Newspaper Page Text
2
ceed in its cultivation from a financial point- of
view, is not to be wondered at; to a man like
Henry Grady financial success is almost unknown.
He did not “make money” at anything-. He gave
too freely of the little he did have, and he never,
during his whole life, learned a single lesson of
economy,-nor did he ever seek to learn the value
of a dollar save in its power to alleviate the wants
of others.
From his earliest childhood he was ever tender
of the needs of others; on the old plantation home
near Athens, where he was born, he knew and loved
every negro on' the place; from the age of two, he
had a devoted little attendant in the person of a ne
gro boy, “Isaac” by name, whom he claimed as a
brother, and during his babyhood he actually re
sented the fact that Isaac wasn’t really his very
own I This affection for the negro, and with it
a thorough understanding of their needs, as well
as an appreciation of all that was difficult in their
lives, was characteristic of Mr. Grady’s life.
The thought of oppression and of poverty, of
discord or of strife, was always most repugnant to
Mr. Grady; as a child, a boy and a young man, he
ever sought to make rough places smooth for all
around him. Jovial and approachable in dispo
sition he was a conversationalist of the rarest
charm— not a monologist, for although himself a
brilliant talker, he possessed that rarer gift of be
ing a “brilliant” listener.
It was this social element, this tendency to listen
as well as to speak, to encourage others to know as
well as to seek himself that in a great measure,
unfitted him for a reportorial position. Mr. Grady
was distinctively an editor; a leader, a teacher and
a man of affairs. His impressions of conditions
were so vital that their value to a current publica
tion could not be overestimated, but these impres
sions were of necessity so tempered by environments
that it was difficult to preserve them. His speeches
on various occasions were almost invariably im
promptu, and no matter how carefully he might
prepare an address, it was almost inevitable that
some trivial circumstance would result in his chang
ing his preconceived line of thought, and branch
ing out into an entirely new field. This fact has
prevented a full compilation of his addresses, and
the written work which he has left is chiefly what
has appeared editorially and what has been caught
here and there by some stenographic report of his
speeches.
Henry Grady was distinctively a man fitted to cope
with great emergencies or sensations; if any such
occasion arose it was Mr. Grady’s wish to report
such a one himself—his wonderful skill in writing
of the Charleston earthquake may be recalled as
one of his most notable efforts.
But there are practical evidences of Mr. Grady’s
work to be found on every hand in the city of At
lanta where he made his home for the greater part
of his life. It w-as he who conceived and brought
to completion the Piedmont Exposition held in At
lanta in 1888, and his hand was behind the great
cotton exposition held in Atlanta in 1881. A re
markable fact about the Piedmont Exposition is
that there was about $20,000 cleared by the man
agement, a result almost without precedent in
Southern fairs.
It was Mr. Grady who organized the Piedmont
Chautauqua; he also raised the funds for the Con
federate Veterans Home in Atlanta, which is one
of the most satisfactory homes for old soldiers in
the country; Mr. Grady also organized a movement
for putting up a building for the Young Men’s
Christian Association, which building now stands
as one of the handsomest monuments to this great,
unselfish and earnest gentlemen.
Mr. Grady’s work for many institutions of At
lanta cannot be mentioned in detail but it is safe
to say that there are very few which do not owe
either their inception or some material aid in time
of need to this guiding hand.
Os the people, for the people and with the peo
ple might be claimed as Mr. Grady’s creed—the
cry of a human need never fell on a deaf ear when
directed to him, and his was a soul which leaned
outward to the darkness. There is told a wonder
ful story of Mr. Grady’s power over the people of
Atlanta and of the force for good which that power
'The Golden Age for April 19, 1906.
was. Some years before his untimely death there
came a bitter cold Christmas to Atlanta—one of
the coldest ever known in Georgia—and with it
came the knowledge that the poor of the city were
in direct need, killed with a sense of what was
demanded of his people Mr. Grady determined to
use his paper—The Constitution—as a medium to
bring relief where it was so sorely needed. With
his trenchant pen he wrote on Christmas eve an
editorial which so stirred the hearts of men that
on the day following, which was Sunday, contribu
tions for the poor began to pour into the Constitu
tion office. From early morning wagon loads of
coal, of food, of every sort of provisions filled the
streets, and by an organized effort these supplies
were so distributed that by the nightfall of that
Christmas day there was not a single family in the
city of Atlanta in need of food or fuel. The un
derlying secret of the success of Mr. Grady’s ef
forts in this particular case may be said to be the
same as that which dominated all his work—he
wrote and spoke and labored for the things he
knew needed improvement. He went himself into
the homes of the poor and saw the need; he went
himself into the halls of justice, into the highways
and byways of life and saw the needs, the weakness
the struggles of humanity, and then he acted! Not
spasmodically, not theoretically, not unthinkingly,
but with the calm brain, clear judgment and with
an earnest Christian soul striving to do right.
Os the private life of Henry Grady it seems al
most sacrilege to speak—so perfect an element
needs no touch however tender; no comment however
kind. Much of his work was done at his own home
near the beloved wife whose very presence was
in inspiration. When most beset by professional
cares and when endeavoring to write some particu
larly difficult articlee it was to his wife’s own
room that Mr. Grady turned, and there with closed
doors would he evolve some brilliant and effectual
specimen of almost classical writing.
His wonderful power to enter into the lives and
emotions of others would have made of him a great
novelist had he turned his attention to purely lit
erary work. But Mr. Grady was essentially a man
of action, and fiction could form no part of his life
or of his writings. All of his lectures were direc
ted toward the betterment and toward the fuller
understanding of the South; at the Augusta (Ga.)
Exposition held in 1887, Mr. Grady made a stir
ring address in which he reviewed the possibilities
and the prospects of the South. The following ex
pressions may be considered as the very essence
of his sentiments: “It may be,” he said, “that
the last hope of saving the old-fashioned on this
continent will be lodged with the South. Strange
admixtures have brought strange results in the
North. The anarchist and the atheist walk abroad
in the cities, and defying government, deny God.
Culture has refined for itself new and strange re
ligions from strong old creeds. Let us, my country
men, resolve that we will wear in our hearts the
prayers we learned at our mother’s knee, and seek
no better faith than that which fortified her life
through adversity, and led her serene and smiling
through the Valley of the Shadow. Let us keep
sacred the Sabbath of God in its purity, and have
no city so great, or village so small that every Sun
day morning shall not steal forth over towns and
meadows the golden benediction of the bells as they
summon the people to the churches of their fath
ers and ring out in praise of God and the power
of His might.”
Will it not prove helpful to the people of today
to remember the life of a man like this? Will it
not seem worth while to struggle onward toward
the light with the thought of this noble life as an
incentive to further effort? The people of the
South need ideals at all times but never more so
than they do today and we believe each individual
will feel a certain personal stimulus in this appre
ciation of Henry W. Grady, of Georgia, a great soul
in whose individuality we can “see the archetypal
man and what might be the amplitude of Nature’s
first design.”
It is a great deal easier to do that which God
gives us to do, no matter how hard it is, than to
face the responsibility of not doing it.—J. R. Miller.
News of the Week.
Carolus Duran has finished painting his portrait
of the pope, which ex-Empress Eugenie will present
as a wedding present to Princess Ena, fiancee of
King Alfonso.
Queen Wilhelmina, of Holland, is bearing the cost
of conceits given by well-known singers in the
slum quarters of the Hague. Only the poorest peo
ple are allowed to attend.
Governor Slepzoff, of Tver, was assassinated
April 7. A bomb was thrown into his carriage,
tearing his body to pieces. The perpetrator, whose
name is not known, has been arrested.
After much thought and many calculations, Sir
Thomas Lipton has at last come to the conclusion
that he will have another try for the American cup,
and it is stated that Niylve already is at work de
signing Shamrock IV.
According to Hungarian journals, the financial
ruin of the Archduchess Clotolde is complete. Ex
perts charged to put her affairs in order declare
that there are heavy liabilities. It is alleged that
the aged archduchess’ fortune was managed by in
capable functionaries.
The first Mother’s Congress of Georgia—the first
ever held in the South—will be in session in Atlanta
for three days, April 23, 24 and 25. A great num
ber of prominent women from all the states south
of the Ohio and east- of the Mississippi rivers, will
attend the convention.
It is said, and so far it has not been officially
denied, that an agreement has been made between
the Kaiser, and the Czar whereby Russia will trans
fer to Germany her Polish provinces in return for
a very large amount of cash, of which the Russian
treasury is sorely in need.
Ex-President Grover Cleveland, in the role of a
social economist, has met failure. His settlement
farm for boys has been sold and the youngsters
upon whom the former president of the United
States proposed to work an interesting experiment
in economics, have been sent back to their homes.
It is predicted the Standard Oil Company will
soon own all the valuable lumber in North Carolina.
Already this company has acquired a number of
great tracts of timber land and is negotiating for
a great deal more. The purpose of this is to use
the pine for the small boxes in which are placed the
oil cans containing foreign bound oil.
At an audience granted Francis Kossuth by Em
peror Francis Joseph, a compromise was reached on
the Hungarian question. The Hungarians abandon
the demand for a separate army and concede uni
versal suffrage, while the Emperor dismisses Pre
mier Fejevary, and grants a parliamentary cabi
net.
Twenty-seven sub-chiefs of the Kiowa, Comanche
and Apache Indian tribes, held a council at the
Anadarko Indian Agency early in this month and
drafted a petition addressed to President Roosevelt,
asking that their remaining pastures of 505,000
acres be sold at auction to the highest bidders. This
was the largest council of sub-chiefs held in the
southwest in twenty years.
Pi of. I . M. Rea, director of the museum of the
College of Charleston, has made a most valuable
find in the twenty-first volume of Eliot’s Herbar
ium, of interest to all scholars in botany. In a
mass of rubbish in the basement of the library,
which had been ordered burnt, Prof. Rea discov
ered the volume which has proven to be a find of
such gieat interest and importance to the scien
tific world.
