAL.

Few men die at thirty-eight whose departure is feltas a national loss, but Henry W. Grady was one. At anage when most men are just beginning to be known intheir own States and to be recognized in their own section,he was known to the nation and recognized by the Americanpeople. At the South he represented the new pride inthe material revival of a section desolated by the war. Atthe North he stood for loyal and enthusiastic support bythe South of the new claims of the Union. His everyappearance before the public was one more proof to thenation that the sons of those who fought the war wereagain one people and under one flag, cherishing differentmemories in the past, but pressing forward to the samelofty ideal of a hom*ogeneous democratic society underrepublican institutions.

If Henry W. Grady spoke at the North he spoke forthe South; if he spoke at the South he stood for Northernideas in his own land. He was none the less true in bothattitudes that his utterances were insensibly modified byhis audiences. Eloquent, magnetic, impressionable, sharingto the full the sympathy every great speaker always haswith his audience, his sentiment swung from extreme toextreme as he stood on a Northern or a Southern platform.It was always easy to pick flaws in them. Now and then453his rhetorical sympathies placed him in a false position.But it was the inevitable condition of work like his that heshould express extremes. If he had not felt and voicedthe pride with which every Southerner must and shouldlook back to the deathless valor of men we all rejoice toclaim as Americans, he would have been worthless as arepresentative of the South. If he had not thrilled earlierthan his fellows to the splendid national heritage withwhich defeat had dowered his people, he could never haveawakened the applause of Northern audiences by expressionsof loyalty and devotion to our common nation.

This service to both sections sprang from somethingmore than sympathy. A moral courage Northern mencan little understand was needed for him to opposeSouthern treatment of the negro. Energy and industry,unknown among his fellows, were needed in the leadershiphe undertook in the material development of his Stateand section. It is easy now to see the enormous profitwhich lay in the material development of Georgia. Far-sightedprovision was needed to urge the policy and aidthe combination which made it possible ten years ago.

No one but a journalist, we are proud to say, couldhave done Mr. Grady’s work, and he brought to the workof journalism some of its highest qualifications. Abilityas a writer, keen appreciation of “news,” and tirelessindustry, which he had, must all be held second to thepower he possessed in an eminent degree of divining thedrift and tendency of public feeling, being neither tooearly to lead it nor too late to control it. This divinationMr. Grady was daily displaying and he never made betteruse of it than in his last speech in Boston, the best of hislife, in which he rose from mere rhetoric to a clear, earnestand convincing handling of fact. A great future wasbefore him, all too soon cut off. He leaves to all journaliststhe inspiring example of the great opportunities whichtheir profession offers to serve the progress of men and aidthe advance of nations, by speaking to the present of thebright and radiant light of the future, and rising above the454claims of party and the prejudice of locality to advocatethe higher claims of patriotism and humanity.

HIS PATRIOTISM.

The death of Henry W. Grady, which occurred almostat the dawning of this beneficent Christmas time, did not“eclipse the gayety of nations,” as it was long ago said thedeath of another illustrious person did, but it still casts ashadow over his native land—a shadow which falls heavilyupon all those of his countrymen who knew, honored andloved the man.

Henry W. Grady was one of the youngest, the mostbrilliant, the best beloved of the young men of his countrywho, since the war of secession, won distinction in publiclife. Whether considered as a writer or an orator, histalents were extraordinary. His language was strong,refined, and, in its poetic warmth and elegance, singularlybeautiful. But that which gave to it its greatest value andcharm was the wisdom of the thought, the sincerity of thehigh conscience of which it was the expression. It wasgiven to him as it is to so few—the ability to wed noblethoughts to noble words—to make the pen more convincingthan the sword in argument, to make the tongue proclaim“the Veritas that lurks beneath the letter’s unprolificsheath.”

Henry W. Grady was, in the truest sense, an American;his love of country, his unselfish devotion to it, were unquestionedand unquestionable; but he sought to serve itbest by best serving the South, which he so greatly lovedand which so loved and honored him. It was the New Southof human freedom, material progress—not the Old South ofchattel slavery and material sluggishness—of which he wasthe representative, the prophet. It was the South of to-day,455which has put off the bitternesses, defeats and animositiesof the war; which has put on the sentient spirit of realunion, of marvelous physical development, which advancesday by day to wealth, dignity and greatness by giganticstrides. This was the South that he glorified with pen andtongue, and which he sought with earnest, zealous love tobring into closer, warmer fraternity with the North and theNorth with it.

The story of the shield which hung in the forest, andwhich, to the traveler coming from the North, seemed tobe made of gold, and to the traveler journeying from theSouth, to be made of silver, is an old one. But it has itsnew significance in every great matter to which there aretwo sides, and which is looked at by those approaching itfrom different directions from their respective points ofview. He saw but one side of the race question—theSouthern side, and for that he strenuously contended onlya few days before his death, in the very shadow of FaneuilHall, or, as he finely said: “Here, within touch of PlymouthRock and Bunker Hill—where Webster thunderedand Longfellow sang, Emerson thought and Channingpreached—here, in the cradle of American letters and ofAmerican liberty.” It was in the house of his antagoniststhat he fought for the side which he thought good and just,and if in doing so he did not convince, he was listened towith respect and admiration.

That is a question not to be discussed here and now, andit is referred to only to show the courage of Mr. Grady indefence of his convictions, for they were convictions, andhonest ones, and not mere political or sectional opinions.Apart from the race question, Mr. Grady was a man ofpeace, who, whether writing in his own influential journalin the South, or speaking in Boston, his tongue and voicewere alike for peace, good will, unity of interest, thoughtand feeling. In his address of the 13th instant, at theBoston banquet, Mr. Grady said:

“A mighty duty, sir, a mighty inspiration impels everyone of us to-night to lose in patriotic consecration whatever456estranges, whatever divides. We, sir, are Americans,and we stand for human liberty! The uplifting force ofthe American idea is under every throne on earth. France,Brazil—these are our victories. To redeem the earth fromkingcraft and oppression, this is our mission! And weshall not fail. God has sown in our soil the seed of Hismillennial harvest, and He will not lay the sickle to theripening crop until His full and perfect day has come. Ourhistory, sir, has been a constant and expanding miraclefrom Plymouth Rock and Jamestown all the way—aye,even from the hour when, from the voiceless and tracklessocean, a new world rose to the sight of the inspired sailor.As we approach the fourth centennial of that stupendousday—when the Old World will come to marvel and to learn,amid our gathered treasures—let us resolve to crown themiracles of our past with the spectacle of a republic, compact,united, indissoluble in the bonds of love—loving fromthe Lakes to the Gulf—the wounds of war healed in everyheart as on every hill—serene and resplendent at thesummit of human achievement and earthly glory—blazingout the path and making clear the way up which all thenations of the earth must come in God’s appointed time.”

The fine expression of these lofty sentiments shows theeloquence of the man, but, better than that, they themselvesshow the broad and noble spirit of his patriotism.And the man that his countrymen so admired and honoredis dead, his usefulness ended, his voice silent, his pen idleforever, and he so young. There are no accidents, saidCharles Sumner, in the economy of Providence; nor arethere. The death of Henry W. Grady, which seems sopremature, is yet part of the inscrutable design the perfectnessof which may not be questioned, and out of it goodwill come which is now hidden. He was of those greatspirits of whom Lowell sang:

457He was of those who even through death do good, and soposthumously work out the economy of Providence, for

ORATORY AND THE PRESS.

The lamented death of Mr. H. W. Grady affords a fitoccasion for saying that oratory is not one of “the lostarts.” A great deal is said from time to time about thedecadence of oratory as caused by the competition of thepress. We are told that public address is held in slightesteem because the public prints are much more accessibleand equally interesting. It is said that this operates in twoways, that the man who has something to say will alwaysprefer to write rather than speak, because the printed pagereaches tens of thousands, while the human voice can atmost be heard by a few hundreds, and that not many peoplewill take the trouble to attend a lecture when they canread discussions of the same subject by the lecturer himself,or others equally competent, without stirring from theevening lamp or exchanging slippers for boots. But thereis a great deal of fallacy in such arguments. The press isthe ally, not the supplanter of the platform. The functionsof the two are so distinct that they cannot clash, yetso related that they are mutually helpful. Oratory is verymuch more than the vocal utterance, of fitting words. Oneof the ancients defined the three requisites of an orator asfirst, action; second, action; and third, action. If byaction is meant all that accompanies speech, as gesture,emphasis, intonation, variety in time, and those subtleexpressions that come through the flushing cheek and the458gleaming eye, the enumeration was complete. Mr. Gradyspoke with his lips not only, but with every form andfeature of his bodily presence. Such oratory as his, andsuch as that of the man whose lecture on “The Lost Arts”proved that oratory is not one of them, will never be out ofdate while human nature remains what it is. There is,indeed, one class of public speakers whose occupation thepress has nearly taken away. They are the “orators,”falsely so called, whose speech is full of sound and fury,signifying nothing. Cold type is fatal to their pretensions.

THE LESSON OF MR. GRADY’S LIFE.

Henry W. Grady is dead, but the lesson of his lifewill live and bear fruits for years to come. The youngmen of the South will not fail to note that the public journalsof every faith in the North have discussed his life anddeath in the sincerest sympathy, and that not only hisability but his candor and courage have elicited universalcommendation. Had Mr. Grady been anything less thana sincere Southerner in sympathy and conviction, he couldhave commanded the regulation praise of party organs inpolitical conflicts, but he would have died little regrettedin either section. He was a true son of the South; faithfulto its interests, to its convictions, to its traditions; andhe proved how plain was the way for the honest Southernerto be an honest patriot and a devoted supporter of theUnion.

There are scores of men in the South, or who have livedthere, and who have filled the highest public trusts withinthe gifts of their States, without commanding the sympathyor respect of any section of the country. Of theSouth, they were not in sympathy with their peopleor interests, and they have played their brief and accidental459parts only to be forgotten when their work wasdone. They did not speak for the South; they wereinstruments of discord rather than of tranquility, and theyleft no impress upon the convictions or pulsations of eithersection.

But Mr. Grady was a true, able, candid, courageousson of the South, and he was as much respected under theshadows of Bunker Hill as in Georgia. Sincerely Southernin every sympathy, he was welcomed North and South asa patriot; and long after the Mahones and the Chalmersshall have been charitably forgotten, the name of Gradywill be fresh in the greenest memories of the whole peopleof the country.

There is no better lesson for the young men of the Southto study than the life, the aims and the efforts of Mr. Gradyand the universal gratitude he commanded from everysection. He was beloved in the South, where his noblequalities were commonly known, but he was respected inthe North as an honest Southerner, who knew how to betrue to his birthright and true to the Republic. TheNorthern press of every shade of political conviction hasunited in generous tribute to the young patriot of Georgia,and if his death shall widen and deepen the appreciationof his achievement among the young men of the South whomust soon be the actors of the day, he may yet teach evenmore eloquently and successfully in the dreamless sleep ofthe grave than his matchless oratory ever taught in Atlantaor Boston.

HIS LOSS A GENERAL CALAMITY.

The sudden and lamentable death of Henry W. Gradywill eclipse the gayety of the Christmas season in the South.He was a popular favorite throughout that section, and hisloss is a general calamity. His public career was yet in its460beginning. He had distinguished himself as an editor andas an orator, and high political honors awaited him quiteas a matter of course. His qualities of head and heartfitted him admirably for the service of the people, and theytrusted and loved him as they did no other of the youngerSouthern leaders. He believed in the new order of things,and was anxious to see the South redeemed from the blundersand superstitions of the past, and started on a careerof rational and substantial progress. In the nature ofthings, he was obliged now and then to humor sectionalprejudice, but he did it always in a graceful way, and setan example of moderation and good temper that wasgreatly to his credit. Without sacrificing in the least hishonor or his sincerity as a devoted son of the South, hegave candid and appreciative recognition to the virtues ofthe North, and made himself at home in Boston the sameas in Atlanta. The war was over with him in the bestsense. He looked to the future, and all his aspirationswere generous and wholesome.

If the political affairs of the South were in the controlof men of the Grady pattern, a vast improvement wouldsoon be made. He did not hesitate to denounce themethods which have so often brought deserved reproachupon the Southern people. He was not in sympathy withthe theory that violence and fraud may be properly invokedto decide elections and shape the course of legislation.His impulses as a partisan stopped short of the feelingthat everything is fair in politics. He did much tomollify and elevate the tone of public sentiment; and hewould have done a great deal more if he had been sparedto continue his salutary work. His loss is one of that kindwhich makes the decrees of fate so hard to understand.There was every reason why he should live and prosper.His opportunities of usefulness were abundant; his Stateand his country needed him; there was certain distinctionin store for him. Under such circ*mstances death comesnot as a logical result, but as an arbitrary interference withreasonable conditions and conceptions. We are bound to461believe that the mystery has been made plain to the manhimself; but here it is insoluble. The lesson of his sterlingintegrity, his patriotism and his cheerfulness is left, however,for his countrymen to study and enforce. Let ushope that in the South particularly it will not be neglected.

SADDEST OF SEQUELS.

The death of Henry W. Grady, the brilliant journalistand eloquent orator, will be sincerely deplored throughoutthe country. It is especially untimely, coming as it doesas the saddest of sequels to a tour which promised muchin the beginning, and which, in all save this ending, morethan fulfilled the expectations of his friends. His brilliantspeech in Boston was his last great effort, and it will longbe remembered as one of his best. In it he plead, as itnow proves, with the lips of a dying man, for true fraternitybetween the North and South. Had he lived, his burningappeals would have moved the country deeply. Nowthat it is known that the effort cost him his life, his wordswill have a touch of pathos in them as they are recalled bythe men of all parties and all sections to whom they wereso earnestly addressed. But even this increased effectgiven to his last appeal to the North will not compensatefor the loss of such a man at this time. Henry W. Gradywas distinctively the representative of the New South.Too young to have had an active part in the great strugglebetween the states, he came into active life at just the timewhen men like him were needed. His face was set towardthe future. He belonged to and was identified with theprogressive element which has already accomplished somuch of positive achievement in the Southern States. Hewas a Southern man, recognized as a leader by Southernmen, but with a breadth of mind and purpose which made462him a part of the entire country. Under his leadershipthe South was sure to make progress, but its rapid marchwas to be to the music of the Union, and with every stepthe North and South were to be nearer together than atany previous time since the adoption of the Constitution.But his part in the great work is ended. His passionatevoice is stilled and his active brain is at rest at a time inlife when most men are entering upon their most effectivework. Had he lived, a brilliant future was already assuredto him, a future of leadership and of tremendous influencein public affairs. But his untimely death ends all. Otherswill take up his work as best they may; the New Southwill go forward with the development of its material interests,old animosities will fade away and the North andSouth will gradually come together in harmony of spiritand purpose, but the man of all others who seemed destinedto lead in the great movement will have no furthershare in it. The South will mourn his early death mostdeeply, and the North will throw off its reserve sufficientlyto extend its sincere sympathy, feeling that when such aman dies the loss is the nation’s rather than that of asingle state or of a group of states.

A LIFE OF PROMISE.

In the death of Henry W. Grady, which occurred yesterday,journalism, the South, and the whole country sufferedserious loss. He had come to occupy a large place,and one which cannot be filled. He was a connecting linkbetween the old and the new South, with his face towardthe East, albeit the shadows of the setting sun could beclearly discerned in his discussions of the vital questionsof the day. His life seemed just begun, and big in thepromise of usefulness. Two years ago he was known only463as a journalist. He addressed the New England Society ofNew York on the evening of December 29, 1887. Thatspeech made him famous. Since then his name has beena household word. For him to be stricken down at theearly age of thirty-nine is little if any short of a publiccalamity.

It is a dangerous thing for a man of serious purpose towin renown as an after-dinner speaker. Post-prandialoratory is generally a kind of champagne, as effervescentas it is sparkling, but Mr. Grady struck a vein of thought atthat New England banquet which had in it all the earnestnessof patriotism. A Southerner with a strong sectionalflavor, his influence, as a whole, was broadening. Henever rose superior to the prejudice of race, but it maywell be doubted if any Southerner could do so in thesedays without cutting himself off from all influence overhis own people. There is nowhere visible in the Southernheavens the dawn of the day of equal justice, irrespectiveof race. In that regard Mr. Grady was neither better norworse than his white neighbors. But with that exceptionhis patriotism had largely outgrown its provincial environments.

Mr. Grady was a native of Georgia. His father seemsto have been a follower of Alex. H. Stephens, for he was aUnion man until the final test came, when he took up armsfor the Confederacy, meeting death for the cause of hisreluctant espousal. A graduate of the University of Georgiaand later of the University of Virginia, the son had the besteducation the South could give. His newspaper life beganearly and was never interrupted. For several years he wasco-editor and co-proprietor of the Atlanta Constitution,confessedly one of the leading newspapers of the country.Previous to his connection with the Constitution he wasthe correspondent of the Inter-Ocean and the New YorkHerald. Both as editor and correspondent he excelled.Both as editor and orator he has at different times spokeneloquently of both Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davishis point of view being intermediate, and that fact, rather464than any conscious vacillation, explains his seeming contradictions.

A few days ago the Southern people stood withuncovered heads by the grave of Jefferson Davis, the mostconspicuous representative of the Old South, and now,before they had fairly returned from that funeral, they arecalled upon to attend the obsequies of the most conspicuousrepresentative of the New South. These two notablemen present much the same blending of resemblance andcontrast, as do the evening and the morning stars. CertainlyMr. Grady, young, enthusiastic, and patriotic, wasto the South a harbinger of brighter, more prosperousdays.

ELECTRIFIED THE WHOLE COUNTRY.

The Christmas holidays, North and South, are saddenedby the death of Henry W. Grady, the interestingyoung journalist of Atlanta, whose words of patriotismand of manly hope and encouragement for all sections, havemore than once within a few years electrified the wholecountry. Mr. Grady won fame early, and in an uncommonmanner. Though locally known in the South as a capablenewspaper man, his name was not familiar to the generalpublic until a few years ago, when, by a single speech at abanquet in a northern city, he attracted universal attention.Since then his utterances have carried weight, andscarcely a man speaking or writing on public topics hasbeen more respectfully heard.

The key-note of Mr. Grady’s speeches on the South wasthat the past belief of its people in the “Lost Cause,”and their continued personal admiration for their leaders,should not and did not prevent them from accepting fullyand in perfect good faith the results as they stand. Heargued that the best elements, including the new generation,465were only too willing and anxious to treat of the pastas a condition wholly and irrevocably past—and, at that,a past which they would not recall if they could. Fromthe North he asked a recognition of this new feeling, andthe magnanimous consideration which would not assumethat the South was still disloyal or rebellious merelybecause it refused to condemn itself and its leaders for themistakes which brought it disaster.

The efforts of the deceased were to promote patrioticdevotion to the Union in the South, and to induce theNorth to believe that the feeling existed. His evident sincerityand his eloquence in presenting the situation woncordial approval in the North, while in his own section hewas applauded with equal warmth. His death will be verywidely and deeply regretted, as that of a man of high andgenerous feeling whose influence, had he lived, promisedto make for whatever was noble and good.

A LARGE BRAIN AND A LARGE HEART.

Throughout the entire North as well as in the Southwill there be heartfelt and sincere mourning over the deathof this most distinguished editor on the other side ofMason and Dixon’s line. It was only ten days ago thathe came North and delivered an address at the annual dinnerof the Merchant’s Club of Boston, following it on thenext evening with a speech before the Bay State Club, aDemocratic organization. While on this trip Mr. Gradycontracted a severe cold which was the immediate cause ofhis death yesterday morning.

The dead editor was a man of large brain and largeheart. His hope was in the future of the South and heworked for the results which his prophetic ken perceivedahead of its present with great earnestness and great judgment.466Since he became the editor of the Atlanta Constitutionhe has labored unceasingly to remedy the unfortunateconditions which operated against the progress anddevelopment of the South. Under his inspiring leadershipand wise counsel many enterprises have been started andencouraged. There is no other one man to whom the NewSouth owes so much as to Henry W. Grady. When hecame to New York City two years ago, and in a notableaddress there told the people what this New South haddone and was trying to do, the public was astonished athis statistics. The speech was so eloquent, so earnest, sobroadly American in tone and spirit that it attracted wideattention and sent a thrill of admiration to the heart ofevery gratified reader. It made him not only famous butpopular all through the North. This fame and popularitywere increased by his recent excellent addresses in Boston.The Advertiser published, on Thursday last, on thefourth page, an extract from one of these speeches, entitled“The Hope of the Republic,” and we can do the dead manno better honor than to recommend to our readers thatthey turn back and read that extract again. It expressesthe purest sentiment and highest appreciation of the foundationprinciples of the Republic.

Mr. Grady was a Democrat and a Southern Democrat.Yet he was a protectionist and believed that the developmentof the South depended upon the maintenance of theprotective tariff. Under it the iron manufactures and variousproducts of the soil in that section of our country havebeen increased to a wonderful extent while the generalbusiness interests have strengthened to a remarkable degree.Mr. Grady has encouraged the incoming of Northernlaborers and capitalists and aided every legitimateenterprise. He has been a politician, always true to hisparty’s candidates, though he has been somewhat at variancewith his party’s tariff policy. He has been a goodman, a noble, true Christian gentleman, an earnest, faithfuleditor and a model laborer for the promotion of hispeople’s interests.

Henry W. Grady dead? It seems almost impossible.

Only ten days ago his fervid oratory rang out in a Bostonbanquet hall, and enchanted the hundreds of Boston’sbusiness men who heard it. Only nine days ago the newspaperscarried his glowing words and great thoughts intomillions of homes. And now he lies in the South he lovedso well—dead!

“He has work yet to do,” said the physician, as thegreat orator lay dying. “Perhaps his work is finished,”replied Mr. Grady’s mother. She was right. To the physician,as to many others, it must have seemed that Mr.Grady’s work was just beginning; that not much had yetbeen accomplished. For he was young; only thirty-eightyears old. He had never held a public office, and there isa current delusion that office is the necessary condition ofsuccess for those endowed with political talents. But Mr.Grady had done his work, and it was a great work, too.He had done more, perhaps, than any other man to destroythe lingering animosities of the war and re-establish cordialrelations between North and South. His silvery speechand graphic imagery had opened the minds of thousandsof influential men of the North to a truer conception of theSouth. He had shown them that the Old South was amemory only; the New South a reality. And he had donemore than any other man to open the eyes of the Northto the peerless natural advantages of his section, so thatstreams of capital began to flow southward to develop thoseresources.

He was a living example of what a plain citizen may dofor his country without the aid of wealth, office or higherposition than his own talents and earnest patriotism gavehim.

Boston joins with Atlanta and the South in mourningthe untimely death of this eloquent orator, statesmanlike468thinker, able journalist and model citizen. He will longbe affectionately remembered in this city and throughoutthe North.

A LOYAL UNIONIST.

Mr. Grady was a loyal Unionist. The son of a Unionveteran, proud of his sire’s part in the battle-fields of therebellion, could not be more so. He stood manfully againstthe race prejudice which would lash the negro or plunderor terrorize him, but he recognized fully the difficulties ofthe race problem, and would not blink the fact, whichevery Northern man who sojourns in the South soon learns,that safety, progress, peace, and prosperity for that sectionforbid that the mere numerical superiority of the blacksshould authorize them to push the white man, with hissuperior capability for affairs, from the places where lawsare made and executed. Mr. Grady looked upon the situationdispassionately and told the truth about it to Northernaudiences.

He was an active force in the journalism of the South,where the journal is still regarded largely as an organ ofopinion and the personality of the editor counts for much.He entered the newspaper field when the modern idea ofnews excellence had obtained a full lodgment at the Northand at one or two places South of the Ohio, and while heloved to occupy the pulpit of the fourth page he was notunmindful of the demand for a thorough newspaper.

HIS WORK WAS NOT IN VAIN.

The death of Henry W. Grady of the Atlanta Constitutionis a loss to journalism, to the South and to the nation.469He had done good work for each, and still more could reasonablybe expected of him but for his untimely death atthe comparatively early age of thirty-eight. His fatalillness was contracted when serving the cause of the wholecountry by pleading in the North for a more generous andjust judgment of the Southern people and of their effortsto solve the race problem. He has done much towardbringing about a better understanding by his brilliant,earnest and logical addresses to Northern audiences, inwhich he abated nothing of that intense love for thatpart of the Union of which he was a native, but at thesame time appealed to them as citizens of the same country,as brothers, to bury past differences, make allowancefor conditions that were not desired and could not beavoided, and substitute friendly confidence for prejudicedsuspicion. More of the same good work was expectedof him, but as his mother said when speaking of his dangerouscondition: “May be his work is finished.” Underhis management the Constitution worked unceasingly forthe physical and moral regeneration of the South. Itpreached the gospel of the “New South,” redeemed bywork, by enterprise and by devotion to the Union of whichthe South is an integral part, and its preaching has notbeen in vain. With pen and tongue, equally eloquent withboth, Mr. Grady labored in behalf of the cause he had somuch at heart, and, although dying thus early, he had thesatisfaction of knowing that his work was not in vain;that it is certain to bring forth good fruit.

THE BEST REPRESENTATIVE OF THE NEW SOUTH.

By the death of Henry Woodfin Grady the countryloses one of its most brilliant journalists.

Throughout the country his death will be deplored asmost untimely, for the future was bright before him. He470had already, although only thirty-eight years old, reachedthe front rank in his profession, and he had been talked ofas nominee for the vice-presidency. This eminence he wonnot only by his brilliant writing, but also by his integrityand high purposes. He never held an office, for though hecould make and unmake political destinies, he never tookfor himself the distinctions he was able to bestow uponothers. Though he inherited many ante-bellum prejudicesand feelings, yet no editor of the South was more earnest,more fearless in denouncing the outrages and injusticesfrom time to time visited upon the negro. So the Americanpeople have come to believe him the best representativeof the “New South,” whose spokesman he was—anable journalist and an honest man who tried according tohis convictions to make the newspaper what it should be,a living influence for the best things in our political, industrialand social life.

A LAMENTABLE LOSS TO THE COUNTRY.

He was a man of high faculties and purposes, and ofgreat breadth of sympathy. He had courage of heart equalto capacity of brain, and placed in the core of the South,in her most busy city, and the undoubted representativeman of her ambition and progress, it is lamentable that heshould be lost to the country.

It seemed to be in no man’s grasp to do more good thanhe had appointed for his task. He has done that whichwill be memorable. It is something forever, to plow onedeep furrow in fertile land for the seed that is in the air.

He is dead, as the poets that are loved must die, stillcounting his years in the thirties; and there is this compensation,that it may yet be said of him in the South, as471was so beautifully sung by Longfellow of Burns in Scotland,that he haunts her fields in “immortal youth.”

A SAD LOSS.

The death of no other man than Henry Woodfin Gradycould have plunged Georgia into such deep mourning asdarkens all her borders to-day. Atlanta is the center ofGeorgia life, and Grady was the incarnation of Atlantavitality. His was a personality difficult to associate withthe idea of death. He was so thoroughly alive, bodily andmentally, he was so young, the fibers of his being reachedout and were embedded in so many of the living interestsof Georgia and the whole South, that no thought of hispossible sudden end would rise in the minds of any whoknew him. And his friends were legion. Everybodycalled him Henry.

In ten years he rose from obscurity to a prominencethat made him the foremost figure of his day in the South,and had already linked his name with the second office inthe gift of the American people. As an orator he was thepride of the South, as Chauncey M. Depew is of the North.As a journalist no Northern man bears the relation to hissection that Grady did to the South. As a public-spiritedcitizen it seemed only necessary for Grady to espouse aproject for it to succeed beyond all expectations. Yet buta few years ago he started three newspapers in succession472and they all failed! Failure was the alphabet of hissuccess.

When Mr. Grady bought a quarter interest in theAtlanta Constitution he had had but slender training injournalism. He had written a great deal, which is quiteanother thing. Though the Constitution has remainedintensely provincial in its methods ever since, he has givenit an influence in the South unrivalled by any other paper,with possibly one exception. Under his inspiration theConstitution viewed everything Georgian, and especiallyAtlantian, as better than similar things elsewhere. Itbacked up local enterprises with a warmth that shames thepublic spirit of most Northern cities. It boasted of localachievements with a vehemence that was admirable whileit sometimes was amusing. Florid in his own speech andwriting, Mr. Grady gathered about him on the Constitutionmen of similar gifts, who often wrote with pensdipped, as it were, in parti-colored inks, and filled its columnswith ornate verbal illuminations. Yet amid muchthat was over-done and under-done there often appearedwork of genuine merit. For the Constitution under Gradyhas been the vehicle by which some of the most talentedof the late Southern writers have become familiar to thepublic. Grady was proud of them, and of his paper. “Ihave the brightest staff and the best newspaper in theUnited States,” he once remarked to this writer. AndMr. Grady firmly believed what he said.

It was as a speech-maker that Grady was best knownat the North. Echoes of his eloquence had been heardhere from time to time, but soon after the Charleston earthquakehe made the address on “The New South,” beforethe New England Society at New York, that won for himthe applause of the entire country, and must now stand asthe greatest effort of his life. His recent speech in Bostonis too fresh in mind to need attention here. Mr. Grady’sstyle was too florid to be wholly pleasing to admirers ofstrong and simple English. He dealt liberally in tropesand figures. He was by turns fervid and pathetic. He473made his speeches, as he conducted his newspaper, in amanner quite his own. It pleased the people in Georgia,and even when he and his partner, Capt. Howell, ran theConstitution on both sides of the Prohibition question itwas regarded as a brilliant stroke of journalistic genius.

Personally Mr. Grady was one of the most companionableand lovable of men. His hand and his purse werealways open. His last act in Atlanta, when waiting at thedepot for the train that bore him to the Boston banquet,was to head a subscription to send the Gate City Guard toattend Jefferson Davis’s funeral. His swarthy face waslighted by a bright, moist, black eye that flashed forth thekeen, active spirit within. The impression left upon themind after meeting him was of his remarkable alertness.

He will be a sad loss to Georgia, and to the South.There is none to take his place. His qualities and his usefulnessmust be divided henceforth among a number. Noone man possesses them all.

WORDS OF VIRGIN GOLD.

The peaceful serenity of the Christmas festival is sadlymarried by the intelligence flashed over the wires from thefair Southern city of Atlanta to-day. “Death loves ashining mark,” and without warning it came and took awayHenry W. Grady, the renowned orator and the brillianteditor, the man above all others who could least be sparedby the South at this time. A week ago last Thursdaynight he stood up in the banquet hall at Boston and withcharming eloquence delivered to the people of the North amessage from the loyal South—a message that went outover the land and across the sea in words of pure, virgingold, that will live long after he from whose lips they fell474has returned to dust. Mr. Grady’s effort on that occasionattracted the admiration of the whole country. He spokeas one inspired, and his pathetic words at times movedstrong men to tears and made a lasting impression upon allwho were privileged to hear him. When he resumed hisseat exhausted and perspiring, he became a prey to thechilling draughts and took a very severe cold. The eveningnext following he was banqueted by the Bay State Clubof Boston, and when he arose to respond to a happy sentimentoffered by the toastmaster in honor of the guest of theevening, he could scarcely speak. He apologized for hiscondition and spoke but briefly, and when he had finishedthe company arose and gave him a double round of cheers.Among the fine sentiments of his closing words, the last ofhis public utterances, were these: “There are those whowant to fan the embers of war, but just as certain as thereis a God in the heaven, when these uneasy insects of thehour perish in the heat that gave them life, the great clockof this Republic will tick out the slow moving and tranquilhour and the watchmen in the street will cry, ‘All is well!All is well!’” His last words were these: “We bring toyour hearts that yearn for your confidence and love, themessage of fellowship from our home, and this messagecomes from consecrated ground—ground consecrated to usby those who died in defeat. It is likely that I shall notagain see Bostonians assembled together, therefore I wantto take this occasion to thank you and my excellent friendsof last night, and those friends who accompanied us thismorning to Plymouth, for all that you have done for ussince we have been here, and to say that whenever you comeSouth, just speak your name and remember that Bostonand Massachusetts is the watchword, and we will meet youat the gate.”

Mr. Grady returned home immediately, and his friends,who had prepared to greet him with a great reception, methim at the train only to learn that he was sick unto death.He was carried home suffering with pneumonia and at 3:40A.M. to-day breathed his last. The nations will stop amid475the Christmas festivities to lay upon the bier of the deadSoutherner a wealth of tenderness and love.

It was as an editor that Grady was best known. Hisbrilliant and forceful contributions made the Atlanta Constitutionfamous from one end of this broad land to theother. As an orator he was master of an accurate andrhythmical diction which swept through sustained flightsto majestic altitudes. We will deal with the statisticalrecord of his life at another time, and can only add herethat it is a matter for sincere regret that he has been takenaway before he had reached the summit of his fame or themeridian of his usefulness.

SAD NEWS.

The untimely death yesterday of Henry Woodfin Gradyis sad news. He was predisposed to lung diseases, and thecirc*mstances of his visit to Boston were most unfortunate.The weather was very mild when he arrived here, butbecame suddenly chill and wintry just before his departure.Half our native population seemed to have caught coldowing to the sudden and severe change in temperature, andMr. Grady contracted pneumonia in its most violent form,so that he grew steadily worse to the end. His trip toBoston was eagerly anticipated, both because he had neverbeen in New England, and also for the reason that thegreatest interest had been created both North and Southover the announcement that he would speak on the raceproblem. The impression made by his address—for it rosefar above the ordinary after-dinner speech—is still strong,and the expectation created in the South is attested by thefact that a body-guard, as it were, of admiring friendsfrom among leading representative Southerners made thetrip with Mr. Grady for the express purpose of hearing hisexposition of the race problem.

476Of Mr. Grady’s address there is nothing new to add.It was one of the finest specimens of elegant and fervidoratory which this generation has heard. It met the fondestanticipations of his friends, and the people of hisnative State had planned to pay him extraordinary honorsfor the surpassing manner in which he plead their cause.The address, considered in all respects, was superior tothat which he delivered in New York and which wonnational reputation for him. His treatment of the raceproblem was in no respect new, and it met with only alimited approval, but while he did not convince, Mr. Gradycertainly won from the North a larger measure of intelligentappreciation of the problem laid upon the South. Itwas impossible not to perceive his sincerity, and we recognizedin him and in his address the type and embodimentof the most advanced sentiment in the generation whichhas sprung up at the South since the war. Mr. Grady’sfather lost his life in the Confederate army; Mr. Gradyhimself spoke in the North to Union veterans and theirsons. It was perhaps impossible, from the natural environmentsof the situation, that he should speak to theentire acceptance of his auditors, or that he should giveutterance to the ultimate policy which will prevail in thesettlement of the race problem. But we of the North canand do say that Mr. Grady has made it easier for one ofanother generation, removed from the war, to see withclearer vision and to speak to the whole country on therace problem with greater acceptance than would now bepossible. To have done this is to do much, and it is instriking contrast with the latter-day efforts of that othergreat figure in Southern life who has but lately gone downto the grave unreconciled.

The North laments the death of Mr. Grady, and sincerelytrusts that his mantle as an apostle of the NewSouth will fall upon worthy shoulders. Business interestsare bringing the North and South together at a wonderfullyrapid rate. This is not the day nor the generation inwhich to witness perfect that substantial agreement for477which we all hope. But we are confident that if to thefirmness of the Northern views upon the civil rights of theblack man there be added a fuller measure of sympathyfor those who must work out the problem, and if Mr.Grady’s spirit of loyalty, national pride and brotherlykindness becomes deeply rooted in the South, the futurewill be promising for the successful solution of that problemwhich weighs so heavily upon every lover of hiscountry.

A LEADER OF LEADERS.

The death of Henry W. Grady, chief editor of theAtlanta Constitution, is an irreparable loss to the South.Of all the many and influential newspaper men of that section,Mr. Grady can only be compared with Mr. Watterson,of the Louisville Courier-Journal, in point of distinction;and while Watterson is the better equipped journalist,Grady was the greater popular leader. He was notonly a brilliant and forceful writer, but a most eloquentand impressive speaker, and one of the most sagacious incouncil.

Mr. Grady was only ten years old when the civil warspread its terrible pall over the land, and he was only aschool-boy when his native South was left defeated, desolatedand despairing by the failure of the Confederacy.He grew up with the new generation that is so rapidlysucceeding the actors of that great conflict in both sections.He escaped the luxury and effeminacy of fortune; he hadto grapple with poverty amidst an almost hopeless people;and he was one of the earliest of the new generation torise to the full stature of manly duty. Thoroughly Southernin sympathy, and keenly sharing the memories whichare sacred to all who wore and supported the gray, he saw478the new occasion with its new duties as the latent wealthof the South, that so long slumbered under the blight ofslavery, gave promise of development; and alike in his ownEmpire State of the South, and in the great metropolis ofthe Union and in the Bay State citadel of opposite politicalviews, he ever declared the same sentiments and cementedthe bond of common brotherhood.

And no other young man of the South gave so muchpromise of future honors and usefulness as did Mr. Grady.He has fallen ere he had reached the full noontide of life,and when his public career was just at its threshold. Hecould have been United States Senator at the last electionhad he not given his plighted faith to another; and evenwith the office left to go by default, it was with reluctancethat the Legislature, fresh from the people, passed him byin obedience to his own command. That he would havebeen leader of leaders in the South, yea, in the wholeUnion, is not doubted; and he was the one man of thepresent in the South who might have been called to theVice-Presidency had his life been spared. He was freefrom the blemish of the Confederate Brigadier, that isever likely to be an obstacle to a popular election to thePresidency or Vice-Presidency, and he was so thoroughlyand so grandly typical of the New South, with its newpulsations, its new progress, its new patriotism, that hispolitical promotion seemed plainly written in the recordsof fate.

But Henry W. Grady has fallen in the journey with hisface yet looking to the noonday sun, and it is only the vindicationof truth to say that he leaves no one who can fullytake his place. Other young men of the South will havetheir struggling paths brightened by the refulgence hisefforts and achievements reflect upon them, but to-day hisdeath leaves a gap in Southern leadership that will not bespeedily filled. And he will be mourned not only by thosewho sympathized with him in public effort. He was oneof the most genial, noble and lovable of men in every relationof life, and from the homes of Georgia, and from the479by-ways of the sorrowing as well as from the circles of ambition,there will be sobbing hearts over the grave of HenryW. Grady.

A FORCEFUL ADVOCATE.

The death of Henry Woodfin Grady, the brilliantyoung Southern editor and orator, which took place atAtlanta, Ga., was almost tragic in its suddenness; it willmake a profound impression at the South, and will bedeeply deplored here at the North, where he had come tobe known as a florid yet forceful advocate and apologist ofhis section. He had lately caught the ear of the country,and while his speeches provoked critical replies, it may besaid in his honor that he, more than any other Southerner,had lifted the plane of sectional debate from that of futilerecriminations to more dignified and candid interchangesof opinion. That is saying much for a man who was a ladduring the rebellion, and who had not passed his thirty-ninthbirthday. He was a man of pronounced views, perhapsgiven more to pictures of prosperity than to themethods of its attainment, and when upon the platformhe carried the crowd by the force of that genius for passionateappeals which his Irish ancestry and Southerntraining had given him in full measure. No Southernerhad put the conflict of races in so reassuring a light; buthe was not old enough or far-seeing enough to realize thatthe problem can and will be solved,—and that by Southerners.

Mr. Grady called about him a formidable group ofyoung Democrats filled with the spirit of the New South.They believed that Georgia would rise and the South bereconstructed in the broadest sense by the multiplicationof factories and the advancement of trade. These youngmen selected Gov. Colquitt for their standard-bearer in the480State election of 1880, and Mr. Grady was made chairmanof the campaign committee. Colquitt during his firstterm had offended the Democratic regulars, and the youngmen carried the war into the back country. The vote atthe primaries was unprecedentedly heavy. Colquitt carriedthe State and was the first governor elected under the newconstitution. Grady never held public office, but it wassupposed that he had been selected by the Democraticleaders as Gov. Gordon’s successor, and many thoughtthat he was angling for the second place on the Democraticnational ticket in 1892.

The attention of the North was first called to the brilliantGeorgian by his address at New York in June, 1887,at the annual dinner of the New England Society. Hisspeech at the Washington Centennial banquet last springwas rather a disappointment, but he fully recovered hisprestige the other day at Boston, where he shared thehonors of a notable occasion with Grover Cleveland. Mr.Grady found time from his editorial work to write an occasionalmagazine article, but his subject was his one absorbingstudy—the South and its future.

HIS GREAT WORK.

The death of the brilliant young Southerner whoseeloquence yet rings in our ears followed so closely uponhis visit to Boston that it doubtless arouses a keener senseof regret and a clearer realization of loss here than in othercommunities. Mr. Grady, moreover, in speaking for theNew South, whose aspirations he so ably represented, whileaddressing the whole nation, yet brought himself moreclosely to New England in his arguments, his contrasts andhis fervid appeals; and, whether it was admiration of hiscourage in combating the remnants of traditional prejudices481in the heart of the section in which this feeling once wasthe strongest, or a sympathy with the sentiments whichhe expressed in such captivating language, it cannot bedoubted that the warmest recognition which he has receivedoutside his own State is that which he won from this community.

In all his efforts to spread that knowledge of the sentimentsand the purposes of the South which would tend tomake the restored union of the States more secure and moreharmonious, Mr. Grady has addressed himself especially toNew England. It was at the meeting of the New EnglandSociety in New York, in 1886, that he made the first notablespeech which evoked such a ready and generous responsefrom all sections of the country; and the last public wordswhich he spoke in furtherance of the same purpose werethose delivered upon Plymouth Rock at the end of therecent visit which he described as a pilgrimage.

It is seldom, indeed, that a people or an idea has thefortune to possess such an advocate as Mr. Grady. He notonly knew where to carry his plea, but he had a rare giftof eloquence in presenting it. Whether Mr. Grady, as hisfield of effort enlarged, would have developed a more variedtalent as an orator, can never be known; but in the illustrationof the one subject on which he made himself heardbefore the people he showed himself a master of the art.On this topic, full of inspiration for him, he spoke with abrilliancy and power which were unapproachable. SinceWendell Phillips, there is none possessed of such a strengthof fervid eloquence as that which this young man displayed.Much of the effect produced by his speeches, ofcourse, must be attributed to the existence of a sentimentseldom aroused, but ready to respond to such an appeal;but when every allowance is made for the circ*mstancesunder which he achieved his triumphs of oratory, thereremains the inimitable charm which gave power and effectto his words.

If Mr. Grady had been simply a rhetorician, his place inthe public estimation would be far different from that which482is now accorded him. Without the talent which he possessedin so remarkable degree, he could not have producedthe effect which he did; but back of the manner in whichhe said what he had to say, which moved men to tears andto applause, were the boldness, the frankness and the entiresincerity of the man. His words brought conviction as hisglowing phrases stirred the sentiment of his hearers, andamid all the embellishments of oratory there was presentedthe substantial fabric of fact. His last speech in Bostonwas as strong in its argument as it was delightful in itsrhetoric.

The influence which Mr. Grady has exerted upon thegreat movement which has consolidated the Union andbrought the South forward in the march of industrial developmentcannot now be estimated. He has not lived tosee the realization of what he hoped. But there can be nodoubt that his short life of activity in the great work willhave far-reaching results.

NEW ENGLAND’S SORROW.

The death of Henry W. Grady comes at a time andunder conditions which will cause a deep feeling of sorrowand regret in the minds of the people of New England.He came to us only a few days ago as a representative of ourSouthern fellow-countrymen, grasping the hand of goodwill that was extended to him, and professing, in the eloquentaddresses that he made, a desire to do all that hecould to allay any differences of opinion or prejudices thatmight exist between the people of the North and thoseof the South. One means of doing this, and one whichappealed particularly to the inhabitants of New England,was the unquestioned admiration that he had for our traditionsand institutions, an admiration which he owned483was so far cherished in the South as to lead many of itspeople to copy our methods. The New South was achange from the Old South, for the reason that its peoplewere discarding their former theories and opinions, andwere to a large degree copying those which we have alwaysheld.

It is needless at this time to speak of Mr. Grady’sattempt to defend the Southern method of settling the raceproblem, but, although there were many who believed thathe did not fully make out his case, his statement of it threwa light upon the question which was probably new to alarge number of those who heard or read his words.

Of Mr. Grady’s eloquence it can be said that it wasspontaneity itself. Rarely has a man been gifted with soremarkable a command of language and so complete aknowledge of its felicitous use. There was in his addressan exuberance of fancy which age and a wider experienceof men and methods would have qualified, but no onecan doubt that this gift of his, combined as it was withhigh intentions and honesty of purpose, would have madeof him in a few years more, if he had been spared, a manof national importance in the affairs of our country.

It is sad to think that this young and promising lifewas thus unexpectedly cut off, and by causes which seemto have been avoidable ones. It is probable that Mr. Gradyunconsciously overtaxed himself on his Northern trip. Hearrived in this city suffering from a severe cold, whichwould probably have yielded to a day or two of completerest. But not only were there fixed appointments whichhe had come here to meet, but new engagements and dutieswere assumed, so that during his short stay here he wasnot only in a whirl of mental excitement, but was undergoingconstant physical exposure.

A man of less rugged strength would have yieldedunder this trial before it was half over, but Mr. Grady’sphysique carried him through, and those who heard hislast speech, probably the last he ever delivered, at the dinnerof the Bay State Club, will remember that, though he484excused himself on account of his physical disabilities, theextemporaneous address was full of the fire and pathos ofhis native eloquence. But, although unaware of the sacrificehe was making, it is probable that Mr. Grady weakenedhimself by these over-exertions to an extent that made himan easy prey to the subtle advance of disease.

His death causes a vacancy that cannot easily be filled.The South was in need, and in years to come may be instill greater need, of an advocate such as he would havebeen. She will, no doubt, find substitutes for this journalist-orator,but we doubt whether any of these will, in soshort a time, win by their words the attention of the entireAmerican people or so deservedly hold their respect andadmiration.

A NOBLE LIFE ENDED.

The country will be startled to learn of the death ofHenry W. Grady. No man within the past three yearshas come so suddenly before the American people, occupyingso large a share of interested attention not only in theSouth but in the North. None has wielded a greaterinfluence or made for himself a higher place in the publicregard. The career of Mr. Grady reads like a romance.Like a true Georgian, he was born with the instincts of hispeople developed to a marked degree, and his rise to aposition of honor and usefulness was certain, should hislife be spared. But like the average man, even in thiscountry of free opportunities, he had to fight his way overobstacles which would have discouraged if not crushed outthe spirit of a less courageous and indomitable man. Hewas too young to take any part in the late great internalstrife, but as a bright-minded boy he emerged from thatcontest with vivid and bitter memories, an orphan, hisfather having fallen beneath the “Stars and Bars.” His485young manhood, while not altogether clouded by poverty,started him upon the battle of life without any specialfavoring circ*mstances, and without the support of influentialfriends to do for him in a measure what doubtlesswould gladly have been done could his future have beenforeseen. But he started out for himself, and in the ruggedschool of experience was severely taught the lessonsof self-reliance and individual energy which were to preparehim for the responsibilities of intellectual leadershipamongst a people in a sadly disorganized condition, whowere groping in the dark, as it were, seeking the light ofprosperity. He never but for a short time left his ownState, and as his field of observation and work enlargedand his influence extended, his love for it seemed to growmore intense. It became with him, indeed, a passion thatwas always conspicuous, and upon which he loved to dwell,with pen or tongue, and some of his tributes to the EmpireCommonwealth of the South, as he loved to call it, willproudly be recorded by the future historian of the annalsof the time.

It was as an active editor of the Atlanta Constitutionthat Mr. Grady found the sphere of labor in which he wasto win high honor, and from which he was to send out aninfluence measured only by the boundaries of the Southitself, if it did not extend, in fact, to the borders of thenation. He wrote and spoke, when appearing in public,from a patriotic and full heart. His utterances were thoseof a man deeply in love with his country, and earnestlydesirous of promoting her highest prosperity and happiness.Some of his deliverances were prose poems that willbe read with delight by future generations of Southernyouth. They came forth flashing like meteors, doubtlessto the astonishment of their author himself, for he seemedto reach national prominence at a single bound. Therewere times when Mr. Grady seemed to falter and slip asidein discussing some of the burning questions of the hour,but this was due to his great sympathy with his own people,his toleration of their prejudices, and his desire to keep step486with them and be one with them throughout his work intheir behalf. But he was an ardent young patriot, a zealousand true friend of progress, and the New South willmiss him as it would miss no other man of the time. Heset a brilliant example to the younger men as well. Hereached for and grasped with a hearty grip the hand of theNorth in the spirit of true fraternity, and it is a patheticincident that the climax to his career should have been anaddress in the very center of the advanced thought of NewEngland. His death seems almost tragic, and doubtlesswas indirectly, at least, due to the immense pace at whichhe had been traveling within the past three years; a victimof the prevailing American vice of intellectual men, drivingthe machine at a furious rate, when suddenly the silvercord is loosed, the golden bowl is broken, and the peopleof the Southland will go mourning for one who ought, theywill sadly think, to have been spared them for many years,to help them work out their political, industrial, and socialsalvation. The name of Henry W. Grady is sure of anenduring and honored place in the history of the State ofGeorgia, and in the annals of the public discussions in theAmerican press, during a time of great importance, ofquestions of vast concern to the whole people.

A TYPICAL SOUTHERNER.

In the death of Henry W. Grady the South has lost oneof its most eminent citizens and the newspaper press of thewhole country one of its most brilliant and dashing editors.He was a typical Southerner, impulsive, sentimental, emotional,and magnetic in his presence and speech, possessingthose qualities which Henry Watterson once said werecharacteristic of Southerners as compared with the reasoning,reflective, mathematical nature of Northern men. His487death will be a sad loss to his paper and to the journalismof the whole country. He was a high-toned, chivalrousgentleman, and a brilliant, enthusiastic, and able editor,who worked his way to the top by the sheer force of hisnative ability and gained a wide circle of admirers, not aloneby his indefatigable and versatile pen but also by the magnetismand eloquence of his oratory. It is a matter forprofound regret that a journalist of such abilities andpromise should have been cut off even before he hadreached his prime.

HIS NAME A HOUSEHOLD POSSESSION.

A few years ago there shot athwart the sky of Southernjournalism a meteor of unusual brilliancy. From its firstflash to its last expiring spark it was glorious, beautiful,strong. It gave light where there had been darkness,strength where there had been weakness, hope where therehad been despair. To the faint-hearted it had given cheer,to the timid courage, to the weary vigor and energy.

The electric wires yesterday must have trembled withemotion while flashing to the outside world the startlingintelligence that Henry W. Grady, the editor of the AtlantaConstitution, was dead. It was only last week this sameworld was reading the touching and pathetic tribute hispen had paid to the dead Southern chief; or less than aweek, listening with pleased and attentive ears to the silvertones of his oratory at the base of Plymouth Rock, as heplead for fair play for the people of his own sunny Southland.

Henry W. Grady was one of the foremost journalists ofthe day. He was still numbered among the young men ofthe Republic, yet his name and fame had already becomea household possession in every part of the Union. Not488only was he a writer of remarkable vigor, but he was alsoa finished orator and a skillful diplomat. As a writer hecombined the finish of a Prentiss with the strength andvigor of a Greeley. Not so profuse, possibly, as Watterson,he was yet more solid and consistent. By force ofgenius he had trodden difficulty and failure under foot andhad climbed to the highest rung of the ladder.

By his own people he was idolized—by those of othersections highly esteemed. Whenever he wrote all classesread. When he spoke, all people listened.

He was a genuine product of the South, yet he wasthoroughly National in his views. The vision of his intelligencetook in not only Georgia and Alabama, but all theStates; for he believed in the Republic and was glad theSouth was a part of it.

His death is not only a loss to Atlanta and Georgia, tothe South and the North, but a calamity to journalism.

EDITOR, ORATOR, STATESMAN, PATRIOT.

In the death of Henry W. Grady the South has lost oneof its foremost and best men. He was pre-eminently theforemost man of the South, and to the credit of the sectionit can be said that he had not attained to such a positionby services in the past, but by duty conceived and well dischargedin the present. He was not a creature of the war,but was born of the events succeeding the war and which,in turn, he has helped to shape for the good of the South,in a way that has represented a sentiment which hasinduced immigration and the investment of capital, sothat, short as has been the span of his life of usefulness,it has been long enough to see the realization of his greatestambition and hopes—the South redeemed from the despair489of defeat and made a prosperous part of a great nation anda factor in working out a glorious future for a reunitedpeople.

Intensely Southern in his sentiments, devotedlyattached to his section and as proud of it in poverty anddefeat as in the day of its present prosperity, to which hemuch contributed, Henry W. Grady comprehended the situationas soon as man’s estate allowed him to begin thework of his life, and he set about making a New South, inno sense, as he claimed in his famous Boston speech, indisparagement of the Old South, but because new ideashad taken root, because of new conditions; and the newideas he cultivated to a growth that opened a better sentimentthroughout the South, produced a better appreciationof Southern sentiment in the North, and helped toharmonize the difference between the sections that warsought to divide, but which failing still left “a bloodychasm” to be spanned or filled up. That it is obliteratedalong with the ramparts of fortresses and the earthworksof the war, is as much due, or more, to Henry W. Gradythan any man who has lived in the South, a survivor of thewar, or brought out of its sequences into prominence.

Early appreciating the natural advantages, the undevelopedresources of the South, he has advocated as editorand orator the same fostering care of Southern industrythat has enabled the North to become the manufacturingcompetitor with any people of the world. He sought,during his life, to allay the political prejudice of the Southand the political suspicion of the North, and to bring eachsection to a comprehension of the mutual advantages thatwould arise from the closest social and business relations.He fought well, wrote convincingly and spoke eloquentlyto this end, and dying, though in the very prime of hisusefulness, he closed his eyes upon work well done, upona New South that will endure as a nobler and better monumentto his memory than would the Confederacy, if ithad succeeded, have been for Jefferson Davis.

The South has lost its ablest and best exponent, the representative490of the South as it is, and the whole country haslost a noble character, whose sanctified mission, largelysuccessful, was to make the country one in sentiment, as itis in physical fact.

A SOUTHERN BEREAVEMENT.

The loss which the Daily Constitution sustains in thedeath of Mr. Grady is not a loss to a newspaper companyonly; it is a loss to Atlanta, to Georgia, to the wholeSouth. Mr. Grady belonged to a new era of things southof the Ohio River. He was never found looking over hisshoulder in order to keep in sympathy with the peopleamong whom he had always lived. He was more thanabreast of the times in the South, he kept a little inadvance, and his spirit was rapidly becoming contagious.He wasted no time sighing over the past, he was gettingall there is of life in the present and preparing for greaterthings for himself and the South in the future. His lifeexpectancy was great, for though already of national reputationhe had not yet reached his prime.

There was much of the antithetical in the lives of thetwo representative Southern men who have but just passedaway. The one lived in the past, the other in the future.The one saw but little hope for Southern people becausethe “cause” was “lost,” the other believed in a mightierempire still because the Union was preserved. The one,full of years, had finished his course, which had been fullof mistakes. The other had not only kept the faith, buthad barely entered upon a course that was full of promise.The one was the ashes of the past, the other, like theorange-tree of his own sunny clime, had the ripe fruit ofthe present and the bud of the future. The death of the491one was long since discounted, the death of the other comeslike a sudden calamity in a happy Christmas home. TheNorth joins the South to-day in mourning for Grady.

A MAN WHO WILL BE MISSED.

The death of Mr. Henry W. Grady, of the Atlanta Constitution,is a loss to South and North alike. The sectionwhich poured out a few days ago its tributes of regret forthe leader of the Southern Confederacy may well dye itsmourning a deeper hue in memory of this greater and betterman, whose useful life is cut short before he hadreached his prime. Mr. Grady has held a peculiar andtrying position; and in it he has done more, perhaps, thanany other one man to make the two sections separated bythe War of the Rebellion understand each other, and tobring them from a mere observance of what we might calla political modus vivendi to a cordial and real union. Itwas not as a journalist, although in his profession he wasboth strong and brilliant, it was rather as the earnest andeloquent representative of the New South, and as thespokesman of her people that he had acquired nationalprominence. He was one of the few who both cared anddared to tell to the people of either section some truthsabout themselves and about the other that were wholesomeif they were not altogether palatable. He was wholly anddesperately in earnest. He had much of the devotion tohis own section and his own State that characterized theSoutherner before the war. But he had what they hadnot: a conception of national unity; of the power andglory and honor of the nation as a whole, that made himrespected everywhere. Whether he appeared in Bostonor in Atlanta, he was sure of an interested and sympatheticaudience; and his fervid orations, if they sometimes492avoided unpleasant issues and decked with flowers thescarred face of the ugly fact, did much, nevertheless, toturn the eyes of the people away from the past and towardthe future.

We have been far from agreeing with Mr. Grady’sopinions, either socially or politically. The patriotic peopleof the North can have no sympathy with the attemptto cover with honor the memory of treason, which foundin him an ardent apologist. We believe that we havegone to the limit of magnanimity when we agree to foregoquestion and memory, and simply treat the men who ledand the men who followed in the effort to destroy thenation as if that effort had never been made. And we donot hold that man as guilty of sectionalism and treason toa reunited country who talks hotly of “rebels” and sneersat “brigadiers,” as that man who speaks of these leadersof a lost cause as “patriots,” obedient to the call of duty.To that error Mr. Grady, in common with other leaders ofhis time, inclined the people of his section. Politically hewas, of course, through good or through evil report, anuncompromising Democrat. Nor can we think his treatmentof the race issue a happy one. The North has come,at last, to do justice to the South in this respect, and toacknowledge that the problem presented to her for solutionin the existence there of two races, politically equalbefore the law but forever distinct in social and sentimentalrelations, is the gravest and most difficult in our history.But the mere plea to let it alone, which is the substanceof Mr. Grady’s repeated appeal, is not the answerthat must come. It is not worthy of the people, eitherNorth or South. It is not satisfactory, it is not final, andthe present demands more of her sons. But, in presentingthese points of difference, it is not intended to undervaluethe work which Mr. Grady did or underestimate the valueof the service that lay before him. With tongue and penhe taught his people the beauty and the value of thatnational unity into which we have been reborn. Hesought to lead them out of the bitterness of political strife,493to set their faces toward the material development that isalways a serviceable factor in the solution of politicalproblems, and to make of the new South something worthyof the name. The work that he did was worthy, and thereis none who can take and fill his place. The death thatplunged the South in mourning a short time ago wasmerely the passing of an unhealthful reminiscence. Thedeath of Grady is a sorrow and a loss in which her peoplemay feel that the regret and the sympathy of the Northare joined with theirs.

AT THE BEGINNING OF A GREAT CAREER.

The death of Henry W. Grady will be received withprofound regret throughout the Northern States, while inthe South there will be deeper and more heartfelt sorrowthan the death of Jefferson Davis called forth. The bookof Mr. Davis’s life was closed before his death, but itseemed as if we were but at the beginning of Mr. Grady’scareer, with a future that held out brilliant promise. Hehad all the characteristics of warm-blooded Southern oratory,and his magnetic periods, that touched heart andbrain alike, were devoted to the single purpose of rehabilitatingthe South by an appeal to the generosity and justiceof the North. No speech of recent years had a greatereffect than his splendid oration at the New EnglandSociety dinner in New York last year on the “NewSouth.” It was happily and appropriately supplementedby his recent address to the merchants of Boston. He wasa martyr to the cause he advocated and personated, for itwas in the chill atmosphere of New England he contractedthe disease of which he died. Rarely has it been given toany man to gain such reputation and appreciation as fellto Mr. Grady as the outcome of his two speeches in NewYork and Boston. He was only thirty-eight years old; at494the very beginning of what promised to be a great career,of vast benefit to his section and country. He was essentiallyof the New South; slavery and old politics were tohim a reminiscence and tradition. At home he was frankand courageous in reminding the South of its duties andlapses. At the North he was the intrepid and eloquentdefender and champion of the South. Both fields calledfor courage and good faith.

THE PEACE-MAKERS.

The premature death of Mr. Grady has taken from thecareer of journalism one of its most brilliant followers. Inhim has passed away also an orator of exceptional powers,ready, versatile, and eloquent, a man of many gifts, astudent with the largest resources of literary culture, andat the same time enabled by his practical experience andtraining to use these resources to the best advantage.

But the point we wish especially to note is that Mr.Grady, while deeply attached to the South, and inheritingmemories of the great civil contest which made him earlyan orphan, was one of those who both recognized the finalityof the issue and had the courage to say so.

He will be remembered at the North as one who spokeeloquent words of conciliation and friendship, who did hisshare in healing the wounds of war, and in smoothing theway toward complete national accord. “Blessed are thepeace-makers” is the inscription one would place abovehis too-early opened grave.

We have not the space at our command to do extendedjustice to Mr. Grady’s great powers, or to picture at lengthhis bright history. That has been done in other places andby other hands. But we cannot pass by the work he did495for reconciliation without some expression of acknowledgment.Such words as his, offered in behalf of peace, willsurvive not merely in their immediate effect, but in theexample they set.

ONE OF THE BRIGHTEST.

One of the brightest men in America passed away onMonday. Henry W. Grady, the editor of the AtlantaConstitution, Georgia’s leading paper, and which has cometo be regarded by many as the ablest paper in the South,had within a very brief period impressed his personalityupon the current history of the nation. Five years ago hewas little more than locally known. Being a guest at adinner of the New England Society at Boston, he made aspeech which was the happiest inspiration and effort of hislife. It was the right word spoken at the right time. Itlifted him at once to the dignity of a national figure. Itwas the greeting of the New South to the new order of things.It touched the great heart of the North by its warm tributeto the patriotism and faithfulness of the martyred President,Abraham Lincoln, being the first Southern utterancewhich did full justice to the memory of that great man. Itwas not a sycophantic nor an apologetic speech, but thevoice of one who accepts accomplished results in their fullness,recognizes all the merits of his opponent, and bravelyfaces the future without heart-burnings or vain regrets.Mr. Grady’s speech was published in almost every paper inthe land, in whole or in part, and, to borrow an old phrase,“he woke up one morning and found himself famous.”Since then all that he has written, said or done has been inthe same line of patriotic duty. He has been no apologistfor anything done by the South during the war. He nevercringed. He was willing that he and his should bear allthe responsibility of their course. But he loved the whole496reunited country, and all that he spoke or wrote wasintended to advance good feeling between the sections andthe common benefit of all.

Mr. Grady was a partisan, but in the higher sense. Henever descended to the lower levels of controversy. Hisweapon was argument, not abuse. And he was capable ofrising above his party’s platform. He could not be shackledby committees or conventions. He nervily and consistentlyproclaimed his adhesion to the doctrine of protection toAmerican industry, although it placed him out of line withhis party associates.

THE SOUTH’S NOBLE SON.

The whole country is deeply grieved and shocked bythe announcement of the death of Mr. Henry W. Grady ofAtlanta, Georgia, which occurred last Monday morning.The land was yet ringing with the matchless eloquence ofhis magnificent speech at the merchants’ dinner in Boston,when the news of his illness came, closely followed by thatof his death. The press of the country was yet teemingwith the applause of its best representatives, when thevoice that evoked it is stilled in death, and one of the mostbrilliant careers of this generation is suddenly and prematurelyclosed. Mr. Grady caught a severe cold during hisvisit to Boston, and grew ill rapidly during his returnjourney. On his arrival home, he was found to be seriouslyill of pneumonia, and the dread disease took a rapid courseto a fatal termination. Mr. Grady was one of the mostpopular men in the South. He was an eloquent orator andbrilliant writer. He was born in 1851 in Georgia, graduatedat the State University and also took a course at theUniversity of Virginia. On coming out of college, Mr.Grady embarked in journalism and devoted a comfortable497fortune to gaining the experience of a successful newspaperman. Under his management the Constitution ofAtlanta, Ga., has gained a very large circulation. Mr.Grady has persistently refused to accept office. He wonNational fame as an orator by his speech at the Pilgrims’dinner in Brooklyn, two years ago, and has been in greatdemand at banquets and similar occasions ever since. Hiseloquence was of the warm, moving sort that appeals tothe emotions, his logic was sound and careful and all hisutterances were marked by sincerity and candor. He hasalso no doubt done more than any one man to remove theprejudices and misunderstandings that have embitteredthe people of the North and South against each otherpolitically, and to raise the great race problems of the dayfrom the ruck of sectionalism and partisanship upon thehigh plane of national statesmanship. The South has losta brave, noble and brilliant son, who served her as effectivelyas devotedly; but his work was needed as much andquite as useful at the North, and his death is indeed anational misfortune.

BRILLIANT AND GIFTED.

It is with a grief that we cannot express, that we writethe above name, and add that he who bore it is no longeramong the living. The most brilliant and gifted man inall the South—the one who, though still young, hadacquired immense popularity and influence, which madehim useful alike to the South and to the whole country—hasgone to his grave. He has died in his prime, at theearly age of thirty-eight, in the maturity of his powers,with the rich promise of life all before him.

Our acquaintance with Mr. Grady began nine yearsago, when we saw him for the first time in the office of abrother of ours, who was able to give him the help which498he needed to purchase a quarter of the Atlanta Constitution.This at once made his position, as it gave him apoint of vantage from which to exercise his wonderfulgifts. From that moment his career was open before him;his genius would do the rest. This kindness he never forgot,and it led to his personal relations with us, whichafterwards became those of intimacy and friendship.

When we first saw him, his face was almost boyish,round and ruddy with health, his eyes sparkling withintelligence, as well as with the wit and humor which heperhaps inherited from some ancestor of Irish blood. Hisface, like his character, matured with years; yet it alwayshad a youthful appearance, which was the outward tokenof the immense vitality within him. We have seldomknown a man who was so intensely alive—alive to the verytips of his fingers. As a writer, he was one of the verybest for the variety of work required in the office of agreat journal. His style was animated and picturesque,and he had an infinite versatility; turning his pen now tothis subject and now to that; throwing off here a sharpparagraph, and there a vigorous editorial; but never ineither writing a dull line. The same freshness and alertnessof mind he showed in conversation, where he was asbrilliant as with his pen. He would tell a story with allthe animation and mimicry of an actor, alternating withtouches of humor and pathos that were quite inimitable.It was the chief pleasure of our visit to Atlanta to renewthis delightful acquaintance—a pleasure which we hadtwice last winter in going to, and returning from, Florida.Never shall we forget the last time that we sat before hisfire, with his charming family and several clergymen ofAtlanta, and listened to the endless variety of his marveloustalk.

Nor was his power confined to this limited circle. Hewas not only a brilliant conversationalist and writer, but agenuine orator. No man could take an audience from thefirst sentence, and hold it to the last, more perfectly thanhe. His speech before the New England Society in this499city three years ago gave him at once a national reputation.It came to us when abroad, and even so far away,on the shores of the Mediterranean, at Palermo, in Sicily,we were thrilled by its fervid eloquence. A secondspeech, not less powerful, was delivered but two weekssince in Boston; and it was in coming on to this, and in avisit to Plymouth Rock, where he was called upon tomake a speech in the open air, that he took the cold whichdeveloped into pneumonia, and caused his death.

But Mr. Grady’s chief claim to grateful remembrance bythe whole country is that he was a pacificator between theNorth and the South. Born in the South, he loved it intensely.His own family had suffered in the war an irreparableloss. He once said to us as we came from his house,where we had been to call upon his mother, whose gentleface was saddened by a great sorrow that had cast a shadowover her life, “You know my father was killed at Petersburg.”But in spite of these sad memories, he cherishedno hatred, nor bitterness, but felt that the prosperity ofmillions depended on a complete reconciliation of the twosections, so that North and South should once more beone country. This aim he kept constantly in view, both inhis speeches and in his writings, wherein there were somethings in which we did not agree, as our readers may see inthe letter published this very week on our first page. Butwe always recognized his sincerity and manliness, and hisardent love for the land of his birth, for all which we admiredhim and loved him—and love him still—and on thisChristmas day approach with the great crowd of mourners,and cast this flower upon his new-made grave.

THE DEATH OF HENRY W. GRADY.

“The South is in tears!” said the sorrowful dispatchfrom Atlanta on Monday last; and the grief and the sympathy500of the North went freely southward in response.Next to his own city, indeed, this death strikes Boston mostdeeply, for here with us, only a few days ago, he poured forththe noblest stream of eloquence that ever flowed from hisgifted tongue. It matters not now that many New Englanders,the Pilot included, dissented from his Southernview of the colored question. We disagreed with the word,but we honored the silver tongue and the heart of gold beneathit. “He was the most eloquent man,” said the Hon.P. A. Collins, one who knows what eloquence consists of,“that I ever heard speak in Boston.”

Since the olden times there has been no more strikingillustration of the power of oratory to appeal to the nationand to make a man famous among his people than is foundin the career of Mr. Grady. Within ten years he leapedfrom the position of a modest Georgian editor to that ofthe best-known and the greatest orator on this continent.So potent is the true gift of eloquence when the substructureis recognized as solid in character and profoundlyearnest in purpose.

To Irish-Americans, as to the State that has lost him,the death of Mr. Grady is a special affliction. He representedin a fine type the patriotism and the manly qualityof a citizen that every Irish-American ought to keep inspiritual sight. He was a man to be trusted and loved.He was a proud Georgian and a patriotic American, thoughhis father had died for “the Lost Cause.” He was, whilein Boston, introduced to the great audience by ColonelCharles H. Taylor as “the matchless orator of Georgia.”Playfully, and yet half seriously, he accounted for himselfthus: “My father was an Irishman—and my motherwas a woman. I come naturally by my eloquence.”

North or South, it matters not the section—all menmust honor such a character. His brief life reached a highachievement. He was a type of American to be hailed withdelight—courageous, ready of hand and voice, proudly sentimentalyet widely reserved, devoted to his State and loyalto the Republic, public-spirited as a statesman, and industrious501and frugal as a townsman, and the head of a happyfamily. His devotion to his parents and to his wife andchildren was the last lesson of his life. In his Bostonspeech he drew tears from thousands by the unnamed pictureof his father’s death for the bleeding South; fromBoston he went South, insisting on being taken to his homewhen they told him in New York that he was dangerouslyill. He died surrounded by his own—mother, wife, andchildren. Almost his last words to his mother were:“Father died fighting for the South, and I am happy todie talking for her.”

ALAS, that the hero of the New South should follow,and in so short a time, the typical hero and representativeof the Old! With hearts still bowed beneaththe shadow of the flags at half-mast all over the Southfor Jefferson Davis, comes the sad and sudden messageannouncing the death of Henry W. Grady.

Poor Grady! Dead in the very summer time and blossomand golden fruitage of a brilliant life! Fallen, whileyet so young and in the arms of his first overwhelming victory.Fallen on the topmost crest of a grand achievement—onthe shining heights he had just so bravely won!Hapless fate, that he could not survive to realize the fullfruition of his sublime endeavor! He went North only afew days ago on a mission of love and reconciliation, hisgreat heart bearing the sorrows of the South, his big brainpulsing with patriotic purpose. Of a nervous, sensitivenature, his physical system, in sympathy with his intellectualtriumph, both strained to the utmost tension, renderedhim susceptible to the sudden change of climate, andhe contracted a severe cold which soon developed intopneumonia, attended by a burning fever. Returning homehe was met at the depot by what had been arranged for agrand ovation and a banquet at the Chamber of Commerce,by the people of Atlanta, but instead of being carried on thestrong shoulders of the thousands who loved and honoredhim, he was received into the gentle arms of his family andphysicians and borne tenderly home, to linger yet for alittle while with the fond circle whose love, deep, strong,and tender as it was, appealed in vain against the harddecree of the great conqueror.

506As Mr. Grady so eloquently expressed in his last hours:“Tell mother I died for the South, the land I love so well!”And this was as true as it could be of any patriot who fallson the field of battle.

But has death, indeed, reaped the fruit? May not thevery sacrifice, in itself, consecrate his last eloquent andinspired words till they sink deeper into the hearts of theNorth and South alike, thus linked with a more sacredmemory and a sublimer sorrow? If so, we shall find alarger recompense even in the bitter bereavement.

As far as his personal history is concerned, HenryGrady could not have died a nobler death. The Greekphilosopher said: “Esteem no man happy while he lives.”He who falls victorious, the citadel won, in a blaze of glory,is safe; safe from all the vicissitudes of fortune; safe fromany act that might otherwise tarnish an illustrious name.It descends a rich heritage to after time. During the presidentialcampaign of 1844 the wonderful orator, Sargent S.Prentiss, delivered at Nashville, to an immense audience,the greatest campaign speech, perhaps, that was ever heardin the United States. After speaking for several hours,and just as he was closing an eloquent burst of oratory,he fell fainting in the arms of several of the bystanders.At once there was a rush to resuscitate him, but GovernorJones, thoroughly inspired by the speech and occasion,sprang from his seat, in a stentorian voice shouting: “Die!Prentiss; die! You’ll never have a better time!”

The Times-Union has heretofore commented on Mr.Grady’s magnificent oration at Boston. It not only capturedNew England and the South, but the entire country.Nothing like it since the war has been uttered. In force,power, eloquence, it has been but rarely excelled in anytime. Major Audley Maxwell, a leading Boston lawyer,507describes it in a letter to a friend in this city as “a cannon-ballin full flight, fringed with flowers.” The occasion, theaudience, the surroundings, were all inspiring. He waspleading for the South—for the people he loved—and tosay that he reached the topmost height of the great argument,is comment and compliment enough. The closingparagraphs are republished this morning, and no man everuttered a sublimer peroration. He spoke as one might havespoken standing consciously within the circling wings ofdeath, when the mind is expanded by the rapid crowdingof great events and the lips are touched with prophetic fire.

The death of Henry Grady was a public calamity. Hehad the ear of the North as no other Southern man had, orhas. He was old enough to have served in the Confederatearmies, yet young enough, at the surrender, while cherishingthe traditions of the past, to still lay firm hold on thefuture in earnest sympathy for a restored and reconciledUnion. In this work he was the South’s most conspicuousleader.

But his life-work is finished. Let the people of the Southre-form their broken ranks and move forward to the completionof the work which his genius made more easy ofaccomplishment and which his death has sanctified. Inthe words he himself would have spoken, the words employedby another brilliant leader on undertaking a greatcampaign, each of the soldiers enlisted for the South’s continuedprogress will cry: “Spurn me if I flee; supportme if I fall, but let us move on! In God’s name, let usmove on!”

THERE WAS NONE GREATER.

The Chronicle confesses to being a hero-worshiper.There is no trait in the human heart more noble than thatwhich applauds and commemorates the feats of brains or508arms done by our fellow-man. We confess the almost holyveneration we feel for the heroes of song and story fromthe beginning of tradition. Nimrod to Joseph and Mosesto the Maccabees, from Alexander to Cæsar, taking in theheroes of all nations from Cheops to Napoleon and Wellington,Putnam, Sam Houston and Lee and Grant andLincoln, we do honor to them all.

So too do we worship the sages and orators. Whateverman the people worship is worthy of a place in our Pantheon.The people are the best judges of a man, andwhen the common people pay tribute to the worth of anyman well known to them, we are ready to lift our hats andacknowledge his title to greatness. Any man who has theenthusiastic admiration of his own people is worthy of anyhonor.

The South has many brilliant writers, but none of themhave ever made the columns of a newspaper glisten andglow and hold in magnetic enchantment the mind of thereader as Henry Grady did. In his life-work he was great,and there is none greater. His writings are worthy of aplace beside those of Greeley and Watterson, and Gradywas still a young man.

In the days gone by the South has sent many oratorsNorth to present Southern thought to Northern hearers.Henry Clay, Jefferson Davis, Robert Toombs and WilliamL. Yancey all went before Grady was invited to speak upthere. There were never four greater orators in the world’shistory, and the story of their speeches has come down tous like music. Yet in this latter day when oratory doesnot appeal to people as it used to, when the busy worlddoes not stop to read speeches, Grady went North tospeak. He was known to the North and had done nothingto challenge the attention of the nation, yet his firstspeech at the North did catch public attention most pleasantly.His second speech, delivered but a few days ago,was the greatest effort of his life, and all the nationslistened to it and all the newspapers commented upon hisutterances. His speech was the equal of any oration509ever delivered in America, and had as much effect on publicthought. No effort of Toombs or Yancey, even in thedays of public excitement, surpassed this last speech ofGrady.

He deserves a place among the great men of America,and the South must hold his memory in reverence. Abroken shaft must be his monument, for as sure as life hadbeen spared him new honors were in store for this youngman. He had made his place in the world, and he wasequal to any call made upon him, and the people werelearning to look to him as a leader. Few such men areborn, and too much honor cannot be done them.

A GREAT LEADER HAS FALLEN.

In the death of Mr. Henry W. Grady the South loses itsbrightest and most useful man. He was the only Southernman who really had the ear of the people of the wholecountry, and he had just reached the position where hecould be useful in the largest sphere. It is inexplicablewhy so young and robust a man—(he was not over thirty-nineyears of age)—a man so brilliant and so able, shouldbe taken just as he was entering upon the plane of widerinfluence and greater usefulness. To the South it is thegreatest loss that it has sustained by death in a quarter ofa century. To the whole people of the country, which heloved with his great-hearted devotion, it is nothing shortof a National calamity.

510Mr. Grady had the ear and heart of the South becausehe loved its history and its very soil, and because he wasthe leading exponent of the idea that is working to buildup a prosperous manufacturing New South. He had theear of the North because, while he had no apologies tomake for Southern actions and was proud of Southernachievements, he had turned his eyes to the morning andlived in the busy world of to-day. He recognized changedconditions and did not bemoan fate. He stood up in hismanliness and his faith and went to work to bring prosperitywhere poverty cast its blight. He inspired othersin the South with faith in the future of his section, andinvited Northern men of money, brains, and brawn to comeSouth and make a fortune; and when they accepted hisinvitation, as not a few did, he gave them a brotherly welcomeand made them feel that they were at home. In thishe showed practical patriotism. Under no temptation—evenwhen speaking in Boston—did he ever so far forgethis manhood as to

The people of the North also heard him because of hiscandor. He never deceived them about the race problemor the difficulties in the way of the South’s future. Headmitted their gravity, and sought a peaceful solution in ajust, fair, and honest way. His speech in Boston was alamentation and an earnest appeal. He cried aloud forsympathetic help, and his cry, sealed with his life, we mustbelieve, will not be heard in vain. God grant that hisprayer for Peace and Union may be answered!

Mr. Grady’s most attractive quality was his warm greatheartedness. He was generous to a fault. No tale of sufferingor poverty was unheeded by him. He had a buoyantspirit and a light heart and deep affections. He wasreverent in speech and with pen. He believed in God, hadlearned the truth of the gospel at his mother’s knee, “Thetruest altar I have yet found,” he said in his last speech.511He was a member of the Methodist church. He had profoundconvictions, and his eloquent speeches in favor ofProhibition in Atlanta will not be forgotten. No manever spoke more earnest words for what he conceived to bethe safety of the homes of Atlanta than he. They will longbe treasured up with fondness by those who mourn thathe was cut down in the zenith of what promised the mostbrilliant career that lay out before any man in America.

Henry W. Grady was a grandson of North Carolina.His father was a native of Macon county, but early in lifeemigrated to Rome, Georgia, to make his fortune, and hemade it. He was one of those men who succeed in everyundertaking. Everything he touched seemed to turn togold. He prospered and made a large estate. When thewar came on he had a presentiment that he would be killed.But notwithstanding that idea took possession of him, heraised and equipped at his own expense a regiment ofcavalry, and hastened to the front as its captain. Hiscompany was attached as company G to the 25th N.C.Regiment, commanded by Col. Thos. L. Clingman. EventuallyCapt. Grady was promoted to be major of the regiment.In the first battle he fell mortally wounded, showinghow true was his presentiment of death. He was surroundedby his men, some of them brave, sturdy NorthCarolinians. He left a legacy of honor to his son, whoalways called North Carolina his grandmother and had adeep affection for its sons.

Mr. Grady graduated with high honors at the Universityof Georgia in Athens. Then he spent two years at theUniversity of Virginia, where he devoted himself rather tothe study of literature and to the work of the societiesthan to the regular college course. He won high honorsthere as an orator and as a debater. He was as wellequipped and as ready and as effective as a debater as hebecame later on as an orator and editor. He was regardedthere as a universal genius and the most charming of men.Leaving college he established a paper at Rome. Later inconnection with Mr. Alston (North Carolina stock) he512established the Atlanta Herald. It was a brilliant paperbut was not a financial success. Our readers will rememberthat Mr. Alston was shot in the Capitol by StateTreasurer Cox. Upon the failure of the Herald, Mr. Gradywent to New York. He was without money and went therelooking for something to do. He went into the office ofthe New York Herald and asked for a position.

“What can you do?” asked the managing editor,when Mr. Grady asked for a position. “Anything,” wasthe reply of the young Georgian, conscious of his powersand conscious of ability to do any kind of work that was tobe done in a great newspaper office. The editor asked himwhere he was from, and learning that he was from Georgia,said: “Do you know anything about Georgia politics?”Now if there was any subject which he knew all about itwas Georgia politics, and he said so. “Then sit down,”said the managing editor, “and write me an article onGeorgia politics.” He sat down and dashed off an articleof the brightest matter showing thorough insight into thesituation in Georgia and thorough knowledge of the leadersin that State. He was always a facile writer, and all hisarticles were printed without erasing or re-writing. Thearticle was put into the pigeon-hole, and Mr. Grady tookhis departure. He left the office, so he said, very despondent,thinking the article might be published after severalweeks, but fearing that it would never see the light. Whatwas his surprise and joy to see it in the Herald the nextmorning. He went down to the office and was engaged ascorrespondent for Georgia and the South. In this capacityhe wrote letters upon Southern topics of such brilliancy ashave never been surpassed, if equaled, in the history ofAmerican journalism. They gained for him a wide reputation,and made him a great favorite in Georgia. The publicmen of that State recognized his ability, and saw howmuch he might do to develop the resources and advancethe prosperity and fame of Georgia if at the head of a greatState paper. The late Alexander H. Stephens interestedhimself in Mr. Grady and assisted to get him on the staff513of the Constitution. From the day he went to Atlanta onthe staff of the Constitution until his death his best energiesand his great abilities were directed toward making ita great paper, and a powerful factor in developing theresources of Georgia. It became the most successful ofSouthern newspapers, and is to-day a competitor with thegreat papers of the North. To have achieved this unprecedentedsuccess in journalism were honor enough to winin a life-time. He was confessedly the Gamaliel of Southernjournalism, and the best of it all was that he was, aswas said of Horace Greeley after his death, “a journalistbecause he had something to say which he believed mankindwould be the better for knowing; not because hewanted something for himself which journalism mightsecure for him.”

He was a Saul, and stood head and shoulders above allhis fellows as an orator as well as an editor. We cannotdwell upon his reputation as an orator, or recount thescenes of his successes. We had heard him only inimpromptu efforts and in short introductory speeches,where he easily surpassed any man whom we ever heard.He had a fine physique, a big, round, open, manly face,was thick-set, was pleasing in style, and had a winningand captivating voice. He could rival Senator Vance intelling an anecdote. He could equal Senator Ransom in apolished, graceful oration. He could put Governor Fowleto his best in his classical illustrations. He could equalWaddell in his eloquent flights. In a word he had moretalent as a public speaker than any man we ever knew;and added to that he had heart, soul, fire—the essentialsof true oratory. We recall four speeches which gave himgreatest reputation. One was in Texas at a college commencement,we think; another at the New York banqueton “The New South”; the third at the University ofVirginia; and the last—(alas! his last words)—at theBoston banquet just two weeks ago. These speeches, aswell as others he has made, deserve to live. The lastone—published in last week’s Chronicle—is emphasized by514his untimely death. In it he had so ably and eloquentlydefended the South and so convincingly plead for a unitedcountry based upon mutual confidence and sympathy that,in view of his death, his words seem to have been touchedby a patriotism and a devoutness akin to inspiration. Hisbroad catholicity and his great patriotism bridged all sectionallines, and he stood before the country the most eloquentadvocate of “a Union of Hearts” as well as a“Union of Hands.” As the coming greatest leader of theSouth, he sounded the key-note of sublimest patriotism.Less profound than Daniel Webster, his burning words forthe perpetuity of the Union, with mutual trust and nosectional antagonism, were not less thrilling nor impressive.The Southern people ought to read and re-read thisgreat speech, which, doubtless, cost him his life, and makeit the lamp to their feet. If we heed his words and burysectionalism, it will be written of him that “though dead,he yet speaketh.”

HENRY W. GRADY.

Henry W. Grady, editor of the Atlanta Constitution,died yesterday, after a short illness, from typhoid pneumonia,at the early age of thirty-six. Perhaps no man in515the South has been more often mentioned in the last fewyears or attracted more attention than he. His famousspeech before the New England Society had the effect ofbringing him before the country as the representative ofthat New South which is building up into prosperity andgreatness.

Mr. Grady was a native of Georgia. His father wasColonel of a Confederate regiment during the late war, andto that father he paid the highest tribute a son could payin several of his speeches. He had a hard struggle at first,like nearly every Southern boy, but he fought his way upto the top by pluck, energy and determination.

Mr. Grady’s first journalistic venture was, we believe,in his native town. He ran a small paper there, movedthence to Atlanta, carrying on another newspaper venturein the Georgia capital. In the course of events this paperwas swallowed up by the Constitution, then pushing itselfto the front of the Georgia press, and Mr. Grady was selectedas co-editor of the latter.

Under him that paper became one of the leading exponentsof Southern opinion, a representative of the progressiveSouth, not lingering over dead memories, but livingin the light of the present and laboring to build up thissection.

Mr. Grady and his paper were always the defenders ofthe South, yet not afraid to expose and condemn its errorsand mistakes. He had the courage to speak out wheneverthis was necessary, and when, some few months ago, regulatorsattempted to introduce into Georgia, in the immediatevicinity of Atlanta, the same practices as in Lafayetteparish in this State, Mr. Grady, through the Constitution,denounced it vigorously. There were threats, but it didnot affect the Constitution, which insisted that the NewSouth must be a South of peace, law and order.

We cannot at this time review Mr. Grady’s entirejournalistic career. It is sufficient to say that with hiscolleagues he built up his paper to be a power in Georgiaand the South. His ability was recognized throughout516this section, but it was not until his famous speech at theNew England dinner that his reputation became national.

When at that dinner, speaking for the New South heso well represented, he pledged his brethren of the Norththe patriotic devotion of the Southern people, he createda sensation. Some of the most famous orators of thecountry were present, but without a dissenting voice it wasdeclared that Mr. Grady’s speech was the event of the day.It sent a thrill throughout the Union. The Southern peoplerose to declare that Mr. Grady had fully explainedtheir views and ideas, and before his eloquent words theprejudice which had lingered since the war in many portionsof the North disappeared. Perhaps no single eventtended more to bring the sections closer together than thatspeech, which so eloquently voiced the true sentiments ofthe Southern people. A wave of fraternal feeling sweptthrough the country, and although the Republican politiciansmanaged to counteract some of the good accomplished,much of it remained. Mr. Grady deserves remembrance,for in a few words, burning with eloquence, heswept away the prejudices of years.

The country discovered that it contained an orator ofwhom it had known but little, a statesman who helped toremove the sectional hatred which had so long retarded itsprogress. Mr. Grady became at once one of the best-knownmen in the Union. He was spoken of for UnitedStates Senator, he was mentioned as Vice-President, and itlooked as though he could be elevated to any position towhich he aspired; but he wisely clung to his journalisticcareer, satisfied that he could thereby best benefit hisState and section.

Mr. Grady was not a one-speech man. He has mademany addresses since then, and while it is true that hisother speeches did not create the same sensation as hisfirst, they were all eloquent, able and patriotic.

His career so auspiciously begun, which promised somuch to himself and the country, has been brought suddenlyand prematurely to a close. Mr. Grady was a517young man, and we had every reason to believe that hewould play a leading part in the South and in the country.Although his career is thus cut short, he had accomplishedmuch, and the New South for which he spoke will carryon the good work he began of uniting the entire countryon one broad and patriotic platform.

SECOND TO NONE.

Henry W. Grady died at his home in Atlanta yesterday.There is that in the very announcement which isheart-breaking. He was the rose and expectancy of theyoung South, the one publicist of the New South, who,inheriting the spirit of the old, yet had realized the present,and looked into the future, with the eyes of a statesmanand the heart of a patriot. His own future was fullyassured. He had made his place; had won his spurs; andhe possessed the gifts, not merely to hold them, but greatlyto magnify their importance. That he should be cut downupon the threshold of a career, for whose brilliant developmentand broad usefulness all was prepared, is almost asmuch a public calamity as it is a private grief. We tenderto his family, and to Georgia, whom he loved with theadoration of a true son for a mother, the homage of ourrespectful and profound sympathy.

Mr. Grady became a writer for the Courier-Journalwhen but little more than a boy and during the darkestdays of the Reconstruction period. There was in thosedays but a single political issue for the South. Our handwas in the lion’s mouth, and we could do nothing, hope fornothing, until we got it out. The young Georgian wasardent, impetuous, the son of a father slain in battle, theoffspring of a section, the child of a province; yet he roseto the situation with uncommon faculties of courage and518perception; caught the spirit of the struggle againstreaction with perfect reach; and threw himself into theliberal and progressive movements of the time with thegenius of a man born for both oratory and affairs. He wasnot long with us. He wished a wider field of duty, andwent East, carrying letters in which he was commended interms which might have seemed extravagant then, butwhich he more than vindicated. His final settlement inthe capital of his native State and in a position where hecould speak directly and responsibly, gave him the opportunityhe had sought to make a fame for himself, and anaudience of his own. Here he carried the policy withwhich, in the columns of the Courier-Journal, he hadearly identified himself, to its finest conclusions; comingat once to the front as a champion of a free South and aunited country, second to none in efficiency, equaled bynone in eloquence.

He was eager and aspiring, and, in the heedlessness ofyouth, with its aggressive ambitions, may not have beenat all times discriminating and considerate in the objects ofhis attacks; but he was generous to a fault, and, as headvanced upon the highway, he broadened with it and to it,and, if he had lived, would have realized the fullest measureof his own promise and the hopes of his friends. Thescales of error, when error he felt he had committed, werefast falling from his eyes, and he was frank to own hischanged, or changing view. The vista of the way aheadwas opening before him with its far perspective clear to hismental sight. He had just delivered an utterance of exceedingweight and value, at once rhetorically fine andrarely solid, and was coming home to be welcomed by hispeople with open arms, when the Messenger of Death summonedhim to his last account. The tidings of the fataltermination of his disorder are startling in their suddennessand unexpectedness, and will be received North and Southwith sorrow deep and sincere, and far beyond the boundscompassed by his personality.

The Courier-Journal was always proud of him, hailed519him as a young disciple who had surpassed his elders inlearning and power, recognized in him a master voice andsoul, followed his career with admiring interest, and recordedhis triumphs with ever-increasing sympathy andappreciation. It is with poignant regret that we record hisdeath. Such spirits are not of a generation, but of anepoch; and it will be long before the South will find one totake the place made conspicuously vacant by his absence.

A LOSS TO THE SOUTH.

The death of Henry W. Grady, of Atlanta, after sobrief an illness and in the very prime of a vigorous youngmanhood, will startle the whole country and will be anespecial affliction to the South. Mr. Grady was a brilliantjournalist, a man of brain and heart, and by his sensibleand enthusiastic policy has identified himself with theinterests of the New South. In fact, few men have beenmore largely instrumental in bringing about that salutarysentiment, now prevailing, that it is best for the South tolook with hope and courage to the future, rather than tolive in sad inactivity amid the ruins of the past. Mr.Grady was a warm and confident advocate of industrialadvancement in the land of his birth. He wanted to seethe South interlaced with railroads, her rich mineral depositsopened to development, her cities teeming with factories,her people busy, contented and prosperous. This was hismission as a man and as a journalist, and his influence hasbeen widespread. Just at this time his loss will be doublysevere.

One morning Henry Grady, who had possessed littlemore than a sectional reputation, woke up to find himselffamous throughout the nation. By his speech at a NewYork banquet he sounded the key-note of fraternal Union520between North and South, and his appeal for mutual trustand confidence, with commerce and industry to cementmore strongly than ever the two great sections of the country,met with a response from both sides of Mason andDixon’s line more hearty than ever before. Many anotherman from the South felt the same sentiments and wouldhave expressed them gladly. Many a man in the Northfelt that in the South those sentiments were sincerely held.But Grady had a peculiar opportunity, and right well didhe improve it. He expressed eloquently and forcibly thefeelings, 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 businessmen as well as to the politicians of the nation the idea of anindivisible 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 bythose who compare its present activity and prosperity withthe apathy and discontent which existed there a few yearsago. The dead man will be sincerely mourned, but theidea which he made the fundamental one of his brief careerwill continue to work out the welfare of the New South.

THE DEATH OF HENRY W. GRADY.

The most brilliant journalist of the South is no more.When the news was sent over the country yesterday morningthat Henry W. Grady, the editor of the Atlanta Constitution,was dead, there were sighs of regret which, ifthey could have been gathered together into one mass,would have been heard across the Atlantic. He was peculiarlygifted. With an imagery and wealth of languagethat enabled him to clothe the most uninteresting subject521in a pleasing garb, he had at the same time the genius ofcommon sense more fully developed than most men nowprominently before the public. He was born in 1851 in thetown of Athens, Georgia, and was therefore less than fortyyears of age. At college he was remarkable among hisfellows for those gifts of speech and pen which made himfamous. To his eternal honor, it can be said that inneither the sanctum or the forum were his powers used ina way to add to any one’s sorrow or distress. His writingswere clean and pure and in every line gave token of thekind heart that beat in his bosom. Mr. Grady was a lovableman. Those who knew him well entertained for himthe deepest affection. His face was itself a fair type of hisnature, which was essentially of the sunshine character.

He was restlessly energetic and always agitating mattersthat he believed would be promotive of the publicgood. The Cotton States’ Exposition and the PiedmontExposition, both held in Atlanta, were literally the creationsof his energy and enthusiasm and pluck. It will nodoubt be readily admitted by his associates of the Constitutionthat he was its moving spirit, and by his powerslargely made it the grand and magnificent success that itundeniably is.

The Young Men’s Christian Association building, costing$100,000, arose as by magic under the persuasive powersof his tongue and pen. The list of his works of a practicalkind that now add to Atlanta’s character and positioncould be indefinitely extended. When he appealed toAtlanta he never spoke in vain, for in addition to brainsand energy he had those rare qualities of personal magnetism,which made his originality and zeal wonderfully effective.He entered into everything his big head conceivedwith his whole heart and soul.

He was loyal to his city and State, and never missed anopportunity for aiding in their advancement. He wassought out by the young and the old, and enjoyed the fullconfidence of all who knew him.

His name and fame, however, were not confined to522Georgia. In the Lone Star State, thousands flocked to thecity of Dallas to hear his great speech at the Texas StateFair. His New York speech, a year or two ago, fairlythrilled the country and caused the enactment of scenesnever before witnessed on similar occasions. No oratorhad ever received such an ovation in that great city, andnone such has been since extended to any speaker. Hisrecent speech at Boston was calculated to do more goodfor the entire country than anything that has fallen fromthe lips of any man in the last decade. It will be a monumentto his memory more enduring than brass. It made aprofound impression on those who heard it. The sentimentsand truths he so boldly uttered are echoing andre-echoing among the hills of New England and over theprairies of the great West, and they will bear rich fruit inthe near future. They were things known to us all here,but those who did not know and did not care have beenset to thinking by his eloquent presentation of the Southernsituation. That speech, perhaps, cost him his life;but if it produces the effect on the Northern mind andheart which it deserves, the great sacrifice will not havebeen in vain. His death will cause a more earnest attentionto the great truths he uttered, and result in anemphasis of them that could not have been attained otherwise,sad as that emphasis may be. The death of such aman is a national calamity. He had entered upon a careerthat would have grown more brilliant each year of his life.His like will not soon be seen and heard again.

UNIVERSAL SORROW.

The news of Mr. Grady’s death is received with universalsorrow. No man of his age in the South or in theUnion has achieved such prominence or given promise of523greater usefulness or higher honors. His reputation asa journalist was deservedly high; but he won greaterdistinction, perhaps, by his public speeches. He wasintensely, almost devoutly Southern, but he had alwaysthe respectful attention of the North when he spoke for theland of his nativity. There was the ring of sincerity in hisfervid utterances, and his audiences, whether in the Northor in the South, felt that every word came hot from theheart. He has done as much as any man to put the Southright before the world; and few have done more to promoteits progress and prosperity. He was a man of tremendousenergy, bodily and mental, and always workedat high tension. Whatever subject interested him tookhis mind and body captive, and into whatever cause heenlisted he threw all the powers of his intellect and all theforce of a nature ardent, passionate, and enthusiastic in theextreme. It is probable that the disease which laid hold ofhim found him an easier prey because of the restless energywhich had pushed his physical powers beyond their capacity.His nervous and impetuous temperament showed nomercy to the physical man and made it impossible for himto exercise a prudent self-restraint even when the dangerof a serious illness was present with him.

Mr. Grady’s personal traits were such as won the loveof all who knew him. All knew the brilliant intellect;but few knew the warm, unselfish heart. The place whichhe held in public esteem was but one side of his character;the place which he held in the hearts of his friends was theother.

The South has other men of genius and of promise; butnone who combine the rare and peculiar qualities whichmade Henry W. Grady, at the age of thirty-eight, one ofthe most conspicuous men of his generation.

The death of Henry W. Grady has removed from earththe most prominent figure among the younger generationof public men in America. He held unquestionably thehighest place in the admiration and regard of the people ofthe South that was accorded to any man of his years, andhad won, indeed, by his own efforts and attainments a placeamong the older and the most honored representatives ofthe people of the whole country. It was said of him by aNorthern writer, a few days before his death, that no otherSouthern man could command so large a share of the attentionof the Northern people, and his death was the resultof a visit to New England, whither he went in response toan earnest invitation to speak to the people of that sectionupon a question of the gravest national concern.

The people of Georgia both honored and loved HenryGrady, and would have elected him to any office withintheir gift. It is probable that, had he lived but a littlewhile longer, he would have been made Governor of theState, or commissioned to represent it in the Senate of theUnited States. He would have filled either of these positionsacceptably and with credit to himself; and perhapseven higher honors awaited him. When his name was mentioneda few months ago in connection with the nominationfor the second highest office in the gift of the people of thewhole country, the feeling was general and sincere that hewas fully worthy, at least, of the great dignity which itwas proposed to confer upon him. Certainly no other evidenceis required to prove that the brave and brilliant youngGeorgian was a marked man, and that he had already madea deep impression on the events and the men of his timewhen he was so suddenly stricken down in the flower ofuseful and glorious manhood.

It is inexpressibly saddening to contemplate the untimely525ending of so promising a career. Only a few daysago the brightest prospect that could open before the eyesof any young man in all this broad land lay before the eyesof Henry Grady. To-day his eyes are closed to all earthlyscenes. To-morrow the shadows of the grave will closearound him forever. But it will be long before his influencewill cease to be felt. The memory of his kindly, graciouspresence, of his eloquent words and earnest work, ofhis generous deeds and noble example in the discharge ofall the duties of citizenship, will ever remain with thosewho knew him best and loved him most.

To his wife and children he has left a rich inheritancein his honored name, though he had left them nothing else.The people of his State and of the South owe him a largedebt of gratitude. He served them faithfully and devotedly.What he said so well, only a few months ago, ofone who served with him, and who like him was strickendown in the prime of his life, can be said of Henry Gradyhimself. It is true of him also that “his leadership hasnever been abused, its opportunities never wasted, its powernever prostituted, its suggestions never misdirected.”Georgia surely is a better and more prosperous State“because he lived in it and gave his life freely and daily toher service.”

And surely, again, “no better than this could be said ofany man,” as he said, and for as much to be written, intruth and sincerity, over his grave, the best and proudestman might be willing to toil through life and to meet deathat last, as he met it, “unfearing and tranquil.” His ownlife, and the record and the close of his life, are bestdescribed in these his own words, written ten months ago,and, perhaps, no more fitting epitaph could be inscribed onhis tomb than the words which he spoke, almost at the last,in the hour of his death: “Send word to mother to prayfor me. Tell her if I die, that I died while trying to servethe South—the land I love so well.”

The death yesterday at Atlanta of Henry W. Grady,editor of the Constitution of that city, is a distressingshock to the thousands North and South who had learnedto admire his vigorous and impressive utterances on publicsubjects. Young, enterprising, industrious and devoted tothe material advancement of his State and section, he wasa type of the progressive Southern man of our day. In theface of the greatest possible difficulties and discouragementshe achieved success, intellectual and financial, of amost substantial character. Mr. Grady’s career was briefand meteoric, but it was also a useful career. His stronggrasp of present facts enabled him to guide and stimulatethe energies of those about him into profitable channels.Full of ideas, which his intense, nervous nature fused intosentiment, he exerted an influence which greatly promotedthe progress and prosperity of his section. Outside hisown State Mr. Grady will be best known, however, as abrilliant and eloquent speaker. For some years past hisspeeches at social gatherings of a semi-public character inNorthern cities have attracted a great deal of attentionNorth and South. His earlier utterances were a trifle effusive,conceding overmuch, perhaps, under the inspiration ofthe moment, to the prejudices of his audience. In discussingfiscal measures he was sometimes at fault, politicaleconomy not being his strongest point, but as regards therelations of the sections, and especially as regards the so-calledSouthern problem, he was a beacon of light to hisNorthern auditors. His last speech at Boston the otherday—the delivery of which may be said to have broughtabout his death—is a fitting monument of his genius andimpassioned eloquence. It thrilled the country with itsassertion of the right of the white race of the South tointelligent government and its determination never again527to submit to the misrule of the African. Mr. Grady’sspeech on this occasion was remarkable not only for itsfervor and frankness—which conciliated his most unrelentingpolitical opponents—but also for its wealth of recentfact, concisely stated and conclusive upon the point he hadin view. Is the full vote, as shown by the census, notalways cast in Southern elections? Neither is it cast inNorthern States, Mr. Grady showed, appealing to the factsof the elections of November last. “When,” PresidentHarrison asked in his last message, referring to the coloredvoter of the South—“when is he to have those full civicrights which have so long been his in law?” He will havethem, Mr. Grady answered, when the poor, ignorant, anddependent employé everywhere gets his. The coloredvoter of the South cannot be reasonably expected, hepointed out, to exercise his civil rights to a greater extentthan such rights are exercised by persons in his position inthe North and West. The point of view here taken wasnew to Mr. Grady’s audience and new to the Northernpress. The effect of his speech, as a whole, upon Northernopinion has been, it is believed, most beneficial. In theSouth it was welcomed as an effort to put the Northern partisanin a position to see in their true light the hardshipand danger with which the South is perpetually confronted.In some remarks made later at the Bay State Club, inBoston, Mr. Grady adverted to a larger problem—one thatconfronts the whole country. “It seems to me,” he said,“that the great struggle in this country is a fight againstthe consolidation of power, the concentration of capital, thedomination of local sovereignty and the dwarfing of theindividual citizen. It is the democratic doctrine that thecitizen is master, and that he is best fitted to carry out thediversified interests of the country. It is the pride, Ibelieve, of the South that her simple and sturdy faith, thehom*ogeneous nature of her people, elevate her citizensabove party. We teach the man that his best guide is theconsciousness of his sovereignty; that he may not ask thenational government for anything the State can do for him,528and not ask anything of the State that he can do for himself.”These views mark the breadth of the speaker’sstatesmanship, and show that it embraced interests widerthan those of his own section—as wide, in fact, as the continentit*elf. Mr. Grady died of pneumonia, complicatedwith nervous prostration. His early death, at the outset ofa most promising career, is a warning to others of ourpublic men who are under a constant nervous tension. Attemptingtoo much, they work under excessive pressure,and when, owing to some accident, they need a margin ofstrength, there is none.

A PUBLIC CALAMITY.

At forty minutes past three o’clock on Monday morningHenry W. Grady, the distinguished editor of theAtlanta Constitution, died at his home of pneumonia.No announcement of the death of any leading man of theSouth has ever created a more profound impression, orcaused more genuine and universal sorrow than will thesad news of the demise of this brilliant young Georgian,coming as it does when he was at the very zenith of hisfame and usefulness. The death of Mr. Grady is a publiccalamity that will be mourned by the entire country. Itis no exaggeration to say that no orator in the UnitedStates since the days of S. S. Prentiss has had such wonderfulpower over his audiences as Henry W. Grady.This fact has been most forcibly illustrated by his twomemorable speeches at the North, the first in New Yorksomething over a year ago, the second recently deliveredin Boston and with the praises of which the country isstill ringing. Sad, sad indeed to human perception thatsuch a brilliant light should have been extinguished when529it was shining the brightest and doing the most to dispelthe mists of prejudice. But an All-wise Providence knowsbest. His servant had run his course, he had fulfilled hisdestiny. The heart of the South has been made sad tooverflowing in a short space of time. Davis—Grady, typesof the past and the present, two noble representatives ofthe highest order of Southern manhood and intelligence,representing two notable eras, have passed away and left abrilliant mark on the pages of history.

Henry W. Grady was a native Georgian. He was bornin Athens in 1851, and consequently was too young to participatein the late war, but his father lost his life indefense of the Confederate cause, and the son was anardent lover of the South. At an early age he developedremarkable talent for journalism and entered the professionas the editor of the Rome, Ga., Commercial.After conducting this paper for several years he moved toAtlanta, and established the Daily Herald. When Mr.Grady came to the Constitution in 1880 he soon becamefamous as a correspondent, and his letters were read farand wide, and when he assumed editorial control of theConstitution, the paper at once felt the impulse of hisgenius, and from that day has pushed steadily forward inpopular favor and in influence until both it and its brillianteditor gained national reputation. No agencies havebeen more potent for the advancement of Atlanta thanGrady and the Constitution, the three indissolubly linkedtogether, and either of the three names suggests the other.

As a type of the vigorous young Southerner of the so-calledNew South Mr. Grady has won the admiration ofthe country and gone far to the front, but he has been thesoul of loyalty to his section, and has ever struck downrightand powerful blows for the Democratic cause and forthe rule of intelligence in the South. From the Potomacto the Rio Grande all over our beautiful Southland to-day,there will be mourning and sympathy with Georgia for theloss of her gifted son.

When an old man, full of years, and smitten with thedecrepitude they bring, goes down to the grave, the world,though saddened, bows its acquiescence. It is recognizedthat lonely journey is a thing foredoomed from the foundationof the world—it is the way of all things mortal. Butwhen a young man, full of the vigor of a sturdy life growinginto its prime, is suddenly stricken from the number ofthe quick, a nation is startled and, resentful of the stroke,would rebel, but that such decrees come from a Powerthat earth cannot reach, and which, though workingbeyond the ken of fallible understanding, yet doeth allthings well.

For the second time within the past two weeks theSouth has been called upon to mourn the demise of achosen and well-beloved son. The two men may be classifiedaccording to an analysis first of all instituted by himwhose funeral to-day takes place in Atlanta. JeffersonDavis was typical of the Old South—Henry W. Grady ofthe New. And by this we mean not that the South hasput away those things that, as a chosen and proud people,they have cherished since first there was a State governmentin the South. They have the same noble type ofmanhood, the same chivalrous ambitions, the same love ofhome and state and country, they are as determined inpurpose, as unswerving in the application of principle.But what is meant is that the material conditions of theSouth have changed, the economics of an empire of territoryhave been radically altered. Not only has a new classof field labor taken the place of the long-accustomed slavehelp, but industries unknown in the South before the warhave invaded our fair lands, and the rush and whir ofmanufactories are all around us. It is in this that the531South has changed. Jefferson Davis, in his declining yearsushered into the reign of peace, was never truly identifiedwith the actualities of the living present, in the sense of aman who, from the present, was for himself carving out afuture. His life was past, and for him the past containedthe 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 theCivil War. He was then but a boy, and has grown intomanhood and power since the time when the issues thatgave birth to that war were settled. His has been a lifeof the realistic present. He brought to a study of thechanges that were going on around him a keenly perceptiveand a well-trained mind—he studied the problems thatsurrounded him thoroughly and conscientiously, and hisconclusions were almost invariably the soundest. He realizedthe importance and responsibility of his position asthe editor of a widely circulating newspaper, and he wasunfaltering in his zeal to discharge his every duty withcredit to himself and profit to his people. He was thechampion of the Southern people through the columns ofhis paper and upon the rostrum—and when he fell beneaththe unexpected stroke of the grim reaper, the South lost atrue and valiant friend, the ablest defender with pen andword retort this generation has known.

As two weeks ago the South bowed in sorrow over thelast leaf that had fluttered down from the tree of the past,so to-day, as the mortal remains of Henry W. Grady arelowered into the tomb, she should cease from the merrimentof the gladsome holiday season, and drop a tear upon thegrave of him who, though so young in years, had in suchbrilliant paragraphs bidden defiance to ancient prejudice,scoffed at partisan bigotry, and proudly invited the closestscrutiny and criticism of the South. That South in himhas lost a warm-hearted friend whom manhood bids usmourn.

Henry Grady is dead.

With what an electric shock of pain and grief will thissimple announcement thrill the entire country. His death,following close upon the death of the chieftain of the OldSouth—full of age and honors, and followed to the graveby the reverential and chastened grief of a whole people—isin striking contrast and more poignant in its nature,since the young Hercules thus prematurely cut down hadjust sprung to the front as leader and chieftain of the NewSouth, and was largely the embodiment of her renaissance,her rejuvenescent life and hopes and aspirations, as theother was of her dead and sacred past.

In the prime of life and the flower of robust manhood,having just signalized himself by a triumph in which allhis powers of culture, talent, and patriotism were taxed tothe highest and nobly responded to the demand madethem, and having placed himself in the foremost ranks ofthe world’s great men as a splendid type of the South’speculiar qualities, as a worthy heir of the virtues of theOld South, and as the strongest champion of the hopes ofthe New, his death at this time is to her a distinct calamity.And yet for his own individual fame’s sake it is to bedoubted whether Mr. Grady, lived he “a thousand years,would find” himself “so apt to die,” as now in the zenithof his fame, with his “blushing honors thick upon him.”

With Burke he could say, “I can shut the book. Imight wish to read a page or two more. But this isenough for my measure.”

Mr. Grady had gained the attention of the Northernear and the confidence of the Northern people as no otherSoutherner could boast of having done. When those“grave and reverend seigniors” of the stern, inflexible,unemotional Puritan race, who not a fortnight since, in533Boston’s banquet hall, wept manly unused tears at themagic eloquence and pathos of the young Southerner’swords, and fell to love him for the uncompromising truth,the manliness, the directness and the candor of them, andfor the personal grace and fascination and humanitariankindliness of the speaker—when they learn that this being,so lately among them, the chief object of their care andattention, and so sentient-seeming and bounding with lifeand the God-given inspiration of more than mortal vigorcalled genius—that this being, so gifted, so sanguine, liescold and breathless in the chill arms of death, shall theynot, and through them the great people of whom they arethe proudest representatives, mingle their tears with oursover the mortal remains of this new dead son of the South,in whose heart was no rankling of the old deathly fratricidalbitterness, but whose voice was ever raised for there-cementing of the fraternal ties so rudely broken by thelate huge world-shaking internecine strife?

And shall not his great appeal—yet echoing over thecountry—for justice, moderation, forbearance, appreciationfor the South and the social evil under which she is providentiallyunequally laboring to her destiny, be inerasiblyimpressed upon the country, coming as it does from thelips of a dying man?

In the death of Jefferson Davis the last barrier to acomplete reunion of the sections was removed. In thedeath of Henry Grady the North and the South will bebrought together to mourn a mutual bereavement. If itshall be the cause of completing the reunion of the sections,his sad and untimely death will not have been invain.

TWO DEAD MEN.

In the early days of this last month of the year JeffersonDavis, old, feeble and weary, was lifted gently from534this world to the other, borne across the river in the armsof Death as softly as a tired child carried on a father’sbreast. Yesterday Henry Grady, a young, strong man,rejoicing in his growing strength, with the blood of life andpower and hope bounding through his veins, flushed withthe triumph of new and splendid achievement and returnedto his home with the proud burden of fresh laurels wellwon, was swiftly struck down by that relentless power andtaken from the world he graced and lighted, to be knownand heard no more.

When Mr. Davis died the people of the South turnedback to mourn, to heap high the tributes of their honor andaffection on the grave wherein sleeps the representative ofa cause lost except to memory, of a past gone forever.When Grady went down, a captain of the host, a leader ofthe present battle, fell, and along all the far-stretching linesthe shock and loss will be felt.

He was happy in the time of his death—happy as is thesoldier who falls in the supreme moment of triumph, whenhe has struck a grand and sweeping blow for his cause andthe proclamation of his glory and jubilation of his comradesmake music to attend his soul in its departure. He had ledin the steady march of the South upward to prosperity anda high place among the peoples of the earth; his watchfuleye was everywhere in the ranks; his spirit of courage andhope was felt everywhere. His voice rang out clear andstirring as the trumpet’s blare to arouse the lagging, to callthe faltering forward, to fill all the air with faith in theSouth and the glory of her future, so that weak men grewstrong in breathing it and the timid were fired with thevalor of belief. He stood high and far in the front andproclaimed to all the world the spirit and the purpose ofthe young men of his country—the men young in heart andliving and thinking in the atmosphere and light of to-day.He proclaimed it so well that the measured music of hiswords was heard above the clamoring of hate and penetratedthe dullness of indifferent ears, moving the hearts of thepeople to unity and stimulating the manhood of the country535to shake from it factional and sectional rage and consecrateitself to a common patriotism, a single love for agreat Republic.

That was his work, and he died doing it as no other manhad done it. He had gained his place by the power of hisown strength before his years had brought him to the primeof his manhood, and he fell in it just after he had stoodshoulder to shoulder and shared hearing and honors withthe country’s foremost man who has occupied the country’shighest place.

His life was crowded with successful endeavor; in deeds,in achievement for his country and his people and in honorshe was an old man. He had done in less than two-scoreyears more than it is given to most men to do to the timeof whitened hair and trembling limbs, and he had earnedhis rest. The world had little more to offer him but itsinevitable cares and disappointments; the promise from hispast was that he had much more to do for the world andhis fellow-man. The loss is his country’s.

His whole country—and especially the South he lovedso well—owes to his memory what it cannot now expressto him—honor and gratitude.

His powerful presence is gone; the keen and watchfuleyes are closed forever; the vibrant voice is hushed. Buthis words will live, his work will last and grow; his memorywill stand high on the roll of the South’s sons who havewrought gloriously for her in war and in peace, who byvalor or wisdom have won the right to be remembered withlove and called with pride.

GRADY’S RENOWN.

No such universality of personal poignant sorrow everpervaded a city as that which overshadows the capital ofGeorgia. There, everybody knew Henry Grady, and it536was not the journalist and orator and statesman theysaluted familiarly everywhere—in public assemblies andon the streets and at their firesides. Every home in thecity was in fact the home of the kindly, generous, laughingphilosopher, whose business it was to make his peoplehappy, his city prosperous, and his State the foremost ofSouthern commonwealths.

And then his grand purpose in life was the restorationof the unity and integrity of the States. His speeches inNew York and Boston, that will live as long as unhappymemories of inter-State hostilities, which he proposed todissipate forever, followed one another naturally. Thefirst portrayed the necessity for a perfect Federal Union.The second and last defined the only method of achievingit. The first paved the way for a presidential contest,from which sectional issues were almost wholly eviscerated.President Cleveland was so thoroughly imbuedwith the sentiment and purpose of Grady’s oration at theNew England dinner in New York that he hazarded, orsacrificed, deliberately the certainty of partisan and personaltriumph that the country might escape greatercalamities, involved necessarily in a conflict in whichAfrican ex-slaves became the sole subject of passionatecontroversy and maddening declamation. The campaignwas one of practical and not sentimental issues.

Everybody has read the recent more wonderful outburstof passionate eloquence that startled Boston and theEast, and forced New England, for the first time, to contemplatethe relations of races in the South as did Mr.Grady, and as do New Englanders themselves, havinghomes in the Gulf States. Facts propounded were unquestionable,palpable truths. There was no answer to hisirrefragable logic. Grady’s matchless eloquence charmedevery listener. His peroration will become the choicestspecimen of impassioned oratory declaimed by schoolboysin every academy in which proper pedagogues inculcateproper patriotism in all this broad land.

Then came Grady’s death. It shocked the country537that a man so gifted and the only American capable ofpronouncing an oration as faultless as the philippics ofDemosthenes, or as the sturdy, resistless orations of Gladstone,could not live immortal as his prophetic sentencesthat still illumine the brain and electrify the heart of anentire people.

Grady’s two speeches in the East, if he had never writtenor spoken aught else, would be the Leuctra and Mantinea,immortal victories and only daughters of an Epaminondas.If there survived no other children of HenryGrady’s genius than these two, his renown would be aslasting as the glory and greatness and peace of the Republicwhich he gave his life to assure.

HENRY W. GRADY.

Two weeks ago the people of the South were calledupon to mourn the death of Jefferson Davis. An agedman was gathered to his home in the fullness of years, withhis life-work done. He was the embodiment of a sacredpast, and men turned with reverence to do him honor forthe cause he had championed.

To-day the people again note the presence of the GreatReaper. This time a young man is cut down in the primeof life. His work lay bright before him. His face was towardthe morning. The one represented all that the Southhad been: the other much that she hoped to be. He wasthe inspiration of a renewed and awakened South with aheart full of reverence and hope and buoyancy—bound tothe past by tender memories, but confident of the futurewith all the heartiness of a sanguine nature. Possibly itwas because of the progressive sentiments which hebreathed that all sections and all people are to-day ingrief over the gifted dead. There is mourning in every538Georgia hamlet, such as there has been for no young mansince Thomas R. R. Cobb was brought home a corpse fromFredericksburg. There are tributes of respect from Boston,where he stood last week, with his face aglow withthe light of a newer life, to Texas, where last year he delivereda message of fiery eloquence to his people. It was thenational feeling which Henry Grady had kindled in theSouth—a faith in our future, a devotion to the Union—apractical setting to our destiny—that now lament the lossof such a man, and which sends over the wires from everysection of the country the words, “Untimely, how untimely!”

Henry W. Grady was born in Athens. He was butthirty-eight when he died. His father was a country merchantwho kept his family in competency, and the house,where little Henry used to leave his romping playmates toread Dickens under the trees, now stands on Prince avenue,with its deep shades, its gleaming white pillars, its highfence and old-time appearance. When war came on theelder Grady went out with his company. His name nowindents the marble side of the soldiers’ monument inAthens—erected to those who fell in battle. Educated atthe State University, Henry Woodfin Grady graduated in1868. In his class were Albert H. Cox, George T. Goetchius,P. W. Meldrin, Julius L. Brown, W. W. Thomas andJ. H. Rucker—among the living—and Charles S. DuBose,Walter S. Gordon, Davenport Jackson, and F. BowdrePhinizy among the dead. In college Henry Grady wasmore of a reader than a student. He knew every characterin Dickens and could repeat the Christmas Stories by heart.He was a bright, companionable boy, full of frankness,brimming over with fun and kindness, and without athought of the great career that lay before him. FromAthens he went to Rome where he engaged in newspaperwork. His letters to the Atlanta papers attracted the attentionof Col. I. W. Avery, who gave him several oddjobs. There was a dash and creaminess in his sketch workwhich became popular at once. From Rome young Grady539went to Atlanta, and with Col. Robert A. Alston startedthe Atlanta Herald.

From this time he has been a public figure in Georgia.The Herald was immensely popular. Its methods were allnew. Grady widened its columns to make it look likeHorace Greeley’s paper, and hired special engines in imitationof James Gordon Bennett. He made money but spentit lavishly for news. His editorial sketches were wonderfullyclever. His “Last Man in the Procession,” “TheTrained Journalist,” “Toombs and Brown,” attracted wideattention. But the Herald could not stand this high pressure.Under the cool, skilled management of the Constitution,Grady’s paper succumbed, and with it all of his privatemeans were lost. The young man in 1876 was absolutelypenniless. It was then his genius burst forth,however. The New York Herald ordered everything hecould write. The Augusta Constitutionalist paid for hisletters from Atlanta. He started a Sunday paper, whichhe afterwards gave up, and pretty soon he was regularlyengaged by the Atlanta Constitution. During the electoraltrouble in Florida, Grady kept the Northern papers full ofluminous sketches about politics and fraud. Then he commencedto write up the orange interests in Florida, winningthe attention of the North and attracting scores of visitorsto the Land of Flowers. Next he took up bee culture andstock raising in Georgia. He made the sand pear ofThomasville famous. He revived the melon interest, and,in his wizard-like way, got the people to believe in diversifiedfarming. There was a richness and lightness in histouch which added interest to the most practical subject.What he handled was adorned. He drew people to Atlantaby his pen-pictures of a growing town. In the PhiladelphiaTimes of this period were fine letters about public men andbattles of the war. He became a personality as well as apower in journalism. No man was better known in Georgiathan Henry Grady.

Henry Grady, shortly after he left college, was marriedto Miss Jule King, daughter of Dr. Wm. King, of Athens.540Two children, Gussie and Henry, bear his name. Mr.Grady’s work on the Constitution was inspirational. Whenhe became interested he would apply himself closely, workingnight and day in a campaign or upon a crusade. Thenhe would lighten up, contenting himself with general supervision;frequently taking trips away for diversion. Hewas singularly temperate—not drinking wine or usingtobacco; but his emotional nature kept him constantly atconcert pitch. His nervous system was in perpetual strainand he sank as soon as stricken.

It was in 1877 that he made his first appearance as aspeaker. His lecture that year, entitled “PatchworkPalace,” showed his fancy and talent as a talker as well asa writer. Then came his speeches in the prohibition contestin 1885. His New England banquet address in December,1886, was his first distinctive political speech. Itstamped him as an eloquent orator and made him nationalfame. His oration at the Augusta Exposition on Thanksgivingday last year was a perfect effort, and his Dallasaddress in October was a fearless and manly analysis of therace problem. It was this subject, classified and digested,that made up his Boston address, where, last week, he completedhis fame and met his death. His address last yearat the University of Virginia was a model of its kind.

Of late years Henry Grady had been settling down tothe level of a solid worker, a close thinker and safe leader.If there was anything in his way to wide influence in earlierlife, it was his irrepressible fancy and bubbling spirit.These protruded in speech and writing. But as he grewolder he lopped off this redundant tegument. He neverlost the artist’s touch or the poet’s enthusiasm. But ageand experience brought conservatism. He became a powerin politics from the day the Herald backed Gordon for theSenate in 1872. He followed Ben Hill in his campaign withgreat skill, and in 1880 did as much as any man to win thegreat Colquitt-Brown victory. In 1886 he managed Gen.Gordon’s canvass for Governor, and in 1887 planned andconducted the first successful Piedmont Exposition.

541Some may say that Henry Grady died at the right timefor his fame. This may be true as to others, but not as tohim. They know not, who thus judge him, what was inthe man. Some mature early in life and their mentality isnot increased by length of years, but the mind of our deadfriend was constantly developing. The evidence of thiswas his Boston speech, which in our opinion was the bestever delivered by him. No man could foresee the possibilitiesof such a mind as his. He had just reached thetable land on the mountain top, from which his mentalvision could calmly survey the true situation of the South,and his listening countrymen would hear his inspiringadmonitions of truth, wisdom and patriotism. Mr. Gradyhad firmly planted his feet on the ladder of fame. He hadthe genius of statesmanship, and, had he lived, we have nodoubt that he would have measured up to the full statureof the most gifted statesmen whose names adorn the annalsof the Republic.

In speaking of the loss to this section, we do not wishto indulge in the language of exaggeration when we saythat the South has lost her most gifted, eloquent and usefulson. His death to Georgia is a personal bereavement.His loss to the country is a public one. He loved Georgia.He loved the South. With the ardor of a patriot he lovedhis whole country, and his last public words touched thepatriotic heart of the people and the responsive throb cameback from all sections for a re-united people and a restoredUnion.

Henry Grady has not lived in vain. He is dead, but hisworks will live after him and bear fruits in the field ofpatriotism.

There was one thing about Henry Grady. He neverran for office or seemed to care for public honor. In thewhite heat of politics for fifteen years he has been mostlyconcerned in helping others. The young men of the Statewho have sought and secured his aid in striving for publicstation are many. But until last year when his own namewas mentioned for the national Senate he had shunned542such prominence. At that time it was seriously urgedagainst him that he had never served in the Legislatureand that his training had not been in deliberative bodies.But the time was coming when he must have held highpublic place. The Governor’s chair or the Senator’s togawould have been his in the near future. His leadership inpractical matters, in great public works, the impulse hehad given the people in building up the material interestsof the South were carrying him so rapidly to the front thathe could not have kept out of public office. But hisposition at the time of his death was unique. He was apower behind the throne, mightier than the throne itself.He was a Warwick like Thurlow Weed. Whether officialstation could have increased his usefulness is a question.Whether his influence would have been advanced by goinginto politics was a problem which he had never settled inhis own mind. Already he had a constituency greater thanthat of governor or senator. He spoke every week to morepeople than the chief magistrate of any state in the Union.He employed a vehicle of more power than the great sealof the State. He wrote with the pen of genius and spokethe free inspiration of an untrammeled citizen. He wasunder no obligations but duty and his own will. He madefriends rather than votes and his reward was the love andadmiration of his people—a more satisfactory return thanthe curule chair.

And so his death, cruel, untimely and crushing, mayhave been a crown to a noble, devoted and gifted life.His happiness, his influence, his reputation had little toask in the turmoil of politics. Its uncertainties and ingratitudeswould have bruised a guileless, generous heart.Not that he was unequal to it, but because he did not needpublic office, may we seek satisfaction in the fact that helived and died a faithful worker and a private citizen. Hislast plea was for the people of a slandered section—ananswer to the President that “the South was not strivingto settle the negro problem.” It was an inspiration andwrung praise from friend and opponent. It cost him his543life, but no man ever gave up life in nobler cause. Helived to see his State prosperous, his reputation Union-wide,his name honored and loved, his professional workfull of success, and no man has gone to the grave withgreater evidences of tenderness and respect.

As Grady said of Dawson, so let us say of Grady:“God keep thee, comrade; rest thy soul in peace, thougolden-hearted gentleman!”

TRUE AND LOYAL.

Henry Grady has done as much for his country as anyman, be he living or dead. He has stood by his peopleand their institutions, and his pen and his voice werealways heard in their defence. Henry Grady died as helived—battling for the good name of the South, and in defendinghis people from the slander of their enemies. Intheir grief over the death of this brilliant young journalistand statesman, his section will shed as bitter tears as wereshowered upon the bier of Jefferson Davis. One died fullof years and honor—the other was cut down in the primeof manhood, and spread out before him was the brightestfuture ever vouchsafed to man. His loss to the South isirreparable. There is no one who can take his place.

But the beautiful traits of Grady’s character were bestknown to his own people. He was as true to his friends asis the needle to the pole—his hands were ever open to appealsfor charity—he was loyalty itself—his heart was asguileless as a child’s and as innocent as a woman’s—hiswhole aim and ambition was to do good, develop his section,and stand by his people, and do manly battle for theirgood name and their rights.

Henry Woodfin Grady, Georgia’s bright particulargenius, is dead!

A dread disease contracted in the bleak North barely afortnight ago, cut him down ere he had hardly steppedacross the threshold of what promised to be the mostremarkable life of its generation. Here, in his dearly lovedmother State, his brilliant mind was a source of pride tothe whole people. Throughout the length and breadth ofthe South, which owed him incalculably much, HenryGrady’s name is a household word. And as no otherSoutherner, save possibly our illustrious Gordon, he hadcaught the ear, aye, and the heart of hearts of the Northernland. Yes, and beyond the seas his fame had gone,and in foreign climes his intellect had impressed the intellectual.To the manner born, he loved his State and hisSouth with all the ardor of the highest type of patriot.His tongue was never silent nor his inkhorn dry when ourpeople were aspersed. He met traducers with truths anda glittering wit which were matchless.

Grady was a genius born. His work has proved it.Ah! the sad part of it is that Death has snatched him withso much of the grand mission which was plainly his unfinished.Nature seldom endows her children with thegifts with which she favored Grady. Among modern oratorshe was the peer of any and his pen spoke as eloquentlyas his tongue. Whether at his desk or facing an audience,his thoughts found expression in a rapid, graceful, forciblestyle. No man was more entertaining in private life,though it must be confessed that Mr. Grady had momentswhen he became so absorbed in his own thoughts that hewas oblivious to what was passing around him, and menwho knew him not were apt to do him an injustice in judginghim. His life was devoted to Atlanta and Georgia,545and to the effacing of the sectional line which divided theSouth and the North. The bringing of the people of thetwo sections into closer relations of thought and industrywas a mission which it did seem had been especiallyreserved for him. No man in the North has shown thebreadth of view which marked this Georgian. His lastpublic utterance attracted the attention of the English-speakingworld as no other speech in recent years has doneand, while the applause was still echoing from shore toshore of this continent, he was stricken.

In his chosen profession, newspaper work, Grady illustratedits great possibilities. What the elder Bennett,Thurlow Weed and Greeley were to the press of the North,Grady was to the press of the South. Public honors wereundoubtedly awaiting him, and he had but to stretch outhis hand.

A Roman emperor’s boast was that he found the EternalCity one of bricks and left it one of marble. HenryGrady found Atlanta an unpretentious town and literallymade it the most progressive city in the South.

A GREAT LOSS TO GEORGIA.

“Henry W. Grady died at 3:40 o’clock this morning.”

Such was the brief dispatch received early yesterdaymorning by the Enquirer-Sun. A simple announcementof the death of a private citizen, but of one who hadendeared himself to the people of his native State and theentire South, and little wonder is it that it should havecaused considerable sensation throughout the city and beenthe cause of numerous inquiries.

The brilliant Grady dead! He who had just returnedfrom a triumphant ovation at the North where he attractedprofound attention by the delivery of one of the grandest,most comprehensive and magnificent speeches on a subject546of vital importance to the South and the country—cold inthe embrace of death. The news was so sad and unexpectedthat it was difficult to realize, and surprise wasengulfed in one universal expression of sorrow and regret,as the full force of the direful announcement, “Grady isdead!” was impressed on the public mind.

The bright, genial, brilliant and magnetic Grady! Thefearless, eloquent and talented young Georgian whose nameis synonymous with that of his native State throughoutthis broad land; the earnest, industrious, versatile and ablejournalist, dead! Cut down in the very prime of life; atthe very threshold of a career which held forth greaterpromise of fame and honors than that of any man in theState at the present moment. This knowledge adds weightto the grief that fills every heart in Georgia at the thoughtthat Henry Grady is no more.

His death is not only a great loss to Atlanta in whosebuilding up he had given the full vigor of his great intellectand tireless energy, the State, whose devoted lover andearnest pleader he was, and the South at large, whose fearlesseloquent champion he had ever proved himself onmany memorable occasions, but to the country. No manof the present age has done more to bring about a thoroughunderstanding between the two sections than Henry Grady.While there may have been in his two notable speeches atNew York and Boston some declarations in which therewas not universal coincidence of opinion, either North orSouth, it is generally recognized that great good has beenaccomplished in giving the intelligent and fair-mindedpeople of the North a clearer and better insight intoSouthern affairs and removing unjust prejudices. Thepeople of the South and of Georgia owe much to HenryGrady, and will ever hold in grateful and affectionate remembrancehis good work in their behalf.

Georgia has not produced a citizen who, in private station,has achieved such renown, and who has so absorbedthe affections of the people as Henry W. Grady. In everycity, town, and hamlet throughout the State, will his death547be mourned, and regret, deep and universal, expressed thatthe State should be deprived of the services of a citizen souseful and valuable at almost the very commencement of aglorious and brilliant career.

Grady was magnetic, eloquent, warm-hearted, and impulsive,and numbered his personal and devoted friends,as he did his admirers, by the thousands. The writer hadknown him long and intimately, and thoroughly appreciatedhis kindness of heart and the strength of his friendship,and his regret at the loss of the State is heightenedby the knowledge of the loss of a personal friend and associate.

The sincerity of the grief which pervades Georgia to-dayis the greatest tribute that can be paid to the memory ofthis peerless young Georgian who, in his peculiar magnetism,was simply incomparable.

To his beloved wife and children, and his proud, fondmother, at this hour of fearful bereavement the heartfeltsympathies of the entire State are extended. May God inhis infinite mercy temper the force of this terrible blow tothem, and enable them to bow in Christian resignation toHis Divine will.

THE MAN ELOQUENT.

In the hush of that dark hour which just precedes thedawn—in its silence and darkness, while Love kept vigil byhis couch of pain and breathed sweet benedictions on hisdying brow—the spirit of Henry Grady, the South’sfame-crowned son—her lover and her champion—the ManEloquent—the courtly gentleman—whose laureled browwhile yet flushed with earth’s triumphs towered into immortality—thespirit of this man of love and might passedfrom the scenes which its radiance had illumined to theloftier life of the world beyond.

548From city to city and hamlet to hamlet the wires flashedthe sad intelligence. Men paused and doubted as the messagepassed from lip to lip—paused with wet eyes andwondering, stricken hearts.

The scholar closed his book and reverently bent his headin grief; the toiler in the sanctum stayed his pen and readthe message with moistened eyes; the merchant on thebusy mart sighed over its fatal sentences—men, women,little children, lifted up their voices and wept.

Our hearts can find no words to voice our grief for him.And how idle are all words now! Vainly we vaunt hisvirtues—his high nobility of soul—his talents fine—hisservice to the State, and all the graces rare that crownedhis wondrous personality. Vainly, because these are wellknown to men; and that great fame whose trumpet blasthas blown his name about the world, has also stamped itdeeply upon grateful, loving hearts, that rise up and callhim blessed.

We would stand in silence in the presence of a deathlike this; for the presence of the Lord is there, and theplace is sacred. The hand of God is in it: This man, who,though he had reached the heights, was but upon the thresholdof his brilliant career—this man, elected to a high andnoble work, to whom we had entrusted the future of theSouth, and sent him forth to fight her battles with theworld—in the morning of his days, in the midst of hisgreat usefulness, flushed with the triumphs of his lastand mightiest effort; with the applause of thousands ringingin his ear and the “well-done” of his people crowningall—suddenly, and without warning, renounces his worldlyhonors—lays down the burden which he had but taken up,and sighs farewell to all!

We cannot understand it. The reality is too much!

549But God reigns, and in the mystery of His providencewilleth all things well. Grady is dead. “He has foughta good fight; he has finished his course; he has kept thefaith!” A hero, he died at his post; in the full blaze ofhis fame, with the arms of the South around him, he breathedaway his life upon her breast. Could man desire more?

The South will miss him long and sorely. There is noman to take his place; to do that high, especial work whichhe has done so well. Aye! miss him, sweet South, andshed for him your tenderest tears of love, for he loved youand gave himself for you—he laid down his life for yoursake! And you, ye sons and daughters of the South! ifye can see his face for weeping, draw near and look yourlast! And let the North draw near and clasp strong handsof sympathy above his bier!

Farewell to thee, comrade! Knightly and noble-heartedgentleman—farewell! The fight is over—the victory won,and lo! while yet we weep upon the field deserted, a shoutrings through the portals of the skies and welcomes thevictor home! And there, while the lofty pæan sounds fromstar to star, thy peaceful tent is pitched within the verdantvalleys of eternal rest!

DEATH OF HENRY W. GRADY.

Georgia mourns for one of her most distinguished sons.Henry W. Grady, who, a week ago last Thursday, heldentranced, and at times moved to enthusiastic applause,by his eloquence, an audience composed of Boston’s prominentcitizens, and whose name on the following day wason the lips of millions of people, is cold in death in hisAtlanta home. He died before he had reached the meridianof life or the zenith of his fame. His mind was steadilybroadening, and he was constantly giving evidence ofthe possession of still greater ability than he had yet displayed.550In his Boston speech he handled the race questionin a way that showed that he was not a mere rhetorician,but a genuine orator, who could direct the minds ofmen as well as touch their hearts and dazzle their imaginations.Had he lived, he would have won a name thatwould have had a permanent place in the history of hiscountry. As it is, he will be remembered as a brilliantyoung man whom death claimed before he had time toshow that he was fully capable of meeting the expectationswhich were entertained with regard to him.

Mr. Grady was full of resources and a tireless worker.He entered the profession of journalism very early in life,and such was the energy and intensity with which hedevoted himself to it, that even if he had not possessedextraordinary talents, he could hardly have failed to succeed;but, having a special fitness for his work and abilityof a very high order, it was not strange that he quicklymade a reputation that was not confined by the lines ofhis State.

Mr. Grady was never satisfied with what he had accomplished.He felt that he was capable of still better things,and he strove constantly to reach a higher mark of excellence.No sooner was he done with one undertaking thanhis busy brain was engaged with another; and it can besaid of him that his aims were not selfish ones. No doubthe had the ambitions which every man of marked abilityhas, but the good of others entered largely into his thoughtsand plans. Atlanta owes to his memory a debt she cannever repay. During all the time he was a resident withinher limits he kept her interests steadily in view. He contributedto her prosperity in a hundred ways, and whenher people were lukewarm in enterprises which he or otherssuggested, he pointed out to them their duty, and urgedthem to perform it so eloquently and strongly that they fellinto line and won success when many thought success wasimpossible.

Mr. Grady was not apparently anxious to accumulatewealth. Money did not remain with him long. His purse551was always open to his friends, and those who had claimsnever had to ask him twice for assistance when he was ableto render it. Doubtless there are hundreds in Atlanta whoare able to speak from personal knowledge of his free-handedliberality.

Mr. Grady never held public office. Had he lived, however,it is probable that he would have entered the politicalarena. He was gradually being drawn in that direction,and during the last two or three years his name was frequentlymentioned in connection with the offices of Senatorand Governor. His triumphs were won as a journalist andan orator. In the latter character he first achieved anational reputation at the dinner of the New EnglandSociety in 1886.

Georgians loved Mr. Grady and were proud of him.The death of very few other men could have so filled theirhearts with sorrow.

HENRY W. GRADY DEAD.

The flash that announced over the wires the death ofHenry W. Grady shocked the country, for it was anational calamity.

It is seldom that a people are called upon in so short aspace of time to mourn the loss of two such men as JeffersonDavis and Henry W. Grady. The first was a blow forwhich we were prepared, for like ripened grain, Mr. Davisfell, full of years and honor, before the scythe of thereaper; but the death of Mr. Grady comes to us as a sorrowwith all the force of a painful surprise. He was cutdown in the bloom of a robust physical manhood, in thefull enjoyment of his magnificent mental powers by whichhe had just ascended to the very pinnacle of fame. Theeyes of the country were fixed upon him, the son of theSouth, whose transcendent genius inspired the hope of theblessed realization of promises with which his brief but552brilliant career was so full. But in the death of thisillustrious journalist and matchless orator the lesson isenforced that “The path of glory leads but to the grave.”

Mr. Grady grew up in the refined atmosphere of culturedAthens, and his mental nature treasured the classiclight of that seat of learning, and it glowed with attractiveradiance in all of his editorial work. In his death thepress of the country loses its brightest ornament, and theSouth loses a champion without compare, whose pen was atrenchant blade in fighting her battles, and a shield whenused to defend her from the hurtling arrows of envy andmalice. His luminous pen made the path of the South’sprogress glow, as with unflagging zeal he devoted his bestendeavors to the amelioration of her war-ruined condition.

Mr. Grady, as the representative of what people arepleased to call the “New South,” but which is the “OldSouth” rehabilitated, was, in the providence of God, calculatedto do for his country what Hill, Gordon and otherbrilliant lights of the old régime could never have compassed.As David, “the man of war,” was not permittedto build the temple, but that glory was reserved for Solomon,so Grady, the exponent of present principles, waspermitted to gather the fragments and broken columns ofthe South’s ruined fortunes and begin the erection of atemple of prosperity so grand in proportion, so symmetricalin outline, as to attract, in its incomplete state, theadmiration of the world.

In the extremity of our grief we are apt to magnify ourloss, but this, indeed, seems irreparable, and we can takeno comfort in the assurance of the philosopher who codifiedthe experience of the past into the assurance thatgreat ability is always found equal to the demand. Onwhom will Grady’s mantle fall? There really seems to benone worthy to wear what he so easily graced. And everySouthern heart weighed down with a sense of its woe cannotbut ask,

Henry W. Grady is dead!

Hushed forever is the voice of the South’s most wonderfulorator!

With the laurel upon his brow, with the plaudits of anation ringing in his ears, with the love of his people freshlyspoken, with a crown of glory about him, the matchlessdefender of the South has passed from earth, and beyondthe silence of the stars his soul dwells in the companionshipof the great who have gone before.

With his sorrow fresh upon the South, this death andloss following so closely upon that other in New Orleansbut a few days ago, the heart is not in keeping with thebrain, and not now can the pen dipped only in tears write.

Henry Grady had not reached the zenith of his fame,for the circle was widening for him and there were stillbrighter flowers for him to pluck, and in her hand Honorheld out still richer prizes. But the mystery of death isupon him, and from his hand has dropped the forceful,graceful pen, and in silence and peace he sleeps for thegrave.

With a superb intellect, with an eloquence rivallingthe golden-tonged Chrysostom, with a love almost unapproachedby any other for the South and her people, hestood peerless and matchless as his land’s defender andleader in all that made for her peace, prosperity andhappiness.

But his sun has set. It matters not that in all brightnessit went down; it matters not that he died full ofhonors; about that grave a people will gather with tearsfast flowing and hearts crushed and bleeding. It is hardto give up one so grand of mind, so wonderful of tongue,so magnetic of personality, so richly endowed in all thatequips the great leader.

554And such was Henry W. Grady.

Atlanta will mourn him, Georgia will weep for him, andthe South will sorrow indeed.

Upon his bier the Times lays this tribute and standsreverent and uncovered by the grave of Georgia’s mostbrilliant son.

A SHINING CAREER.

Henry Grady is dead. This announcement carried sorrowall over Georgia yesterday, for there were few men inwhom the people of this State felt so much interest or forwhom they cherished such a warm affection as they did forthis gifted and lovable man. He had not attained histhirty-ninth year when “God’s finger touched him” andclosed his remarkable career, but his name was familiarfrom one limit of this Union to the other. Georgia had nomore famous citizen, and perhaps there never was a man inthis State in private station who was so widely known orso much admired. Mr. Grady never held a public office,and yet he was a recognized force in Georgia politics almostbefore he had reached the years of statutory manhood.He devoted his life to journalism, and in his chosen fieldachieved a national fame. He began his career as a boyeditor in Rome, and at an age when most men are merelyselecting their standards and shaping themselves for the realwork of life, he became a prominent and influential figure,a leader of thought, and a promoter of public enterprises.Eighteen years ago he moved to Atlanta to pursue his professionin a broader field, and immediately made himselffelt as a positive force in the community. The debt whichAtlanta owes him is great indeed. No man did more toinspire the pride of community, to set on foot and carry tosuccess great enterprises for the welfare and progress of thecity, to rally its people to an enthusiastic unanimity on all555questions affecting local prosperity than did Henry W.Grady. These public services would have endeared him tothe people of his adopted city, but they were not so admirableas his private benefactions. He was first and foremostin many good works, the fame of which never went beyondthe homes of the poor and unfortunate who were relievedby his ministrations. His hand was open always to thestricken and needy. He gave to the afflicted with a generositywhich was oblivious to his own circ*mstances. Ofhis influence in promoting public enterprises there areenduring monuments. By his eloquence of tongue andpen he raised in less than two weeks $85,000 for the erectionof the beautiful Young Men’s Christian Associationbuilding which now adorns one of the principal streets ofAtlanta. He was the moving spirit in the building of theChamber of Commerce and the enlargement of its membershipuntil it reached proportions that made it a power notonly in matters of business but in all the public concernsof the city. The Confederate Soldiers’ Home of Georgia isa monument to him, for he seized mere suggestions andmade them the text of an appeal which stirred the heartsof the people of Georgia and evoked a long delayed tributeof gratitude to the broken veterans of the lost cause. TheCotton Exposition of 1880 and the Piedmont Expositionsof 1887 and 1889, from which Atlanta reaped immensebenefits, were largely due to his persistent labors.

While Mr. Grady became prominent in Atlanta, andjustly esteemed by his fellow-citizens on account of worksand triumphs like these, he rose into national prominenceby reason of other evidences of his genius. His address tothe New England Society in New York in December, 1886,was one of the most famous occasional speeches ever deliveredin this country. The morning after its delivery heliterally awoke to find himself famous throughout thecountry. Since that time he made various public addresseswhich commanded the attention of the United States andbecame subjects of common conversation among the people.His speech at the Dallas Exposition last year and his556address to the legislatures of Georgia and South Carolinaat the Augusta Exposition a few weeks later, were themesof the public press of the entire country. But the bestand ablest public speech of his life was his last. It wasthat which he delivered two weeks ago at Boston in theperformance of a mission which proved fatal to him. Inthis, as in all his famous public addresses, he seemed tostrive with a passionate ardor and a most persuasive eloquenceto bring the North and the South to a better understandingof each other, to foster the spirit of mutualrespect and mutual forbearance, to inculcate the greatidea that this is a re-united country and that the duty ofevery good citizen in its every section is to strive for itsdomestic peace, for its moral, social and material progress,and for its glory among the nations of the earth. Hehandled these great themes with a master hand and investedhis exposition of them with a most fascinating eloquence.Few men in Georgia ever accomplished so muchin so few years. Few men in Georgia were even the objectof such affection at home and such admiration beyond thebounds of the State. The career which has been so suddenlycut off was shining with golden promise. The futureseemed to be full of honors and there was everything surroundingthe present that could make life sweet. But theend has come. The most eloquent tongue in Georgia hasbeen smitten into everlasting silence in this world. Agreat, generous heart has been stilled.

A useful citizen, after a brief but busy and momentouslife, which was productive of many enterprises of publicimportance and beneficent tendency, has folded his handsin the eternal rest. God’s peace be with him!

Can it be possible? Can it be that the brightest star inthe galaxy of our great luminaries is blotted out andstricken from its orbit just as it was rising in full careerto the zenith of usefulness, influence and splendor? Canit be that the most brilliant meteor which has flashedacross our sky for a generation has fallen to earth literallyburned to ashes by its own fiery contact with the grosserair and elements of the natural world? Can it be that thelight has gone out of the most magnetic mind and thespirit gone from the most resistless personality in this sovereignState? Can it be that the South has lost the manwho has been first and foremost in representing its real andprogressive needs and issues, and who has done more forthis section than all the young men of his day combined?Can it be that the kindly heart has ceased to beat whichthrobbed in love first for a devoted family, and next andalways for his native State?

Even so, for while still the shadows of the night hungin mournful pall about his home and dawn lingered as ifloth to look upon the lifeless form of one whom all hispeople loved, his spirit soared away to greet the dawningof an eternal day and the mortal part of Henry WoodfinGrady lay cold in death.

Dead, did we say? Was ever the coming of Death’sangel more untimely? So it seems to us, with our poormortal vision, but there is an eye above, all-seeing; aProvidence, all-timely; a Power, almighty; and to Hiswill we bow this day. In His sight the stricken star is notblotted out but borne aloft to a brighter realm. In Hisprovidence the brilliant meteor of a day is not fallen, butsimply shorn of all its dross and burnished in beauty andsplendor for its flight through all the ages. In His powerthe spark which no longer animates the mortal man glowsagain in glory and sends a ray of loving light from Heaven558to cheer and console the broken hearts on earth, and remindus that his influence and work are not lost, but willlive and bear blessed fruit for generations yet to come.

Henry Grady has gone from earth ere yet the dew ofyouth has been drunk up by the midday sun of maturity,but in the brief span of life allotted to him what a world ofwork he has done, and what a name he made for himself!Not two-score years had passed over his head, and yet hehad attained all the substantial success and honor whichmortal man might wish. He was not only loved all overGeorgia, but he was famous all over the country, and nopublic occasion of national import was deemed completewithout his presence and his eloquent voice. He was amagician in his mastery of men, and the witchery of hisvoice was enchantment to any audience in any section.He was coming to be regarded as the representative of thewhole South in the editor’s chair and on the rostrum, and itis truly said of him that he has done more for the materialadvancement of this section than any other man for thepast fifteen years. His death is the greatest calamitywhich has befallen the South since the late war, and Israelmay indeed mourn this day as for her first-born.

The name of Henry W. Grady will not be forgotten, forit will live in the affectionate regard of Georgians and growgreater in the good results which will follow his life-work.The fact that he literally died in the service of the South,as a result of cold contracted just after the impassioneddelivery of his recent grand oration in Boston, will bind hisname and memory nearer and dearer to Southern hearts;for to warrior or hero was never given a better time or anobler way to die than to the man who gave his voice, hisheart, his reputation and his life to healing the wounds ofa fratricidal war, and to the harmonious building up of hisown beloved South as the fairest and richest domain of ourcommon country.

God bless his name and his memory, and be a strong andabiding support to his broken-hearted widow and householdthis day!

A great loss has befallen the South in the death ofHenry W. Grady, and deep sorrow rests upon the heartsof her people.

He was no ordinary man, and his death calls forth noordinary grief. Brilliant in intellect, strong in his convictions,untiring in his efforts to promote the welfare of hiscountry, genial, courteous, kind-hearted, ever ready tohelp the unfortunate, the loss of such a man cannot beestimated. When results were to be achieved, when encouragementwas needed, his eloquent tongue, his readypen, his helping hand were used with telling effect. Hiscreed was to build up and not to tear down; to encourageand not to discourage; to help and not to hurt. His effortswere ever directed to the promotion of his State and theSouth, and no other man has accomplished so much forthem as he. His last effort was for his country and hispeople, and the good which will result from his eloquentspeech at Boston, will be a lasting monument. It wouldhave been impossible for any man to have attained to Mr.Grady’s position without coming into contact with thosewho disagreed with him on many points, but even theseacknowledged his greatness. To read of him was to admirehim; to know him was to love him. In the midst of oursorrow let us thank God that He lends to earth such men.

A PLACE HARD TO FILL.

Henry W. Grady died at his home in Atlanta lateSunday night of pneumonia, contracted during his recenttrip North. His illness was very short and his untimely560death is a shock not only to his many friends and admirers,but to the whole State in which he was so well known, andwill be received with regret outside its borders. He was abeautiful writer and a brilliant orator, as well as a prominentfactor in the development of Atlanta. He will begreatly missed in that city, and his place in the Constitution,of which he was easily the head, will be hard to fill.Peace to his ashes.

“JUST HUMAN.”

Thackeray, the greatest of English novelists, in theconcluding words of Pendennis, says: “I have notpainted a hero, only a man and a brother.” When HenryW. Grady made his first appearance before the public as alecturer, his subject was the words that begin this article—“JustHuman.” This was years ago, when he was onlyknown to the world as a brilliant young journalist, andeven then his fame for quick perception, incisive utteranceand felicitous manner, was only begun. Later years addedto that fame, and with each year, there seemed to come tohim a wider range of ideas, and a bolder conception of themost effectual way to put those ideas into burning, glowinglanguage.

After he had made his memorable speech before theNew England Society in New York, each succeeding oneonly raised him higher in public esteem as a matchless, amagnetic orator, who could wield human hearts as hewould. Through all these speeches, and in all that he everwrote, there lingers, like a sweet incense, this thought,that he recognized that men were “Just Human,” andentitled to all that charity could offer in extenuation oftheir faults.

There is not a heart in all the world that has receivedone pang from aught that Henry Grady ever wrote or said;561his utterances, whether from the rostrum or through thecolumns of his paper, always tended to make the worldbetter, and his ambition seemed to be to smooth away thedifferences that annoy, and the bitternesses that gall.There is no man in all the country that can take up hiswork where he left it.

Where can we find the same impassioned eloquence thatswayed, despite its force, as gently as the summer breezesthat come across fields of ripe grain?

Where can we find the same acute feeling for the sorrowsand sufferings of men and women, “Just Human,”the same sweet pleading for their extenuation or theiramelioration?

When the epitaph over his grave comes to be written,no better rendering of the true greatness of the departedcould be made than is contained in the suggestive name ofhis first lecture, “Just Human,” for the noble instinct thattaught him to plead so eloquently for the failings of hisfellow men, taught him to enter the Divine presence, askingfor himself that mercy he had asked for others.

GEORGIA WEEPS.

Hon. Henry W. Grady, of the Constitution, died athis home in Atlanta this morning at 3:40.

This cruel blow shivers every heart with agony, even asthe thunderbolt of heaven rends the mighty monarch of theforest.

His death is a loss to Georgia. Every man feels it as apersonal bereavement. He has done more for the materialdevelopment of the State than any other one man in it.He was an enthusiast in the cause of education, an upholderof the church, an advocate of industrial training, a promoterof every enterprise calculated to benefit Georgia and562her people. He was a friend to humanity, true to himself,to his country and to his God.

The most brilliant light in Southern journalism is veiledin darkness—a manly heart has ceased to beat; the tonguethat has electrified thousands with magic eloquence is silentforever; the fingers that wielded the pen of genius andnever traced a line in bitterness or malice, but was alwaysuplifted in behalf of charity, love and good will, in behalfof progress, industry and enterprise, in behalf of the Southand her institutions, his State and her people, are cold indeath; the once warm hand of benevolence and fraternalgreeting is chilled forever; a golden life is ended, but hisworks live after him, as a priceless heritage to his State, aboon to his people. The influence of his example pervadesthe State as a delightful aroma.

The dispensations of Providence are mysterious. It isstrange fate, past all human understanding, why so excellenta spirit, a man of so much influence, should be cutdown in the glory of his life, in the richest prime of hisroyal manhood.

Only a few days ago he stood in a blaze of glory in aNorthern city and electrified thousands by his matchlessoratory, in the presentation of a question that did theSouth great good and justice, and did much to soften theanimosities of the North toward the South, and establishmore fraternal relations between the two sections. Buteven while the plaudits of the admiring multitude wereringing in his ears, and the press of the country was singinghis praises, the fatal hand of disease was laid upon him,and he was brought back to his own sunny and belovedSouthland to die.

Mr. Grady was a popular idol. He was destined toreap the highest political honors in the State. His namewas being prominently mentioned in connection with theGovernorship and Senatorship of Georgia. Democraticleaders sought his favor. His influence was felt throughoutthe entire State. His support was an omen of success.

Ben Hill died, and his place has never been supplied in563Georgia. Mr. Grady approached nearer to it than anyother man. Now Mr. Grady is gone, and his duplicatecannot be found in the State. No man in recent years couldso attract the eye and fasten the attention of the North.The death of no other Georgian at this time would havebeen so calamitous.

The star was rapidly hastening to the zenith of itsbrilliancy and greatest magnitude when suddenly it wentout in darkness, but across the industrial and politicalfirmament of the country it has left an effulgent trackwhose reflection illumines the world.

A GRAND MISSION.

So much has been said about the lamented Grady thatwe may not be able to offer anything new. But as we feelthat his untimely death is an irreparable loss we must offerour heartfelt tribute.

He was the most unselfish slave to friends, and to duty.As an editor he was brilliant and at all times as fearless asa Spartan; as an orator, age considered, he stood without apeer within the broad realm of his native land, and althoughbut in the full vigor of manhood he has left upon recordspeeches that compare favorably with the master efforts ofCalhoun and Webster. As a companion he was genial,jovial and untiring in his efforts to entertain; as a friendthere was no bound to his fidelity.

If you would know the beauty and grandeur of HenryGrady’s character, go and learn it at the homes of povertywhere he delighted to turn in the light, by his many officesof love and charity. If you would know the kindness ofhis generous heart go to those whom he has lifted from thevale of poverty and given encouragement to look up. Askthe army of newsboys for a chapter upon the life of Henry564Grady and you will hear words to convince you that aphilanthropist has been called hence. It seemed to us theother day while in Atlanta, as they said “Paper, sir,” thatthere was a sadness in the tone, and that a great sorrowwas upon their hearts. Yes, those newsboys miss HenryGrady, for he was their friend and protector. Words ofeulogy cannot restore those who cross the dark river; ifthey could there has been enough said to recall HenryGrady to the high position he honored by a life of unselfishness.His mission, only begun, was a grand one, andwe trust his mantle may fall upon some one who will carryon his work.

THE SOUTH LOVED HIM.

Seldom has the nation’s heart been so saddened as bythe news of Henry W. Grady’s death. Henry W. Grady,although comparatively young, has conquered this vastcontinent—east and west, north and south—and his manyvictories have been bloodless. He has truly demonstratedthat the pen is mightier than the sword. An intellectexceptionally brilliant, an indomitable courage, a judgmentkeen, clear and cool, a character unspotted and unassailable—theseare the weapons with which Henry W. Gradycaptured the nation.

The South loves him for his unflinching devotion to itsinterests; the North admires him for the conservatismwhich always characterized his political actions. Thebrilliancy of his intellect all admit. We venture to saythat there lives not a man in the United States to-day whosedeath would be more sincerely or more universally mourned.

That a career so unusually promising should have beenso suddenly cut off is sad indeed—sad especially for theSouth, whose claims he so ably advocated and so successfullyfurthured. The severing of the still more tender ties565between wife and husband, mother and son, while in theyouth of his glory, adds another gloomy chapter to thedeath of Southland’s most patriotic and brilliant son.Millions will bow their heads in grief with the loving wifeand devoted mother.

We read and re-read the words of Henry W. Grady’slast speech with a strange fascination. They are like thelast notes of the dying swan and will doubtless have muchmore weight under the sad circ*mstances. He has literallylaid down his life that the colored man might enjoy his inpeace and prosperity.

NO SADDER NEWS.

No sadder news ever fell upon the ears of this peoplethan the announcement that “Henry Grady is dead!” Itstaggered our people like a bolt of lightning from a clearsky.

His death took place at the family residence in Atlantaat 3:40 o’clock Monday morning, December 22. While ona visit to Boston, where he delivered the grandest speechof his life, he took cold, and being ill before he left home,he was prostrated on his return home, his sickness culminatingin pneumonia and death. He was thirty-eight yearsold at the time of his death, and no private citizen at thatage ever attained the renown that Grady had. As an oratorand journalist he was without a peer; gifted above hisfellows to sway men by his pen or his voice, he won theapplause and admiration and love of his countrymenwherever he came in contact with them. His young lifeand genius had been devoted to deeds of kindness,peace, unity and charity. Selfishness did not enter hisheart, that always beat in response to the woes and sufferingsof his fellow men.

There was a charm and sparkle about his writings that566never failed to captivate the senses, please and entertain.The South lost one of her brightest minds and stanchestchampions in the death of Henry Grady. There is no manthat can take his place in the rare gifts that so befittinglyendowed him in the grand work in which he was engaged.His loss is an irreparable one. Sorrow and gloom pervadethe hearts of our people over this sad event. We may notunderstand how one so superbly gifted, with capacities forthe accomplishment of so much good in the world, is taken,and many who cumber the earth and are stumbling blocks,are left, but we know the hand of Providence is behind itall, and He is too wise to err, too good to be unkind.

Grand and noble Grady, we mourn your death; but weknow a soul so radiant with love for humanity, is now atrest with the redeemed.

GEORGIA’S NOBLE SON.

In view of the innumerable, heartfelt and touchingmemorials to this gifted child of genius, anything that wemight add would be as Hyperion to a Satyr. But movedby a feeling of profound grief at our’s and the Nation’sloss, we claim the privilege of giving, as humble membersof the craft, expression to our high regard for the characterof Georgia’s noble son, and mingle a tear with those ofthe entire country upon the grave of a great and goodman.

In early life he manifested a ripeness and decision ofpurpose in selecting a calling for which he conceived hehad an aptitude. Nor was his judgment erroneous, for,with rare genius, coupled with energy and untiring application,he soon found a place amongst the first journalistsof the country. How, with his gifted pen, he convincedthe judgment, moved the emotions and sympathies, inspired567to lofty resolve and the cultivation of gentle kindness, noneknew better than his constant readers.

Perhaps no character in Georgia, we may say in theSouth, was possessed of such varied, versatile talent. Profusein rhetorical attainments, gifted in oratory, profoundin thought, facile and versatile as a writer, an encyclopædiaof statistics, he presented a combination amountingto an anomaly. Coming upon the stage of action at aperiod when the crown was torn from our Southland andshe bent beneath the cross, when the gore of his patriotfather, poured out on the fields of Virginia, was still redbefore his vision and calling as it were for vengeance, heremembered the vow of the greatest Captain of the age,taken at Appomattox, the injunction of our recentlydeparted Chieftain, and set his noble brain, gifted pen andsilver tongue to the herculean task of extinguishing theembers of sectional hate; to a recognition of the rights,and adjustment of the wrongs of his beloved South, andthe rehabilitating of the great American nation, under theægis of constitutional equality.

His strong and graceful effusions in the Atlanta Constitutionhad attracted universal attention, and put meneverywhere to thinking. Blended with so much of genialkindness and courtesy, while abating nothing of truth orright, they won commendation, even from unwilling ears.Nor were they confined to one theme. Every work ofindustry, labor, love or charity found in him a potent advocate,convincing by his logic, and persuading by his gentle,finished rhetoric. As a journalist, among the craft andthe world of readers, he was recognized as without a superior,scarcely with a peer.

But burning with a grand, great purpose, he felt withthe inspiration of true greatness, that there was work forhis tongue, as well as pen. With a penetrating judgment,he felt that the territory of those misguided anduninformed as to the condition and burdens of his belovedSouth must be invaded, and the ear of those who read butlittle or nothing of her grievances must be reached. Unexpectedly568an opportunity was opened up for him, and heappeared before a cultivated audience in the great metropolis,New York.

To say that wonder, admiration and conviction was theresult of his grand effort on that occasion, would be to putit mildly. Never, since the surrender, have any utterances,from any source, commanded, up to that time, so muchattention and attracted so much careful and unprejudicedconsideration of the situation of the South. From theposition of an accomplished journalist, he bloomed outinto a grand orator. His name and his grand effort was onevery tongue, and every true Georgian thanked God that aDavid had arisen to battle her cause.

So profound was the impression made upon the Northernmind of the justice, truth and temperance of Mr.Grady’s position, that he was called to Boston, the cradleof Phillips, Garrison and all isms, to discuss the racequestion. Had his people been admonished of the consequencesto him physically, they would have felt as didothers in reference to the sweet singer of Israel—better tenthousand perish than he be endangered. Intent uponwhat he believed his great mission, he responded. Whatthat grand effort was is fresh in the minds of all. Itsinfluence upon this Nation, time alone will disclose.

Grand as was Mr. Grady as a writer, thinker andorator, his greatness culminated in the bigness of hisheart. He might truthfully be called (as he styled thelate Dawson) “the Golden-hearted man.” His pen,tongue, hand and purse were ever open to all the calls ofdistress or want, and every charitable movement found nomore effective champion than in him. A striking recentincident is narrated of him illustrative of this his noblecharacteristic. Taking two tattered strangers into a store,he directed the proprietor to furnish each with a suit ofclothes. The proprietor, his close personal friend, remonstratedwith him for his prodigality, saying, “You arenot able to so do.” He replied, “I know it, but are theynot human beings?” Grand man. Surely he has won569the crown bestowed upon the peacemaker and the cheerfulgiver. Mysterious are the ways of the Great Ruler.Little did his exulting friends think that he would be sosoon summoned from the field of his glory and usefulnessto the grave. Man proposes, God disposes, and Gradysleeps the long sleep, but “tho’ dead he yet speaketh.”Alone, aided by none save perhaps the gifted, battle-scarred,faithful Gordon, he gave up his life to enforcingthe obligation of Lee, the injunctions of the lamentedDavis. With a brave spirit and a heart of love, he wouldspeak words of forgiveness to his wrong-doers, if any,while others less tolerant might say to them, “An eagle inhis towering flight was hawked at by a mousing owl.”But with indorsem*nt from such as Cleveland, Hill, Campbelland a host of others, he needs no apology from us.Peacefully he has crossed over the river, and under theperennial shade of the leal land he sits with Davis andLee and receives their plaudits for his faithful, patrioticefforts.

THE DEATH OF HENRY GRADY.

Henry W. Grady died at his home in Atlanta, at 3:40o’clock, on the morning of the 23d ult.

This announcement has already been flashed all overthe United States, and has carried genuine sorrow throughoutGeorgia and many places beyond. The fame and thepopularity of this brilliant young orator and writer werenot confined to this State, but were almost co-extensivewith the limits of the Union.

Mr. Grady was in Boston a week or two before his deathto make an address, by invitation of the Merchants’ Clubof that city. The address was on “The Negro Problem,”and it attracted attention throughout the United States.He was not well when he left Atlanta, and his departure570was contrary to the advice of his physician. Immediatelyafter the address, he went to New York, and while therehe had to take his bed. He was compelled to decline allthe honors tendered him, and hastened home. The citizensof Atlanta had arranged a complimentary reception for hisreturn, but he was taken from the car into a carriage andcarried to his home. He never left that home until he wascarried out in his coffin.

His funeral took place on Wednesday of last week. Itwas probably the largest that has ever been seen in Atlanta,for Mr. Grady was nearer and dearer to the popular heartthan any other man. The body was carried to the FirstMethodist church, where it lay in state several hours.Thousands of people passed through the church and tooka last look at the face which was so familiar to all Atlanta.The church was profusely and beautifully decorated.

At two in the afternoon the funeral took place. Therewas no sermon, but the services consisted of prayers, readingselections from the Bible by several ministers, andsongs. “Shall we gather at the river?” was sung as thefavorite hymn of the deceased. At the close of the services,the remains were placed in a vault in Oakland Cemetery.

Henry Grady was a remarkable man. He was not quitethirty-nine years of age, had never held an official position,and yet his wonderful talent had won for him a nationalreputation. It is scarcely an exaggeration to say that, asan attractive writer and speaker, he had not an equal in theUnited States. Certainly he had no superior. He spokeas well as he wrote, and every utterance of his tongue orproduction of his pen was received with eagerness. Therewas an indescribable charm about what he said and wrote,that is possessed by no other person within our knowledge.

He began writing for the press when about eighteen, andat once made a reputation throughout the State. Thatreputation steadily grew until he could command an audiencethat would crowd any hall in the United States.

It is impossible to estimate the good he has done. Atone time he would use his wonderful eloquence to urge the571farmers of Georgia to seek prosperity by raising their ownsupplies. At another time, he would rally the people ofAtlanta to help the poor of the city who were sufferingfrom the severity of the winter weather. Then he wouldplead—and never in vain—for harmony among the distractedfactions of his loved city, who were fighting eachother in some municipal contest. Still again, he wouldincite his people to grand achievements in material prosperity;and who can measure the value which his influencehas been to Atlanta in this particular alone? He oftensaid to his people “Pin your eternal faith to these old redhills”; and he set the example.

But his work was not confined to the narrow limits ofhis city and State. He was in demand in other places, andwherever he went he captured the hearts of the people.His speeches and his writings were all philanthropic. Allhis efforts were for the betterment of his fellows. In theSouth he urged the moral and material advancement. Inthe North he plead, as no other man has plead, for justiceto the South and for a proper recognition of the rights ofour people. The South has had advocates as earnest, butnever one as eloquent and effective.

In the prohibition contest in Atlanta two years ago, Mr.Grady threw his whole soul into the canvass for the exclusionof bar-rooms. With his matchless eloquence hedepicted the evils of the liquor traffic and the blessednessof exemption from it. If reason had prevailed, his effortswould not have been in vain; but unfortunately the balanceof power was held by the ignorant and the vicious—bythose on whom eloquence and argument could have noeffect; and he lost.

But his life-work is ended, except so far as the influenceof good works lives after the worker dies. He has donemuch good for his State and for the entire country; andthere is no man whose death would be more lamented bythe people of Georgia.

Atlanta buried yesterday her greatest citizen, andGeorgia mourns the death of her most brilliant son. Notonly Atlanta and Georgia bewail an irreparable loss, butthe whole South joins in the lamentation, while beyond herboundaries the great North, so lately thrilled by his eloquence,stands with uncovered head at Grady’s tomb.

O measureless sorrow! A young man, with unequaledgenius and great, loving heart, has been cut off in his goldenpromise. The South saw in him her spokesman—her representativeto the world. The old and the new werehappily blended in him. Revering the past, his face wasturned to the rising day. As the stars went out, one byone, he greeted the dawn of a grander era, which he waslargely instrumental in hastening. His work for Georgia,the South, the country, will abide. Time will only increasehis fame.

A journalist without a peer, an orator unsurpassed, astatesman with grasp of thought to “know what Israelought to do,” has fallen. Words are impotent to expressthe public grief.

God reigns. Let us bow to His will and trust Him forhelp. Our extremity is His opportunity. If leader isnecessary to perfect the work, He will give us one qualifiedin all respects. Like Moses, the South’s young championhad sighted the promised land and pointed out its beautiesand glories to his wondering people. Let us boldly passover the Jordan that lies between.

Rest, noble knight. Dream of battle-fields no more—daysof toil, nights of danger. Thy country will take careof thy fame.

Together with the sorrow of the thousands who lovedHenry Grady that he should be taken from among them,comes the lament of the Nation that one so gifted and capableof so much good should be cut down just as he wasfairly upon the threshold of his useful career. Viewingthe surroundings from a human standpoint, it would seemthat his end was indeed untimely and a calamity to thewhole Nation.

Our own Colquitt and Gordon have won greatly therespect of the Northern people, but they nor any Southernman had as implicitly their confidence. Whatever Gradysaid or wrote, on no matter what subject, our friendsacross Mason and Dixon’s line accepted as utterly true andnot to be questioned. They respected also his ability morethan they did any other man of this section, and were moreinclined to take his counsel and be governed by his adviceand admonition.

This distinction Grady had honestly won, and by havingit he was doing more than any ten men to obliteratesectional prejudices. His last great speech, delivered onlya few days before his death, was on this line, and its goodeffects will be felt the country over, though he has beentaken before he could see them. In that speech he disabusedthe minds of his hearers of many erroneous ideas ofthe relations of the races in the South. He did it by statingplainly and unhesitatingly facts and giving a true picture ofthe situation without varnish. He had the gift of doing thisin such a way as to command the respect of both sides ofwhatever question he might be discussing. Just such speakersand just such speeches is what is now needed to bringthe two sections together; to obliterate sectional prejudices;make the entire Nation one people in purpose and sentiment.But have we any more Gradys to make them? Perhaps574so, but they are in the background and time must elapsebefore they can reach his place. We need them in thefront and on the platform now. Grady was already there,and was doing perhaps, as no other man will ever do, whatis urgently needed to make the Nation more harmonious,more peaceful and more prosperous; and while we mustbow in humble submission to the will of the Higher Powerwhich saw fit to end his career, we can but lament the evidentloss the people of the South especially, and the wholeNation, sustains.

HE LOVED HIS COUNTRY.

In the death of Henry W. Grady, Georgia loses one ofher most gifted sons. Though but a young man he hadalready acquired a name that will live as long as Americanslove liberty or humanity loves charity. Though in pointof years but just above the horizon of fame’s vast empyrean,his sun shone with the splendor and brilliancy usuallyreached at the zenith. As journalist, he was without a peerin his own loved Southland. As orator, none since thedeath of the gifted Prentiss had, at his age, won suchrenown. He loved Georgia, he loved the South, but hisbig heart and soul encompassed his whole country. Aspatriot, his widespread arms took in at one embrace thedenizens upon the borders of the frozen lakes and thedwellers among the orange groves that girt the Mexic sea.He gave his life away in a masterful effort to revive peaceand good will between sections estranged by passion andprejudice, and races made envious of each other by selfishintermeddling of those who would perpetuate strife togratify their own greed. As neighbor and friend, thosewho knew him best loved him most. Wherever sufferingor poverty pinched humanity, there his heart beat in sympathyand there his hand dispensed charity’s offerings575without stint. Though we have differed with him in manythings, the grave now holds all our differences and our tearsblot out the bitterness of words or thoughts of the past.May the God in whom he trusted dispense grace, mercyand peace to the widow and orphans, whose grief and sorrownone but they can know.

A RESPLENDENT RECORD.

It is almost impossible to realize that Henry Grady isdead; that the eager, restless hands are stilled, and thegreat heart pulseless forevermore. The soul turned sickat the tidings, and a wave of anguish choked all utterancesave lamentation alone. His people mourn his passingwith one mighty voice, and like Rachel weeping in thewilderness, refuse to be comforted.

It seems a grief too heavy to be borne, and as lasting asthe everlasting hills; but when time shall have laid itssoothing hand upon our woe, there will succeed a sensationof exultance and exaltation, the natural consequence of acontemplation and appreciation of the briefness and brilliancyof his course, and the proportions and perfection ofhis handiwork.

To few men has it been given to live as Grady lived; tostill less to die as Grady died, in the flush flood-tide ofachievement, laying down sword and buckler, the victorywon, and bowing farewell while yet the thunder-gust ofplaudits shook the arena like a storm. He flamed like ameteor athwart the night and vanished in focal mid-zenith,leaving the illimitable void unstarred by an equal, whoserippling radiance, flashing in splendor from its myriadfacets, might gladden our sublimated vision.

And what of good he accomplished, all his claim torenown, and the sole and simple cause of endearing him to576mankind, rested upon one trait alone, one Christ-like attributeand actuating motive. He held but one creed andpreached but one gospel—the gospel of love. “Littlechildren, love one another,” said, now nearly a score ofcenturies since, the carpenter of Nazareth, and with thistext—this first and greatest and most divine of all thecommandments—for a wizard’s wand, our modern Merlinunlocked hearts and insured the hearty clasping of palmsfrom one end to the other of this broad land.

What more resplendent record could man attain?What prouder fame be shouted down the ages?

His epitaph is written in the hearts of his people. Hismemory is enshrined in the love of a nation.

Let us leave him to repose.

DEDICATED TO HUMANITY.

The usual joyous season of Christmas tide has beensaddened by funeral dirges over the loss of Georgia’s giftedson. Since the death of the eloquent and lamented BenHill, the loss of no man has aroused deeper sorrow thanHenry W. Grady. Greater demonstrations of grief withall the emblems of mourning were perhaps never beforeexhibited in Georgia. Memorial services were held notonly in Atlanta, the city of his home, but throughout theState, voicing the great love of the people and their deepsense of the magnitude of his loss. More touching, beautifuleulogies and panegyrics have perhaps never been pronouncedover the bier of any man.

The intensity of the admiration for Henry Grady grewout of the fact that his grand powers were all dedicated tothe interests of humanity. His magic pen, that charmedwhile it instructed, that delighted while it moved, was laidunder contribution to the good of his fellows. Eager for577the development of his State and her resources, he traversedthe lowlands of the South, and depicted her vastpossibilities in the cultivation of fruits, melons, etc., thathave added so much to her material wealth. Turning tothe rock-ribbed mountains and hills of North Georgia hepointed out the vast treasures of iron ore, marble and coal,but waiting the hand of industry. In all sections he portrayedtheir resources, their fields for manufacturers, theimportance and value of increased railroad transportation—infact, leaving nothing undone that seemed to promisegood and prosperity to his people.

The sunny heart which he always carried into his laborswas his chief charm. The playful yet ardent spirit whichhe always had he seemed happily to be able to impart toothers. Indeed, he seemed to be a gatherer of sunbeams,his blithe spirit seemed to sing,

The sweet, pacific tone of his mind gave him a wonderfulinfluence over the masses. More than once when disturbingquestions were agitating the city, and party and personalfeeling ran high, has he by his conciliatory spirit andharmless pleasantry quelled the boisterous multitude.This spirit was ever fruitful of methods and concessions bywhich all could harmonize. It was the cropping out ofthese broad, liberal views in the fields of national patriotismthat arrested the attention of other sections of theUnion, and gave rise to calls for Grady to address thepeople at the meeting of the Historical Society in NewYork over two years ago. The eloquent utterances of theyoung orator, as he painted the Confederate soldier returningfrom the war, ragged, shoeless and penniless, fired theNorthern heart with a sympathy for the South it hadnever known before.

From this time his fame as an orator was established,578and he was at once ranked among the greatest livingorators of the day.

Thoughtful men of the North, recognizing the race problemas one of the coming momentous issues of the future,were eager to hear the broad views and patriotic suggestionsof this great pacificator. An invitation was thereextended by the Merchants’ Association of Boston toaddress them at Faneuil Hall. The address seemed to callforth all his capacious powers, and is styled the crowningmasterpiece of his life. As he graphically sketched thehappy results of the sun shining upon a land with alldifferences harmonized, with all aspirations purified bythe limpid fount of patriotism, he sketched a panorama ofloveliness and beauty and promise that enraptured hishearers. And as the notes of the dying swan thrill withnew melody, so the last utterances of the dying statesmanwill have now a new charm for those who loved him.

THE SOUTH LAMENTS.

One week ago yesterday morning woe folded her darkand gloomy pinions and settled over our fair and sunnySouthland! He, who by his love for us, by his incessantlabor for the advancement of our material progress, whosevoice was raised to dispel the shadows of hate and prejudice,and bring the North and South into a closer union,whose heart was filled with charity, and whose hands wereever performing deeds of kindness, the eloquent and giftedGrady—the knightly and chivalrous leader of the peacefulhosts of the New South—was called to a brighter home inthe skies, where all is peace and joy and supernal bliss.The whole South laments his death “and may his soul restin peace” is the sentiment of every heart. His virtues aresung in sweetest song, and his worth proclaimed by lips579tremulous with emotion. Young in years, but matured inwisdom, he grappled the great question that affected hispeople, and with matchless eloquence presented their causeon New England soil and told of their loyalty and love, stillcherishing and remembering the traditions of the past.His death everywhere is recognized as a national calamity.Every public utterance and every public appearance,whether in New York, Boston, Texas or on his native soil,amid “the red old hills of Georgia,” has been greeted withapplause and demonstrations of delight. Made fatherlessin youth by the cruel ravage of war, he struck out with astout heart and strong hands for success—how well heachieved it, the praises showered upon him from everyquarter forcibly demonstrate the fact! Who has not feltthe warmth of his sunny nature?—it glows in every strokeof his pen, and shines in all his eloquent utterances, andbrightens his memory as his name and triumphs pass intohistory. Mr. Grady, by his pen and eloquence, has donemore for the South than any other of her sons, and theirlove and appreciation is attested in their universal sorrow.His gifts were rare, his eloquence wonderful, and he borein honor and peace the standard of his people, and theywill ever keep his memory fresh and green.

HIS CAREER.

Only a few short weeks ago Hon. Henry W. Grady lefthis Atlanta home to electrify a critical audience in Boston,Mass., with one of his inimitable speeches. Through allthe papers of the country the fame of this magnificentaddress went ringing, and ere the speech itself was printed,in full, the orator from whose lips it fell was stricken with afatal disease on his return homeward. In little more than aweek his life’s sands had run their course, and in the flush580of a glorious and useful manhood Henry Grady lay dead,while his eulogies were on the lips of the whole nation.There has been much written by friends (he had no foes) inthe newspaper world concerning this great loss; but it isall summed up in the words, “Henry Grady is dead!”

Somewhere, in an English poet’s writings, we find apregnant little sentence: “I stood beside the grave of onewho blazed the comet of a season.” The career of HenryGrady has been likened by several speakers and writers toa star burning brightly in the national and journalistic sky,but its light quenched in the darkness of death ere itreached its zenith. Fittest, it seems to us, is the similequoted previously. A comet trailing its brilliant lightacross the darkening heavens, a spectacle focussing thegaze of millions of eyes, causing other stars to sink intoinsignificance by reason of its greater glow and grandeur.—Then,while the interest concerning its movements hasreached its intensity, its gleaming light fades, and presentlythe sky is merely glittering again with the myriad stars, forthe flash and the blaze of the comet have disappeared foreverand it is invisible to mortal eyes. The question is,will another take its place, and when?—We think not soon.Even should an orator, whose eloquence might sway multitudes,rise to reign in the dead hero’s stead, it is more thanprobable that he would not combine with his oratory thewonderful statistical knowledge possessed by Mr. Grady,whose solid reasoning was only exceeded by the winsometouch, creeping in here and there, of the true artistic nature.He spoke in his last address of the South’s vast resources—ofits “cotton whitening by night beneath the stars, and byday the wheat locking the sunshine in its bearded sheaf.”A practical argument at one turn and a beautifully roundedsentence at another.

These things made up the speeches that held so many inbreathless attention, augmented by his magnetic personality.It would be well for our Southland could another asgifted shine forth in like splendor.

We little thought in our last issue for the old year,when we penned a brief paragraph to the effect that Mr.Grady had returned from his brilliant triumph in Bostonto his home in Atlanta sick with a cold, that in a few hoursafterward his grand spirit should have winged its flight tothe home beyond, and that upon the Christmas day, whenthe glad bells should ring out their joyous message of“Peace on earth—good will to men” in the great city somuch of his own making, that instead they should toll thesad requiem of “Dust to dust,” and that every heart fromthe ragged newsboy to the chief magistrate should bebursting with anguish as the noble form of their idolizedleader was consigned to the cold, silent grave.

The blow came so suddenly and was so totally unexpected,that it spread consternation—not only in his ownbeloved State and Southland—but over the entire country.Was there ever a man so universally loved with so brief acareer! Was there ever a man so sincerely and widelymourned! Was there ever a man so grandly, so eloquentlyeulogized! Never have we seen anything like it—neverhave we heard of anything like it; nor do we believe therewas ever a parallel.

But all the panegyrics by passionate lips uttered, nor allthe burning words of eulogy by eloquent pens written, haveyet expressed the tremendous weight of sorrow thatoppresses the hearts of the people who loved him so well.This was indeed a time when strong men of mighty mindand fluent tongue felt the utter poverty of expression andthe inadequacy of words.

It did appear as if he was just entering upon his gloriouscareer,—as if his life’s work yet lay out before him. Andyet what a glorious, what a grand work he had done! Andmay not his death have emphasized his glowing appeals for582a broader charity; for an unquestioning confidence; forfraternal love and justice; for a re-united country. In ourvery heart we believe so. If not—God help our country!

We will not attempt to eulogize Henry Grady—to speakof his brilliant intellect; of his matchless eloquence; ofhis spotless character; of his great, warm, unselfish heart—thathas already been done by those better fitted for theloving task; but the hot tears blind our eyes as we thinkof the handsome, boyish form of the peerless Grady lyingcold in the remorseless embrace of death. Peace be to hisprecious ashes!—Eternal joy to his immortal spirit!

A DEATHLESS NAME.

There was buried in Atlanta yesterday a young manthat illustrated the possibilities of American youth.

There are two forces that combine to make great men—heredityand environment. The first had given HenryGrady magnificent natural endowment—a kingly and masterfulmind. The second gave him opportunity, and heutilized it for all it was worth. Combined, they havegiven him a deathless name and fame that will make oneof the brightest pages in the Southland’s history.

All over the land, men and women, who loved hissweetness of soul, grieve to-day over his untimely end.All over the South, men who expected much of his tongueand pen, mourn sincerely the loss of the brilliant mindwhich worshiped so loyally at Patriotism’s altar. Howilly could he be spared. How inscrutable the ways ofProvidence! We can but bow and grieve.

But what an inspiration the history of his brief years!Poor and unknown a few years ago, he died in a halo ofglory that had made his name a household word over acontinent. His life was a psalm of praise. Like the birds,he sang because he must. Eloquence dwelt in his tongue583like the perfume in the heart of the flowers; sweetnessflowed from his pen as the honey comes from the mysteriousalchemy of the bee—it was his nature.

This is not the time or place to analyze or measure hislife-work. History and the future must render that verdict.Frankly, we are not of those who believe that hisspeeches—eloquent and grand as they were—will wipe outsectional feeling. The people who hate and fear the Southare given over to believe a lie. It is their stock in trade;it is the life blood of their political partisanship, andthough one rose from the dead, they would not believe.But he had done and was doing, and had he lived wouldhave brought to a marvelous fruition something of farmore practical value. He had made known to the worldthe marvelous resources of the South, and gotten the earof capital and enterprise and brought, and was bringing,the enginery of its power to unlock the storehouses of anuntold wealth. ’Tis here his grandest work was done.Call it selfish, if you will, but ’tis here our loss is greatest.

His brilliancy, dash and originality had made the greatjournal, of which he was the head, easily the foremostnewspaper of the South. His eloquent tongue and matchlesspen had made him par excellence the exemplar andapostle of this grand and growing section.

But the end has come. Only He who has smitten canknow whether such another prophet shall rise in the wildernessto lead us forward to the glorious destiny whichhis prophetic eye foresaw, and to which his throbbing,loyal heart gave itself and died.

A GREAT SOUL.

A great soul has passed away.

After a life brief but brilliant, he is lost to the countrythat loved and honored him, and which his lofty eloquenceand pure patriotism have illustrated and adorned.

584As the lightning that comes out of the South, andflashes from horizon to horizon, so was his short life in itsbright, swift passage, illuminating the earth.

In the death of Henry Grady, his city, his State, theSouth, the whole country has suffered a great loss. Hisvoice was ever the ringing, stirring herald-tones that announcedthe promise of fairer days and a happier people.He was no low-browed, latter-day prophet of evil; butpreached here and everywhere the new and bright evangelof hope. He was the voice of his city, heard ringingthrough Georgia and the Union; the voice of his State,heard clarion-like from ocean to ocean, and the golden-mouthedmessenger from the South to the North, proclaiminga brotherhood of love that the shock of war had notdestroyed. And thus his death will be mourned, not inAtlanta or in Georgia only, but wherever an Americanheart is, that heart will mourn his death.

Particularly is Mr. Grady’s death a loss to journalism.He stood the peer of any in the world, and was the greatestjournalist in the South. His pen was as eloquent as histongue, and from the closet as well as from the platformhis words came with vivifying power, refreshing and inspiring.

Death struck him down from the lofty pinnacle of fame,to which his eloquence had so swiftly upborne him. Ayoung man, he had already reached a height that wouldhave dazzled a weaker soul, and he has fallen in the midstof his triumph, while yet the plaudits of tens of thousandsfrom every part of this country rang fainter and fainter onhis dying ear. It was something worth to have such heartfeltapprobations sounding around him as he sunk to hislast sleep. It was the crowning of a life well lived, andspent with lavish patriotism for his country’s weal.

He burned his life to the socket like a swift devouringflame. His energy was tremendous, and almost feverishin its eagerness to do something worth the doing. Hereturned to his city and his home with death upon him,stricken even in his great triumph. The glow of fever followed585hard upon the glow of victory, and so, after a briefand burning life—a life crowded thick with triumphs,“God’s finger touched him and he slept”—the sleep Hegiveth to His beloved.

Of his private life all may speak. We know it well.It is familiar to us all as household words, though hischarity and his kindness were without ostentation. Hewas generous without stint, and whether it was as the boymaking up a fund to buy a poor schoolmate a handsomesuit to graduate in, or as the man lending a helping handto lift or guide the needy, self was forgotten in his kindnessto others. In thousands of homes he will be

His city, his State, and his country will build for him ashaft, but his greatest monument will be in the hearts thatmourn his death.

A great and loving soul has passed.

IN MEMORIAM.

The public heart, still quivering and aching from theshock occasioned by the death of its venerated and talentedleader, Jefferson Davis, had its cup of woe and grief filledto overflowing by those words of doom—“Henry Grady isdead.” In the natural course of events, the first catastrophewas one that might have happened any time in thepast ten years, as the great Confederate chief had long sincepassed the limit of three-score-and-ten, the average limitattached by Biblical authority to human life. Mr. Davisdescended to his grave full of years and honors, and whilehe was universally and sincerely mourned in the South,still, it did not fall upon us with that electric suddenness586which so shocked and agonized the Southern heart aswhen our young Demosthenes became a victim to the felldestroyer.

So universal is this sorrow, that a separate and personalbereavement could not have more completely shrouded ingrief the public mind than did the announcement of hisdeath. The advent of the dark angel into each and everyhousehold could not have more completely paralyzed thepublic mind than did the untimely taking off of thissuperbly gifted son of Georgia. Never since the angel ofthe Lord smote the first-born of Egyptian households forlack of mystic symbols on the door, has a people’s sorrowbeen so deep, so universal, and so sincere. Had the end ofsuch a man come in the proper course of nature, heraldedby such physical changes as indicate the approach of death,it might have been better borne, but would still have been anevent of national misfortune that would have taxed to theuttermost the endurance of hearts already lacerated byfreshly opened wounds. Had we been in the possession ofsuch warnings as it was in the power of Omnipotence tohave granted us, still the blow would have been unutterablypainful and overpowering. But that he, who was concededto be the intellectual peer of any in the nation; who waswithout a superior as an orator in the present generation;that he who was in an especial manner fitted to be thechampion of the South in her appeal for justice at the barof public opinion, both in Europe and America; that he,who was so richly endowed should suddenly and withoutwarning, as it were, become the victim of death, and haveall the bright and brilliant promise of a life whose sun hadrisen so gloriously, quenched in death and darkness, mightwell move a people to tears, and clothe a nation in sackclothand ashes.

The people of the Southland are wrapped in grief and anation mourns in sympathy. While all nature beams withbeauteous smiles and December luxuriates in the balmybreezes of spring, he whom we had learned to love and towhom his people turned for hope and encouragement, lieswrapped in earth’s cold embrace. Henry W. Grady isdead. Early Monday morning his brave spirit forsook itsearthly tenement and sought Him who had given it being.The electric words which flashed the sad news through thelength and breadth of the country carried mourning intothousands of homes and millions of hearts. The friend ofthe people was dead, and one universal sense of sorrow pervadedthe minds of all.

Mr. Grady had just returned from Boston, where hehad delivered one of the grandest addresses of his life,before the Boston Merchants’ Association, upon the Southernquestion. The speech was thoroughly Southern in itscharacter, and a grand defense of the course of his peoplein national politics and their dealings with the colored race.Exposure in the raw New England atmosphere caused himto contract a severe cold which rapidly grew worse. Hewas very ill when he returned to Atlanta and pneumoniain its worst form soon developed. He lay ill at his beautifulhome in Atlanta for a few days only, gradually growingworse, until the end came Monday morning.

Though his dangerous situation was known, the probabilityof his death did not seem to occur to the people.That the youthful, magnetic, beloved Grady could dieseemed impossible. When the blow had fallen its effectwas to stun, and had we been told that it was a dream, amistake, we would really have believed it and sought outsome new evidence of his popularity. Dead! Is it possible!Before he had reached the prime of his manhood or588the zenith of his fame! Did Death but waylay to seizehim just as we were learning his worth? Of the manymysteries of life death is the greatest.

Nothing shows more the high estimation in which theman was held than the widespread sources from whichcame the words of sympathy and condolence; from fieldand fireside, from town and hamlet, from city street andmansion, from every source in which his noble words havefound an echo, poured forth the gentle words of sympathyand sorrow. Statesmen and soldiers hastened to proffertheir sympathy and great men of every rank condoled withthe bereaved ones. Not a prominent Northern journalbut devoted considerable space to his memory. Party andcreed were alike forgotten. Not a whisper of depreciationwas heard from any source.

There never died a man within the history of the Statewhose fame was so recent, who was so generally loved andadmired in life and so universally regretted in death. OnChristmas, the day of joy and peace, we laid our hero torest. Not the less a hero because his were the victories ofpeace. No victor, fresh from the bloody field of battle,was ever more deserving of his laurel wreaths than he ofthe chaplets we can only lay upon his grave. The lipsthat pleaded so eloquently for peace and union are stilledin death, and the hand that penned so many beautifulwords for the encouragement of his people moves no more.A sense of peculiar personal loss is upon us. The old menhave lost a son, the young men a brother. Atlanta mournsher foremost citizen, the State a devoted son, the South anable defender and the Nation an honored citizen. Ourmatchless Grady is no more.

Henry W. Grady is dead. His great soul has passedfrom this mundane sphere. Truly “a silver tongue ishushed and a golden pen is broken.” Matchless orator,brilliant journalist, able statesman, patriotic citizen, nobleman—shall we see your like again!

When Stonewall Jackson fell fighting for the land heloved, the Confederacy lost her great right arm, and neverrecovered from the blow. So, in these post-bellum days—intimes of comparative peace—but under anomalous andtrying conditions—the South loses her ablest leader, and ata time when his services seem most needed, and when hewas doing that service so nobly and well. The death ofMr. Grady in ’89 compares only, in the Southern estimate,with the loss of Jackson in ’63. Viewed from the naturalside of human wisdom, his death, in the words of the greatRepublican orator of New York, is a national calamity.

This young man, from obscurity and poverty, by thesheer force of his genius, sprang easily and early to anational celebrity which few dare hope for, and fewer stillattain in the generations of men. He was both brilliantand practical, both gentle and wise. He would build afactory or a railroad, or found a great exposition, as easilyas he would deliver a bright oration. He would counselwith statesmen with the same tact and ease that he wouldgo gunning with the young men of the town. When hetouched 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 manypoints of view—mostly as an opponent in State politics,but always as a friend. In his office at work—at his privateboard—in the political caucus—on an angling or gunningexpedition—his transcendent genius always shownwith a rare and radiant light. To these who have known590him well he has long been the man the world has recentlyfound him to be—one of the greatest men of his time; tosuch his loss is felt as a personal bereavement. Each one,when his name is heard, will recall some word or deed tocherish as a fragrance from the tomb. Such memories willbe treasured in the hearts of many, from Grover Clevelandto the saucy newsboys who cry the Constitution on thestreets of Atlanta.

But to abler pens, and to those who have known himlonger and better, the task is left to pronounce a fittingeulogy.

Of his life and his death, much space is ungrudginglygiven elsewhere in this issue of the Times. Let the youngmen of the country read, and learn of him who has passedaway at thirty-eight years of age and left the impress ofhis genius upon the greatest Nation of the earth.

“MAYBE HIS WORK IS FINISHED.”

Henry Woodfin Grady died Monday morning, December23, 1889, from bronchial and other troubles, irritated byhis recent visit to Boston, where he made his last andgreatest speech in behalf of the section and people he lovedso well.

Since England lost her Wellington, and America herLincoln, no greater calamity has moved a people to sympathetictears than the death of Henry Grady. His life wasthe fulfillment of a noble man, and his grand impulsestouched every phase of humanity. No man was ever betterknown 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. Hissuccesses stand as a mark of indomitable energy. Possessingan extraordinary faculty of grasping opportunities at591the full flood tide, he illustrated the perfect patriot in forgettingself for common good, the genuine friend in bestowinghis own advantages to others. Only he that worthilylives, in death enshrines himself in the hearts of his people,and not a wire in all the network of commercial arteriesbut that has given, in messages of love, cadences of a country’ssorrow. When poets and patriots are met at the bierby the hushed voices of the rabble, and commerce pausesto pay tribute, Heaven-blest must be the spirit that givesflight from earth. In all the walks of life Henry Gradyhas left remembrances that suggest homage to his worth.

But his name shall occupy a space in history, filling thebrightest niche of an illustrious age, that his life shall standout boldly in the perfect beauty of its accomplishment.

There is a touching coincidence in his death, followingso closely after that of Jefferson Davis, that the funeraldirge 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 decreeof Providence, staying the relentless demands of Time thatsectional prejudice might lose its forceful resentment, lendingear to the vigorous mind of Davis, through the verynobility of his after life; and giving communion of perfectsympathy through the pleading of Henry Grady, caughtup as if from the living embers of the old, a fair type ofthat historic period, imbued with all the demands of thepresent, his patriotic ardor glowing with fire of eloquence,his dying speech giving tumult of enthusiasm in voice ofadvocacy, expounding reason indorsed by every Southernman?

No man better knew the temper of his people, or gavethought with riper philosophy to the issues which surroundthem; or was less fearless to speak the truth.

As a common country gave applause to the logic of theliving, may we not trust in the prophecy of the mourningmother, that the work for which he gave his life, in unmurmuringsacrifice, is truly accomplished?

There is such pathos in the incident of this last grand592effort to break the cordons of estrangement between thesections as may justify the hope.

The South, undemonstrative, unprejudiced, unyieldingfurthermore, pleads for no fairer basis.

HE NEVER OFFENDED.

He died peacefully at his home in Atlanta on Mondaymorning at forty minutes past three o’clock. As the newsflashed over the wires it imparted a thrill of anguish toevery Southern heart. For he was a great favorite at theSouth. And at the North he had cause to be proud of hisreputation. It would be impossible to compare Mr. Gradywith any man who has lived. His character was uniqueand so was his work. It is idle and senseless talk to conjecturewhat his future might have been if he had lived.His course is run and his life is finished, as completely finishedas if he had lived an hundred years and died. Whatwas that life? Grady was a big-hearted, whole-souled fellow,a man of the people, a statesman and a patriot. Hisintellectual attainments and all fitted him for the grandand brilliant position which he reached. True as steel tohis native South, he was able to conciliate the North. Aman of noble impulses, he never offended. In sober truthhe was a great man, and accomplished a great work whichwill live after him and glorify his name.

Henry W. Grady, the peerless orator and true patriot,has been called to join the silent majority. This sad intelligencereached Elberton last Monday morning, by privatetelegram, and there was a gloom cast over the communityunequaled in the history of the town. Henry Grady wasloved and admired all over the South, but nowhere moredearly than in this section.

It seems hard that this brilliant young statesman shouldhave been cut off just before he had gained the goal, justprior to when he would have written his name among thatgalaxy of eminent men who have gone before and made theworld better for having lived in it. If Grady had lived hewould have carried to a happy ultimatum the purpose hehad just commenced in solving the vexatious race problem,and in doing this he would have had a place with thenames of Jefferson, Washington, Clay, Calhoun, and Webster.

Grady was a great man. He was not only an orator ofHill-like ability, but he was a statesman. His writingsand speeches for years were well able and well panopliedto grapple with and treat the most intricate and complicatedquestions in a masterly manner.

His recent speech in Boston, at which time he contractedthe cold that terminated in his premature death,was particularly and singularly forcible. The press andpeople, both North and South, with one accord pronouncedit one of the ablest papers of the nineteenth century, andwith this great work begun, and the great architect thereofdead, it is difficult to conjecture who will or can come to thefront and finish the grand and noble undertaking.

Grady’s first and greatest love was Atlanta. He waslike an inexhaustible gold mine to that town, and the GateCity has sustained an irreparable loss. But Atlanta’s confines594were too contracted for a heart and brain like his.He loved Georgia, almost like he loved his mother, and forGeorgia’s weal, he would have sacrificed his all.

Georgia’s loss, the South’s loss, cannot be estimated.

At his bier we bow our heads in profound sorrow, andwere it so that we could, we would cull the whitest flowerin the whole world and place it on the grave of this thetruest, noblest Georgian of them all.

STRICKEN AT ITS ZENITH.

On the mild Christmas morning the heart of Georgia isbowed in sorrow over the death of her favorite son. Itseems, indeed, a mockery that amidst the joys and festivitiesof the Christmas time, the dark shadow of the relentlessfoe of man should intrude his presence and take fromour land one who was its brightest hope, its strongestsupport!

And yet it is true. Henry Grady is dead! The orator,the journalist, the poet by nature, the man of the people,is dead! We cannot realize it. So bright in his strongyoung manhood but one short week ago, now folded in thearms of death! A greater shock, a keener sorrow wasnever crushed upon a people!

This is not the time, in the shadow of the grave but inthe brightness of his glory, to speak fully of him that isgone! Our pen fails, and all it can say is “Thou hasstricken Thy people, O God! and in Thy wisdom Thou hastgiven us bitterness to drain! Let not our hearts rebelagainst Thee, our Lord and our God!”

The death which has come to Georgia to-day cannot bemeasured in its irreparable loss. A week ago the Southwas in mourning over the death of her great leader! Buthe belonged to the past, and while the sorrow fell deep, yetwe realize that a life had ended which had filled its fullest595mission. But in the death of Henry Grady the South haslost a leader of to-day—an active, earnest, true man, whoseheart, bound up in the advancement of his people, was butlaying brighter and fresher and truer plans for their prosperity.To every heart in the South the question comes“Who will lead us now? Who will defend our principlesnow that he is taken from us?” And out of the blacknessof our desolation it seems that no star shines to guide us!

It is, perhaps, well that the last effort of Mr. Grady wasin defense of our institutions and in support of the principles,motives and ambitions of his people. He died withthe gathering halo of a people’s love clustering about him!He went to death with a defense of that people clinging tohis lips and to his heart! In the zenith of his usefulnesshe was cut down! Why? God in His infinite wisdomknows best!

We can pay no tribute to the memory of Henry Gradygreater than the love which weeps at his bier this morning.And yet the writer would lay, amidst the offerings whichfall from the overflowing hearts of thousands to-day, a tinytribute to his memory. He was our friend, wise and trueand earnest in his counsels—pointing out that the true endof the journalist is the defense and advancement of hispeople. As a journalist, perhaps, has his greatest workbeen done, and upon the heart of every man of the pen heleft an impression that his vocation is ennobled and is thegrander that Henry Grady made it his love. And, in theshadow of death will come this consoling thought. Thatthe press, which was his power, and which remains as thebulwark of the people, is the purer, and the better, and thestronger from the principles which Henry Grady inculcatedin it. To carry out that work, which has fallen from hishands in death, should move the heart of every journalist,and when its fullest fruition has come, then will the crownupon the fame of Henry Grady shine the brighter!

Peace to the great man gathered to his reward! Thefuture will crown his memory with the bright flowers whichwill come as the fruition of his hopes and of his life-work!

The brilliant young editor of the Atlanta Constitutionentered into rest eternal and closed an earth-life remarkablefor splendor at 3:40 o’clock yesterday morning. His briefcareer reflects not only glory upon his name, but also crownswith unique distinction the high profession of journalism.A noble representative of the grand old State of Georgia,the lustre of his life-work was reflected upon the commonwealthhe served and to whose honor he consecrated theripeness of his learning, his eloquence and his patriotism.

His harp hangs now mute upon the willows! No moreshall the soul and intellect of the thoughtful North orSouth, in New York, New England, Texas or Georgia, bestirred to the depths by his impassioned words or impressedby his unanswerable logic. “The silver cord is loosed, thegolden bowl is broken.” But the music his harp evokedis not dead and shall long linger a sweet song in manyhearts, and his works do follow him.

He was born in Athens, Ga., in 1851, and though a manof well ripened powers, had not reached that prime when astrong man’s capacity for labor is most highly tested.

He was educated at the State University, and afterwardpursued a post graduate course at the University of Virginia,where so many noble characters have been molded.

Here the orator and scholar grew and nature’s rare giftswere fused and refined in the crucible of mental discipline.The studies which specially attracted him and in whichhe excelled, were Greek, Anglo-Saxon, history and belles-letters.Thus, evidently a most copious vocabulary wascreated and the mind stored with fertile illustrations in thedepartment of history and general literature. In the happyuse of words, in graceful rhetoric he was not surpassed byany American of his day. Roscoe Conkling or Col. Ingersollmight be compared to him, but the former had not597Grady’s tact, neither his full vocabulary, and never treatedthe difficult and delicate topics Grady handled. AndIngersoll, though having remarkable power of languageand an accomplished rhetorician, had not the logical mindof the brilliant young Georgian, and tinges his best effortswith bitterness and cant.

Grady was natural, even-tempered, generous, warm-hearted.His end came after the greatest effort of his life.His Boston speech will do an inestimable benefit to theSouth at a time when, under President Harrison, the bitterand partisan spirit of the Republicans was leavening muchof the thought of the North. Mr. Grady addressed Northernpeople from the home of Phillips and Sumner, and hiswords have rung from Boston to San Francisco. His greatspeech was susceptible to no criticism for taste, for loyaltyto our convictions, for impressive oratory or convincingargument. His facts and his logic are as strong as hisword painting.

His beautiful tribute to the land which “lies far South”is a literary gem not destined alone to stir the hearts at thetime of its utterance. It will live for its poetry, its tendersentiment and its reality.

If our friends across Dixie’s mythical line are but movedto do justice to a long suffering people, and trust us forloyalty to settle our peculiar problems, Grady has not livedin vain and will be the great apostle of his age.

Lay him gently to rest then, Georgians, in this sweetChristmas time, while the bells are chiming the notes of hisSavior’s birth, and cover his grave with holly, mistletoe,and ivy, until the Master comes in glorious majesty to judgethe world, and earth and sea give up their dead.

THE Atlanta Constitution came into being in the seethingchaos of reconstruction. The name suggests theissue of which it was born and the cause which gave it lifeand strength at the beginning of its career. Georgia wasbeing reconstructed under military supervision, againstthe will of a vast majority of the people, and there was nojournal published in Atlanta which gave adequate expressionto the sentiment of a million people. The old Intelligencer,which had been the clarion of war times, was nolonger equal to the emergency. It had bravely breastedthe storm of war, dodging about between bomb-shells andissuing forth defiant, one day in one town and one day inanother, sometimes even setting up its press in a box car.But for the more trying times of reconstruction it was notadequate. The fiery tone and dauntless attitude were goneand it began to counsel for the things that were. Whilethe people were idolizing Ben Hill for his superb defianceand applauding the unreconstructed and unterrifiedToombs, there was no paper to voice the deep and unconquerablesentiment against reconstruction and for there-establishment of the State constitution.

It was then that the Constitution appeared. WhenMessrs. W. A. Hemphill and J. H. Anderson bought alittle sheet called Public Opinion, and put Colonel CareyStyles in charge as editor, he named it The Constitution,and the name became its shibboleth and its issue. Theeditor was a bold and fearless writer and a fiery and impetuousorator. His editorials glowed with defiance of thereconstructionists, and his speeches were iridescent withburning denunciation. Writing and speaking on the sideof the people, he made the paper immensely popular, and602the enterprise of the proprietors kept it rolling on the crestof the tide.

From the first the Constitution was a more enterprisingnews-gatherer than any of its contemporaries. It was thefirst to employ special correspondents in all parts of theState and the South. The system which has since becomecomprehensive and well-nigh perfect was then in its beginning,but it was something new in Georgia, and attractedattention. It was in this way that Mr. Grady was employedto go with the press excursion which passed throughNorth Georgia, looking and writing to the development ofthe resources of the State, and his “King Hans” letterson that trip gave the first news from the important pointsof the excursion.

In those early days the Constitution was not withoutliterary attractions. The associate editor with ColonelStyles was Mayor J. R. Barrick, a genial gentleman, muchbeloved by his acquaintances and known to the public as ascholar and poet. He had been a protégé of George D.Prentice, who had recognized in the young man literarytalent of no common order.

In those days editorials were of the first importance.The State was being reconstituted, and great questions thatwent down to the foundations of government were beingdiscussed. The orators of the day were Ben Hill, Toombs,Alexander Stephens, and scores of lesser but not inconsiderablelights. Speeches were matters of vital importanceto newspapers and the public, and the leading oratorswere always stenographically reported. The modern synopsiswould not then suffice. There were giants in thosedays, and the people hung upon their words; their utterancesmust be given in full. Editorials must rise to thesame level, and great questions must be handled with thesame dignity and earnestness. Men were not too busy tothink and read, and they demanded mental pabulum thatwas strong and rich. Talent was at a premium, and itsservices easily commanded good pay. The owners of theConstitution were the first to realize the priceless value of603Mr. Grady’s genius, and when he was yet a college boyunder age, Mr. Hemphill, who had lived in Athens, whereMr. Grady grew up, made his guardian a proposition tobuy an interest in the Constitution for Mr. Grady on conditionthat he should take the position of managing editor.From then until Captain Howell employed him in 1876,the Constitution never lost sight of Mr. Grady. Whileattending the University of Virginia he contributed to thepaper, and on his return he was engaged by the editor torepresent the Constitution on the press excursion referredto above.

The mechanical appliances of Southern newspapers atthat time were vastly out of proportion to the matter thencarried. The Constitution was born and swaddled in astore-room on Alabama Street. It was a long room with askylight, and printer’s cases were arranged along the wallon either side. In front was the business office, and in onecorner a little room was partitioned off for the editors.There was a freemasonry between printers and editors,and the whole force glowed with enthusiasm for the causewhich was epitomized in the paper’s name.

After reconstruction became a fact the State swarmedwith aliens, and the people were goaded to fury undernegro and carpet-bag government. The Capitol was infestedwith unknown men suddenly thrust into power, and theycarried extravagant measures with a high hand. A RepublicanGovernor was in office, and the venerable Secretary ofState, Colonel N.C. Barnet, lately deceased, had gone out,carrying with him the great seal of the State, which herefused to allow affixed to any official act of men usheredinto office by the military authorities. The State wasinvolved in lottery schemes and loaded down with railroadbonds on which Treasurer Angier, a sturdy Republican, hadrefused to put his signature. The sessions of the Legislaturewere held in a great opera house sold to the State byprivate parties for an enormous price. In the building wasa restaurant, confectionery shop, and velocipede rink. Itwas a scene decried, and the proceedings of the Legislature604were daily denounced by the press and people. Amongthe boldest and most scathing critics of those disgracefultransactions was the Constitution, and its editor in hispublic speeches smote the participants hip and thigh. Thefight was on for the redemption of the State, and it waswaged without ceasing till the yoke was thrown off and aDemocratic Governor was elected in 1872. In all that fightthe Constitution was the leading newspaper, and from thebeginning the battle was waged with the uncompromisingfervor that had characterized its opposition to the reconstructionists.In both these contests it was with the people,and in its columns they found free and full expression.The bitterness of those days has died out, and many of thesturdiest opponents have become friends; differences ofjudgment have long since been allowed admissible, but thefriendships cemented in the heat of those contests are deepand abiding, and for its gallant services then the Constitutionis still endeared to the people of Georgia.

With the redemption of the State from negro and carpet-bagrule, there was no local political issue of transcendentimportance. The State was safe, and people began tolook about and take account of what was left from thewreck of war and reconstruction. The country was in adeplorable condition, and its rehabilitation almost a workof despair. In the midst Atlanta had begun to rise out ofthe ashes, and the brave spirits that gathered here hadalready made a name for the new city, which began to belooked upon as something more than a Phoenix; but allaround was desolation. The plantations were in a deplorablecondition, fences were rotting, and houses were goingto decay. The first flush times of peace and greenbackshad passed, and the panic of 1873 left every interestdepressed. It was then that the effects of war and wastewere fully felt, and then that the stoutest hearts were tried.Labor was restless and hard to control, the planter was outof funds and interest was high, real estate outside a fewfavored localities was depreciating, and the farmers werealmost at the point of desperation.

605In all this hopelessness there were a few hopeful spirits,here and there one that could chirp. The hot days of politicswere past and the newspapers must look to other fields.The Constitution was the first to look to the developmentof the State’s resources as the new opportunity for journalisticenterprise. This was a reconstruction in which thepeople could take part; the Constitution had fought theone, it would lead the other. From that time until nowdevelopment has been the Constitution’s most importantmission, and in that field its most earnest efforts have beenput forth. Constructive journalism was a new thing, andthe Constitution became the pioneer. Men might differ onmatters of public policy, but no one could afford to differwith a newspaper devoted to building up its environment,its city, State, and section.

Here in Atlanta the effect of this new policy was firstfelt, and here are its richest results; but helpfulness iscontagious, and everywhere the Constitution touched therewas a better feeling, and on account of that feeling ittouched farther and farther. Coupling with this constructivepolicy a news system of unprecedented thoroughness,the Constitution became inseparably connected with thelife of the people. It was in touch with them everywherein Georgia and the surrounding States, and finally its beneficentinfluence spread throughout the whole South, inspiring,encouraging, building up. While some old statesmenwere conducting in its columns a discussion as to whetherGeorgia was growing richer or poorer, the policy of repairwas unremittingly pursued; and before the death of AlexanderStephens, who had cried out that the State wasgoing to decay, the signs of new life had already appearedand people began to talk about a New South.

The New South sprang from the scions of the old, andeverywhere Confederate soldiers were leaders in thisupbuilding. While they cherished the relics of by-gonevalor and continued to keep the graves of their dead comradesgreen, they looked hopefully to the future and stroveto lay the foundations of new greatness and future influence606in the restored Union. This was the key-note of themost enlightened press, led by the Constitution, whoseeditor, Capt. Howell, was a Confederate soldier.

There came an interesting period of rivalry in this goodwork when Mr. Grady dashed into the arena. With theimpulsive Alston he took charge of the Atlanta Herald in1873, and for two years it was warm in Atlanta. ColonelJ. W. Avery, who succeeded Barrick as editor of the Constitution,had gone over to the Herald, and Colonel E. Y.Clarke, who had bought out Mr. Anderson, was editor ofthe Constitution, while Mr. Hemphill remained businessmanager, a position he has filled without intermission sincethe birth of the paper. He and Colonel Clarke had alreadybuilt the old Constitution building on Broad Street. Mr.Grady was making the Herald one of the brightest papersever published in Atlanta, and there were several otherdailies in the field. The old Intelligencer had passed away,and in its place had come the Sun, a Democratic paperedited by Alexander Stephens. The New Era, a scholarlyRepublican paper, was edited by Colonel William L.Scruggs, now Minister Plenipotentiary to Venezuela, andThe True Georgian, another Republican paper, was editedby Sam Bard, a rugged product of those times. When theHerald came into this field there were five morning dailiesin Atlanta. From the first the contest for supremacy wasbetween the Constitution and the Herald. With GeorgiaRepublicanism, the Republican papers passed out of existence,and the Sun soon followed, leaving only the Constitutionand the Herald. In 1875 the fight between the twopapers became desperate. There was no morning train onthe Macon and Western road, and both papers wanted toreach middle Georgia. The result was that both ran specialengines every morning from Atlanta to Macon, a distanceof 104 miles. The expense of these engines absorbedthe entire receipts of both papers, and left them to borrowmoney to pay ordinary expenses. The engines carried notover a thousand papers.

During the month that this fight for existence endured607there were many exciting scenes. Both papers went topress about four o’clock, and it was a race to the depotevery morning. The paper which got there first was giventhe main line first, and the day’s sales depended largely onthe quickness of the cart-boys.

The contest was spirited but short. Both papers wereheavily involved, and it was a question of endurance.The Constitution had almost reached the end of its rowwhen a mortgage was foreclosed on the Herald. The Constitutionsurvived with a heavy debt. In 1872 Mr. N. P.T. Finch had bought an interest in the paper, and after thefailure of the Herald Mr. Clarke retired and Mr. Finchbecame editor. In 1876 Captain E. P. Howell, who hadhad some experience in journalism as city editor of theIntelligencer in its most vigorous days, and had since accumulatedsome property in the practice of law, bought withhis brother Albert a half interest in the Constitution, andtook the position of editor-in-chief, which he has held eversince. About the first thing Captain Howell did was toemploy Mr. Grady, and the next day he secured JoelChandler Harris. With this incomparable trio, associatedwith Mr. Finch, the paper began editorially a new life.The remnant of debts incurred in the fight with the Heraldwas soon wiped out, and from that day the Constitutionhas enjoyed unbroken prosperity.

Strongly equipped all around, the Constitution enlargedand intensified its operations. The campaign of 1876 wason, and Mr. Grady was sent to Florida, where he unearthedand exposed the ugly transaction by which the electoralvote of that State was given to Hayes. The whole nationhung upon the result with breathless interest, and newspaperswere willing to pay any price for the news. TheConstitution and the New York Herald were the first tounearth the fraud. On such occasions the Constitutionalways had the news, and soon came to be looked upon asthe most enterprising paper in the South.

With the inauguration of Hayes the South turned awayfrom politics in disgust, and then it was that the Constitution608gave a new cue to the efforts of the people and turnedtheir slumbering energy to the development of Georgia andthe South.

Mr. Grady, whose Washington letters had made him anational reputation, turned his energies and his heart todevelopment. He went about among the people lookinginto their concerns and making much of every incipiententerprise. In the agricultural regions he wrote lettersthat were pastoral poems in prose, strangely mixed with anintoxicating combination of facts and figures. When hewrote about Irish potatoes his city editor, Josiah Carter,now editor of the Atlanta Journal, planted several acres asa speculation; when he told of the profits in truck farmingthere was a furore in the rural districts; and when hegot out on the stock farms and described the mild-eyedJerseys, the stockmen went wild, and the herds wereincreased, while calves sold for fabulous prices.

Wherever he went his pen touched on industry, and asif by magic it grew and prospered. Fruits, melons, farms,minerals, everything that was in sight, he wrote about;and everything he wrote about became famous. It was inthis way that the Constitution’s work was done. Thepeople were wooed into enterprises of every sort, and mostof them prospered.

Mr. Grady’s work had attracted the attention of prominentmen everywhere, and in 1880 Cyrus W. Field, of NewYork, lent him $20,000 to buy a fourth interest in the Constitution.Mr. Field has stated since Mr. Grady’s deaththat he never had cause to regret the loan, as it waspromptly repaid and had been the means of enlarging Mr.Grady’s work. Mr. Grady bought 250 shares, or $25,000of the $100,000 of Constitution stock, from Messrs. Howell,Hemphill, and Finch, who had previously purchased theinterest of Albert Howell. The stock was then equallyowned by Captain E. P. Howell, Mr. W. A. Hemphill, Mr.N. P. T. Finch, and Mr. Grady. The staff was then reorganized,with Captain Howell as editor-in-chief, Mr.Grady, managing editor, and Mr. Finch and Joel Chandler609Harris as associate editors. Mr. Wallace P. Reed wasadded in 1883, and Mr. Clark Howell, now managing editor,came on in 1884 as night editor. When he was promotedto be assistant managing editor in January, 1888, Mr.P. J. Moran, who had been with the Constitution since thesuspension of the Sun in the early seventies, succeeded tothe position of night editor. In 1886 Mr. Finch retired,and his interest was shared by Messrs. E. P. Howell,Hemphill, Grady, and Clark Howell, and two new proprietors,Messrs. S. M. Inman, of Atlanta, and James Swann.The Constitution has held on its staff at different timesmany of the most brilliant writers in the country, amongthem Sam Small, Henry Richardson, editor of the MaconTelegraph, Bill Arp, Betsey Hamilton, T. DeWitt Talmage,and a number of others. The editor of the Atlanta EveningJournal graduated from the city editorship of theConstitution in 1887, and was succeeded by Mr. J. K. Ohl,who still has charge of the city department. Mr. R. A.Hemphill had acquired some stock and was in the businessdepartment. The Constitution under the management ofMr. W. J. Campbell has built up a large publishing businessand now does the printing for the State. The weeklycirculation is in charge of Mr. Edward White, who has anarmy of agents in all parts of the Union. The westernedition in the last month has grown to large proportions.

In 1883 the Constitution had outgrown its three-storybuilding on Broad Street, and the company bought thepresent site on the corner of Alabama and Forsyth, andbegan the erection of the new Constitution building. Itwas completed in August, 1884, at a cost of $60,000 includingthe site, and the $30,000 perfecting press and other machineryran the whole cost of the plant up to $125,000. Thesite is the best for its purpose in the city. In the heart ofthe town and on an eminence above most other points, theeditorial rooms on the fourth and fifth floors overlook thecity and the undulating country for miles around. On thenorth, historic Kennesaw rises, a grim monument of valor,and the white spires at its foot are visible to the naked eye.610On the south, Stone Mountain raises its granite dome fifteenmiles away, and to the northeast the eye reaches the firstfoothills of that bracing region of the moonshiners wherethe Blue Ridge breaks up and makes a Switzerland inGeorgia.

In November, 1884, the Constitution christened its newbuilding with the first news of Cleveland’s election. TheLegislature then in session filled the Constitution buildingat night, eagerly and enthusiastically watching the returns.When at last one morning the result was definitely known,a joyous party went from the Constitution building to theCapitol, where occurred the memorable scene when Mr.Grady adjourned the Legislature.

A great crowd had collected about the Constitutionoffice, and when at eleven o’clock A.M. it was knownbeyond a doubt that Cleveland was elected, a brass bandwas brought up, and Mr. Grady and Captain Howellheaded the procession. The march through town washilarious and exultant. The crowd carried a huge can ofred paint which was lavishly applied to sidewalks andprominent objects on the line of march. When the processionpassed up Marietta Street its enthusiasm led it intothe Capitol where the Legislature was in session. Leadingthe head of the procession to the hall of the House of Representatives,Mr. Grady passed by the door-keeper into themain aisle. Colonel Lucius Lamar, of Pulaski, a man ofimposing presence, was in the chair. His long hair fellover his shoulders, and his bearing was magnificent.Advancing down the aisle Mr. Grady paused and, in thestately formula of the door-keeper, cried, with the mostimposing and dramatic manner:

“Mr. Speaker; A message from the American people.”

Catching the spirit of the invasion, the dignified Speakersaid solemnly:

“Let it be received.”

With that Mr. Grady pressed up to the speaker’s chair,and quickly wresting the gavel from his hand, cried inimposing and exultant tones:

611“In the name of God and the American people, Ideclare this House adjourned to celebrate the election ofGrover Cleveland, the first Democratic President in twenty-fouryears.”

At this there was a whirlwind of applause, and theHouse broke up with the wildest enthusiasm.

Mr. Grady often said that he and Oliver Cromwell werethe only two men who ever adjourned a legislative body inthat style.

From the occupation of the new building the Constitutiontook on tremendous growth. Mr. Grady had conceivedan idea of making the greatest weekly in America,and since 1881 that edition had grown prodigiously.When it was enlarged to a twelve-page form in 1881, it hadonly 7200 subscribers. Special contributors were engaged,special correspondents were sent out, and a picket line oflocal agents was thrown out all over the South, whilesample copies were doing missionary work in the northwest.The first year the circulation jumped to 20,000, thenext to 35,000, and when the Constitution went into itsnew building in 1884 the 50,000 mark was reached. In1887 the weekly passed 100,000, receiving 20,000 subscribersin December. In December, 1889, while Mr. Grady was inBoston, the paper broke the record with 20,000 subscribersin one day. During the month 27,000 subscriptions werereceived, and now the circulation is 146,000, of which140,000 are subscribers and about 6000 sample copies.

The inspiring and reconstructive work of the Constitutionculminated in the Cotton Exposition of 1881. Thewhole country was warmed by a wave of prosperity in1880, and the people of the South, invigorated andenthused, entered heartily into the purposes of the Exposition.When they came to see that wonderful collection ofresources it was a revelation and an inspiration to them.The ball was in motion, and through the decade it hasrolled with steadily increasing momentum. The developmentof the South has already gone beyond the expectationof the most sanguine, and already this region has a612firm hold on iron and cotton, the two greatest industries onthe continent.

Over all this helpful and inspiring work Captain Howell,the editor-in-chief, had a watchful eye. His heart andhis purse were enlisted, and he backed up the vigorouswork of his paper with earnest personal work. He wasconcerned in the leading enterprises as organizer and subscriberto the stock. In the flush of enthusiasm he was abalance-wheel. He added the safe counsel of a maturebusiness man to the enthusiasm of his more youthful partner,and then backed him up with money and prodigiousenergy.

The Kimball House burned down one Sunday in August,1883, and immediately the Constitution set to work to raisethe immense sum needed to replace the magnificent hotel.It had been the pride of Atlanta. Conventions and distinguishedvisitors from all sections of the country hadbeen entertained there. It was Atlanta’s reception room,and was a necessity. It must be replaced, and the Constitutionthrew itself in the breach. Captain Howell becamepresident of the new Kimball House Company, and benthimself to the enormous task of raising $650,000. Thewhole town was enthused, and Mr. Kimball’s magic serviceswere again called into requisition. On the 12th ofAugust, 1884, exactly one year from the day the old buildingwas burned, the directors of the new Kimball Housetook tea on the fifth floor, and within six months the magnificentstructure was completed. At the grand banquetwhich celebrated the event Captain Howell presided, andMr. Grady was one of the principal speakers.

In all this development and upbuilding the other ownersof the Constitution backed up its work with personaleffort and financial support. Mr. Hemphill and Mr. Inmanare stockholders in almost everything about Atlanta, andMr. Swann, though now a resident of New York, continuesto invest his money largely in Atlanta enterprises.

Perhaps the greatest service the Constitution ever didfor Atlanta and the State was its work for the location of613the Capitol here. The Constitutional Convention of 1877left the question of location with the people and the electionwas held that fall. A vigorous campaign was precipitatedalmost from the adjournment of the Convention. Atlantawas in great straits. The Capitol had been removed therefrom Milledgeville by the Republicans, and the rank odorof reconstruction times and of negro and carpet-bag rulehung over the spot where their disgraceful transactions hadbeen enacted. The glorious memories of the past wereassociated with Milledgeville, where the great men of thecentury had been in training. Macon, Augusta, Savannah,and the press of Southern Georgia sought to array thesecherished associations against Atlanta, the dashing newcity that had the audacity to set new patterns and dothings in her own vigorous way. Something had to bedone; enormous obstacles had to be overcome, and Atlantaresolved to do the work. The city council met and decidedto spare no pains or expense to get the Capitol. A generalcampaign committee was organized with Captain J. W.English at its head, and the work from that center wasbegun. In addition to this a prudential committee of threewas appointed and given a carte blanche to carry the election,with unlimited means at its command. On this committeewere ex-Governor, now Senator, Joseph E. Brown,Major Campbell Wallace and Captain E. P. Howell, editorof the Constitution. The advanced age of the other twomembers made it necessary for Captain Howell to take theheaviest part of the work upon his shoulders and he workednight and day. Every county in the State, except thoseabout Macon and Milledgeville, was covered with mentalking for Atlanta, and the whole State was flooded withAtlanta literature. Some of the most distinguishedspeakers in the State were on the hustings, and the heaviesttimber was on Atlanta’s side. It was a campaign of hardwork. Every voter, white and colored, was reached bytype and talk; and when the day came Atlanta won by44,000 votes majority.

While the leading citizens of Atlanta, including the614editors and owners of the Constitution, were personally atwork in the campaign, the paper was the chief point ofattack in a bitter newspaper war. Rancor ran almost tobloodshed. Atlanta editors in those days were prepared totalk it out or fight it out as their adversaries pleased. Aneditor’s courage was in demand as constantly as his pen,and there was no milk and water in editorials. The Constitutionheld the fort for Atlanta, and its flag flauntedserenely in the worst of the war.

Then came a long fight for an appropriation to build anew Capitol. The Constitution steadily advocated it, andits influence was thrown into the Legislature to back upMr. Rice, the Atlanta member, who introduced the bill.Finally when a million dollars had been appropriated, theeditor, Captain Howell, was put on the Capitol Commissionto succeed the late Mr. Crane as the member from Atlanta.

Since then the Constitution has been a power in politicalcampaigns, and its influence was triumphantly exertedin behalf of Governor Colquitt in the famous Colquitt-Norwoodcampaign, when part of the Democratic Conventionsplit off and nominated Norwood after Colquitt hadbeen named by the majority. Mr. Grady took charge ofGovernor Colquitt’s campaign, and to his efforts, more thanto anything else, Colquitt’s election was due. In theBacon-Boynton campaign the Constitution’s influence wasexerted for Governor Boynton, and finally for GovernorMcDaniel, when Major Bacon had almost run away withthe nomination. When Governor Gordon dashed into theState in 1886 Mr. Grady took charge of the campaign headquartersin Atlanta and directed the work for Gordon.The General’s wonderful magnetism was backed up withsuch prodigious work as the State had never known. Thelocal influentials all over the State were largely pledged toMajor Bacon, and it was thought he had the nominationin his pocket. Week by week, as the returns came in, theGordon column crept up on Bacon’s, and in the closingweeks the General swept by him with a rush.

The prohibition campaign of 1887 was one of the most615remarkable episodes in the history of Atlanta, and thedivision and tension among friends and neighbors wasstrikingly shown by the position of the gentlemen whoowned the Constitution. Captain Howell, the editor inchief, was an ardent anti, and Mr. Grady, the managing editor,was the leading advocate of prohibition. Mr. Hemphilland Mr. Inman were for prohibition, and other stockholderswere against it. The campaign committees on bothsides loaded down the columns of the paper with bristlingcommunications, while the editor-in-chief and the managingeditor had thrown their whole strength into the campaignon opposite sides. Both were on the hustings, andit so happened that both spoke the same night, CaptainHowell to an opera house full of antis, and Mr. Grady to abig warehouse full of prohibitionists. The whole townwas on the qui vive; one-half the people were hurrahingfor Howell and the other were cheering for Grady. Theeditors drew more than the houses would begin to hold,and their audiences were in a frenzy of delight.

The speeches were the talk of the day, and for daysafterward their arguments were discussed and repeatedlymustered into service by the other speakers.

On the afternoon of the day they were to speak theEvening Journal contained the following spirited noticeunder the head of “Howell and Grady”:

The reproduction of this ancient rhyme is not intended as an insinuationthat Mr. Henry W. Grady, the silver-tongued prohibition oratorof to-night, has any of the attributes of Jack Spratt, or that ColonelEvan P. Howell, the redoubtable champion of the antis, has any of thepeculiarities of Jack Spratt’s conjugal associate. The idea sought to beconveyed is that the fat and lean of prohibition will be energeticallyattacked by these gentlemen to-night at the same hour from oppositesides of the table.

It goes without saying that between them both the platter will be616licked clean, and it is to be hoped that this hearty prohibition mealwill be thoroughly digested and assimilated to Atlanta’s system, thatgrowth in her every tissue will be the result.

It would be hard to select two more effective speakers and two moreentirely different.

“What is Colonel Howell’s style of oratory?” said one newspaperman to another.

“Well,” said he, “you have heard Grady? you know how hespeaks?”

“Yes.”

“Well, Grady makes you feel like you want to be an angel and withthe angels stand, and Howell makes you feel as if he were the commanderof an army, waving his sword and saying, ‘Follow me,’ andyou would follow him to the death.”

Both of these speakers will raise enthusiasm at the start. As Gradyascends the platform the band will play “Dixie” and the audience willbe almost in a frenzy of delight. As Colonel Howard comes forwardthe band will be likely to play the “Marsellaise Hymn,”—some airthat stirs the sterner nature—and he will be received with thunders ofapplause.

With infinite jest and with subtle humor Mr. Grady will lead hisaudience by the still waters where pleasant pastures lie; and there hewill “take the wings of the morning and fly to the uttermost parts ofthe sea.”

Howell will march his audience, like an army, through flood andfire and fell; he will cross the sea, like a Norseman, to conquerBritain. In Grady’s flights you only hear the cherubim’s wing; inHowell’s march the drum-beat never ceases. Grady’s eloquence is likea cumulus cloud that rises invisible as mist till it unfolds its white bannersin the sky; Howell’s is like a rushing mountain stream that tearsevery rock and crag from its path, gathering volume as it goes.

Mr. Howell will doubtless deal in statistics; Mr. Grady will havefigures, but they will not smell of the census. They will take on thepleasing shape that induced one of his reporters to plant a crop of Irishpotatoes on a speculation. To-night Atlanta will be treated to a hopefulview of prohibition by the most eloquent optimist in the country.The contrast will be drawn with all the ruggedness of a strong, bluntman.

The day after the election, when 1100 majority hadbeen announced against prohibition, Captain Howell andMr. Grady printed characteristic cards. Captain Howell,from the standpoint of victory, gave in a few words hisreasons for his course, and closed by saying:

617A word about my partners. I have differed from them on thisquestion, and I know that they have been prompted by the same consciousnessof duty which caused me to so differ. I love Henry Gradyas a brother, and no one appreciates more highly than I his noble andunselfish devotion to our city; no one knows better than I his earnestnessand faithful attachment to her welfare. Mr. Hemphill and Mr.Inman are as true and tried citizens as Atlanta has, and are among mywarmest personal friends. Nothing that has occurred during thiscampaign could mar the relations existing between us. The onlyregret I have about the campaign is that I found it necessary to differwith them, but I am confident that they will now join hands with mein carrying out the purposes (uniting the people) as expressed above.

Mr. Grady declared his unshaken affection for hispartner, and pledged his aid to him in his purposes tounite Atlanta and keep the sale of liquor within bounds.As for his own part in the campaign, he expresses himselfin these remarkable words:

When everything else I have said or done is forgotten, I wantthe words I have spoken for prohibition in Atlanta to be remembered.I am prouder of my share in the campaign that has ended in its defeatthan of my share in all other campaigns that have ended in victory. Iespoused its cause deliberately, and I have worked for its success nightand day, to the very best of my ability. My only regret is that myability was not greater.

This reunion of the owners of the Constitution was theprompt example which set a pattern for the community.Within a year from the close of the bitterest campaign inAtlanta’s history, one in which many a house and many afamily was divided against itself, the acrimony had almostentirely disappeared. The wounds of the campaign werehealed and the soreness of defeat had disappeared; Atlantawas re-united, and on every side were signs of prosperityand good-will. In another twelvemonth she had to enlargeher girth a quarter of a mile all round; nine hundredhouses were built, every one was filled, and there was apressing demand for more. The Constitution turned fromthis struggle with its owners more strongly cemented bypersonal friendship than ever before, and in the closing618weeks of 1889 the paper touched a higher mark of prosperitythan it had ever known.

After Mr. Grady’s death the Constitution pursued theeven tenor of its way. Saddened by that great calamitythe late editor’s associates realized that there was greatwork for them to do. The succession to the managementwas as natural as the passing of one day into another.Mr. Clark Howell, Jr., eldest son of the editor-in-chief,had been on the paper six years, first as night editor andthen as assistant managing editor. In Mr. Grady’s absencehe had been in charge, and in taking the position of managingeditor at twenty-six years of age, he assumed dutiesand responsibilities that were not new to him. He wasfortified by an extensive personal acquaintance formednot only in his newspaper experience, but in two terms ofactive service as a representative of Fulton County in theLegislature, having been nominated for the first term beforehe was twenty-one years of age.

Mr. Howell won his spurs as a newspaper man beforehe was twenty. On graduating from the University ofGeorgia in 1883 he went to the New York Times as anapprentice in its local department. It was Captain Howell’spolicy to throw his son on his own resources, andthe moderate allowance during college days, was almostentirely withdrawn when young Clark went to New York.A young reporter working on twelve dollars a week wassorely put to it to make ends meet in a great city like NewYork. From the New York Times city department Mr.Howell went to the Philadelphia Press, assisting in thenews editing department. It was while he was in Philadelphia,with very little cash, that he seized an opportunityto make some money and a good deal of reputation.Samuel J. Tilden was being urged to allow the use of hisname for the second Presidential nomination. He had notsaid yea or nay, and the country was anxiously awaitinghis decision, for his consent would have settled the questionof Democratic leadership. Mr. Howell went to NewYork for the Constitution, and his interview with Mr. Tilden619was the first announcement of the old statesman’sdetermination not to enter the contest again. That nightMr. Howell telegraphed the news to two hundred papers,and the interview with the sage of Gramercy Park wasread on two continents. The young journalist who hadscored a scoop on all the ambitious newspaper men of thecountry received flattering notices from the press, besidesthe comforting addition of $400 to his almost invisiblecash.

Mr. Howell then came on the Constitution as night editor,and was afterward promoted to the position of assistantmanaging editor. What native ability and six yearsof training did for him was made manifest very soon afterhe assumed his new responsibility.

For days the letters and telegrams of condolence andtributes to Mr. Grady filled the paper, and to that and themonument movement all other matter was, for the time,made subordinate. When at last the burden of the people’sgrief had found full expression, the Constitutionturned itself with renewed vigor to its work. CaptainHowell was on deck, the new managing editor plungedinto every detail, and soon a general improvement was theresult; the Constitution took on new life. Then Mr.Howell turned on all his energies and put the magnificentmachinery at his disposal up to its full speed. The dailyissues drew daily commendations of their excellence fromthe press, and the first twenty-four-page Sunday’s editionwas pronounced by many the best the Constitution hadever issued.

The people realized that the Constitution, though ithad suffered a great loss in Mr. Grady’s death, was still instrong hands, and from all parts of its territory camerenewed expressions of confidence and sympathy. So theConstitution continues its work, enlarging and improvingas it goes, ever looking to the future while it cherishes amagnificent past which it could not and would not let die.

New York, Dec. 23.—The New England Society celebratedto-night its 84th anniversary and the 469th of thelanding 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 deathof Henry W. Grady. He said:

“Thirty years ago, Robert Toombs, of Georgia, one ofthe ablest and most brilliant defenders of slavery, said inhis place in the United States Senate that he would yetcall the roll of his bondmen at the foot of Bunker Hillmonument. To-day his slaves are citizens and voters.Within a few days a younger Georgian, possessedof equal genius, but imbued with sentiments so leavenedthat the great Senator would have held him an enemyto the State, was the guest of Boston. With a powerof presentation and a fervor of declaration worthyof the best days and noblest efforts of eloquence, he stoodbeneath the shadow of Bunker Hill and uttered opinionsjustifying the suppression of the negro vote, which werehostile to the views of every man in his audience, and yetthey gave to his argument an eager and candid hearing,and to his oratory unstinted and generous applause. Itwas triumphant of Puritan principles and Puritan pluck.They know we know that no system of suffrage cansurvive the intimidation of the voter or the falsificationof the courts. Public conscience, by the approvalof fraud upon the ballot and the intelligence of a community,will soon be indifferent to the extensions ofthose methods by the present office-holders to continue in624power, and the arbitrary reversing of the will of the majoritywill end in anarchy and despotism.

“This is a burning question, not only in Georgia, butin New York. It is that the government for the peopleshall be by the people. No matter how grave the questionswhich absorb the people’s attention or engross theirtime, the permanence of their solution rests upon a pureballot.

“The telegraph brings us this evening the announcementof the death of Henry W. Grady, and we forget alldifferences of opinion and remember only his chivalry,patriotism, and his genius. He was the leader of the NewSouth, and died in the great work of impressing its marvelousgrowth and national inspirations upon the willing earsof the North. Upon this platform, and before this audience,two years ago, he commanded the attention of the countryand won universal fame. His death, in the meridian ofhis powers and the hopefulness of his mission, at acritical period of the removal forever of all misunderstandingand differences between all sections of the Republic,is a national calamity. New York mingles her tearswith those of his kindred, and offers to his memory a tributeof her profoundest admiration.”

EX-PRESIDENT CLEVELAND.

New York, December 23, 1889.

Mrs. Henry W. Grady: Accept the heartfelt sympathyof one who loved your husband for what he was andfor all that he had done for his people and his country.Be assured that everywhere throughout the land warmhearts mourn with you in your deep affliction and deplorethe loss the nation has sustained.

Grover Cleveland.

Nashville, Tenn., December 26, 1889.

Mr. A. W. Davis, Atlanta, Ga.:

My Dear Sir:—I feel as if, in coming to what I hadhoped to be a joyous occasion, I am coming to the house ofmourning—the home of sorrow. Since the tragic end ofthe young Irish patriot, death has not more ruthlesslyinvaded the land of “shining marks” than when he theother day came to your beautiful city—a city of happinessand “high ways”—and, as if looking with remorselesspurpose into the very secrets of domestic felicity andpopular affection—took up and carried away into the landof the unseeable the idol of a happy home and of a greatcity. Not only was Henry W. Grady the idol of his owncity and State, but without office and without estate,though young in years, he had attained a maturity of bothpen and heart which brought renown as an Americanpatriot far beyond what place or power can give. His deathis a national calamity. In times of peace, when much ofthe press and many of the public men are inviting patronageand seeking favors in fanning the passions born of asectional issue, to see a truly national and brave man,who, loving his own native section, can nevertheless gloryin a common country and a common destiny for all theAmerican people—is to the patriot philosopher, whodivines the happiness of a reunited people, the bright starof hope rising to dissipate the prejudices of the past andlight up the pathway to the coming millions.

Unfortunately, oh, how much to be deplored! the passionsof the sections have been kept alive by the pen andtongue of the politician seeking patronage and office.

The young man of your city whose death all patriotsmourn, put himself on a higher plane—freed from passionand rising above his own ambition, he gave tone andtemper to a national sentiment, which might be uttered in626Boston or Atlanta with equal propriety and patriotismand from the emotions of his patriotic heart, he spokewords which, while they were full of the manhood of hisown loved South, nevertheless warmed into a generoussympathy the North man as well as the South man, andput American citizenship so high that the young men ofthe country may, without the sacrifice of local pride, everaspire to reach it.

As an example of Southern manhood, patriotic fervor,and a statesmanship extending over the entire country andinto the coming generations, all sparkling with the scintillationof an intelligent courage that defied alike the prejudicesof the ignorant and the appeals of the demagogue,he was the representative and leader of a sentiment in theSouth which promised speedily a reforming of public sentimentnorth and south, a turning from the shades of thepast into the lighted avenues of the future—these avenuesopening to all alike without the sacrifice of manhood orthe domination of section.

I repeat, his death is a calamity, and oh, how sad andmysterious!

Truly, A. S. Colyar.

HON. MURAT HALSTEAD.

Cincinnati, December 24, 1889.

Mrs. H. W. Grady:

I desire to inscribe my name among those who feel thepublic misfortune of Mr. Grady’s death as a personal loss,and hope you may know how true it is that there are noboundaries to sincere regrets and earnest sympathies.

Murat Halstead.

House of Representatives,

Washington, D. C., December 24, 1889.

Hon. E. P. Howell, Atlanta, Ga.:

My Dear Sir:—I telegraphed briefly yesterday afternoon,immediately upon hearing of the death of our dearfriend. I do not know when I have been more shockedthan I have been at this great calamity, and I cannot yetbring my mind to realize it. The ways of Providence arestrange indeed, but we should submit with Christian fortitude.

So young a man, with so bright a future, and capableof so much benefit to his State and country, it is hardindeed to part with. His great object in life was to breakdown sectionalism and bring the South to her full capabilitiesof development. But I have not the heart to writemore.

Give Mrs. Randall’s love to Mrs. Grady and my kindestsympathy, and tell her that as long as life lasts with usMr. Grady’s hundred and more kindnesses to both willnever fade from our memory.

Samuel J. Randall.

MR. ANDREW CARNEGIE.

New York, December 24, 1889.

Captain Howell:

Only those who stood at Mr. Grady’s side as we did andheard him at Boston can estimate the extent of the nation’sloss in his death. It seemed reserved for him to perform aservice to his country which no other could perform so well.Mrs. Carnegie and I share your grief and tender to hisfamily profound sympathy. We send a wreath in yourcare which please place upon the grave of the eloquentpeacemaker between the North and South.

Andrew Carnegie.

Springfield, Mass., December 24, 1889.

The Honorable, the Mayor:

Springfield shares the sorrow of her sister city. Thedeath of such a man as Henry Woodfin Grady is a nationalloss.

Edward S. Bradford, Mayor.

New York, December 24, 1889.

To Mrs. Henry Grady:

The New York Southern Society, profoundly affected bya sense of the public loss sustained in the death of yourdistinguished husband, offer you their heartfelt sympathyin the great affliction you have suffered.

J. H. Parker, Vice-President.

New York, December 23, 1889.

Governor Rufus B. Bullock:

Your dispatch is received with sincere sorrow. Thousandsof our citizens recognized in Mr. Grady a manworthy of the highest respect and esteem, and will regardhis untimely death a national calamity.

Alonzo B. Cornell.

New York, December 24, 1889.

Evan Howell:

Please give my earnest sympathy to Mrs. Grady. Theprofession has lost one of its three or four foremost members,and the country a true patriot.

Ballard Smith.