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VOL UME ONE.
NUM-BEE NINE.
Henry W. Grady—an Appreciation and an 'Estimate
By S. T. DALSHEIMER.
F ALL forces generated by Nature there
is, perhaps, no force more far-reach
ing and more significant than that em
bodied in the personality of some rare
individual. Such an one was that of
Henry W. Grady, of Georgia, whose
earthly career closed more than fifteen
years ago, but is still a power in the
hearts and minds of the people he loved
O
so well. Like Luther, Calvin, Cromwell and
Washington, he labored for a common goal—
the people’s good; and so laboring, left his
impress on the history of his country. One
might almost trace the passage and the pro
gress of a country or a cause by the record
of the individual lives which have combined
to create the one and to uplift the other. This
is especially true of the South to-day, and
more particularly in the State of Georgia,
where great issues are at stake—issues which
have drawn the nation’s gaze upon us. These
issues are all championed by “good men and
true”, but even in the living and virile pres
ent there comes a strong memory of the past
and almost instinctively we recall the person
ality of that great Georgian, Henry W.
Grady, and we feel it will be befitting to re
view, in some measure, his life and his work.
No facts and figures, however, can in any
measure estimate the work done by this man
for his beloved state; no set record of work
accomplished, nor of work planned out by
him can be mentioned now to illustrate or to
substantiate his claim to greatness, for it lies
more in the unwritten record impressed upon
the hearts of men and subtly infused into
their souls and spirits, bearing perennial fruit
in renewed effort for good and a higher stan
dard of ideas and ideals.
In these materialistic times, when personal
advancement and personal gain are the key
notes to so much in our municipal and national
life it has. unfortunately, become difficult for
us to remember and to consider that the only real
progress for a people is that embodied in a pure phil
osophy of living’ which shall have for its main fea
ture a universal good rather than an individual gain.
Yet it is a fact that Henry Grady’s life was, per
haps, the truest exemplification of this high philoso
phy. that the State of Georgia has ever known.
It is well for us to remember, and well for our
young men to know that when the question is asked,
“Who was Henry Grady? what did he do? what
position did he hold?” The answer cannot be given
in any set phrase, or by the mention of any office
given by the people he loved, but that the answer
must be found in the record of a life of steadfast
effort for his people’s good and his State’s advance
ment.
The fact that Henry Grady was a newspaper man
ATLANTA, GA., APRIL 19, 1906.
of distinction, and the further fact that he held
an editorial position for many years on the leading
paper in Georgia, but that he never was at any
time a candidate for office, although always vitally
interested in political questions, is recalled just at
this time with telling force. The editorial chair
is a powerful factor for good and as such its force
was used by Mr. Grady, but never at any time,
with even the most remote thought of personal ad-
HENRY W. GRADY.
vancement. He said himself that “journalism is
a jealous profession and demands the fullest alle
giance of those who seek its honors or emoluments.
Least of all can it be made the aid of the demagogue
or the handmaid of the politician. The man who
uses his journal to subserve his political ambition,
or writes with a sinister or personal purpose, soon
loses his power and had best abandon a profession
he has betrayed Therefore, devoted as I
am to my profession, believing as I do that there is
more of honor and usefulness for me along its way
than in another path, and that my duty is clear
and unmistakable, I am constrained to reaffirm in
my own mind, and to declare 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 candidate for any political office, or draw a dollar
from any public treasury. This rule I have never
broken, and I hope I never shall I think
it has been the curse of the South that our young
men have considered little else than political pre
ferment worthy of an ambitious thought. ....
lieally there is no career that brings so much of
unhappiness and discontent—so much of subser
vience, sacrifice and uncertainty as that of the poli
tician.”
If one were seeking a clear exponent of Mr.
Grady’s life, his intentions and his philoso
phy it could not be found more concisely ex
pressed than in these words. Unlike most
men, however, his opinions were not merely
theories, but were facts which he carried out
in his own career. He never did “subserve
the purposes” of his journal for any personal
purposes, and although he was often accused
by his enemies of having political preferment
in mind, and although he was often approach
ed by his friends with suggestions of the the
possibilities along this same line, he was fixed
and immovable in his determination.
It means so little to mention the different
papers in Georgia with which Mr. Grady was
connected from time to time; it means even
less to speak of his marvelous powers of ex
pression, his brilliant word pictures, his quick
perceptions, his miraculously retentive mem
ory for these were all merely adjuncts of the
man himself. And it is here that the writer
finds a new difficulty in explaining how and
where and why the work of Henry Grady
made an ineffaceable impression on the city of
Atlanta, on the State of Georgia, and even on
the entire South, if not, indeed, on the na
tion itself. We are so ready to label an un
known force with the all-embracing term
“magnetism,” and for lack of a better ex
pression, it may be used to account for Mr.
Grady’s power with the people; but we be
lieve there was something higher and greater
than even that magic word implies. Personal
magnetism of a rare order he did have, but underly
ing all else was a deep and unswerving and a most
profound devotion to humanity; a pity for its pains,
a sincere wish to alleviate its sufferings, to increase
its joys and promote its ultimate good. It will be no
exaggeration to say that every line Mr. Grady wrote,
every word he spoke during his extensive lecture
tours throughout the length and breadth of the
country, were written and spoken with a well-de
fined object—the betterment of the people and of
the state.
Quick to realize industrial possibilities, Mr. Gra
dy may be said to be almost a pioneer in the devel
opment of the agricultural interests of Georgia. His
own plans and dreams of domestic and material
happiness were centered around a farm which he
purchased and which he loved; that he did not sue-
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