The morning call., 1891-10-23
HENRY w. GRADY.

-
1t does not often occur that the Northern
people can applaud the Inauguration OF mon-
uments at the South For the past twenty
years those monuments have almost always
commemorated some soldier of the Confed-
crate army, and, while we can we'll under
stand the feelings which prompt SOutherners
to cherish the memory of Lee and jackson,
we can never get over the recollection that
they were rebels, who tried TO destroy the
Union, and TO honor whom is to place a
premium on disloyalty. Now. it seems,
better feeling is beginning TO prevail
There lived until lately in the State OF
Georgia a man who was TOO young when
the war broke out to take part in it, and yet
whose friends and relations, father and
brother. had all been under arms for the lost
cause. This was Henry w. Grady. The
period of reconstruction occurred when his
mind was in the receptive stage, and by
great good fortune he Rad been gifted with
so impartial a spirit that he could judge
questions as they rose without bias from
surrounding pressure. He lived at Atlanta,
the city from which Sherman had expelled
the women and children before the bonn
bardment and which was full Of men who
were saturated with hatred of the North.
He rarely heard common justice done 10 the
Union cause, nor the feeblest attempt to
justify the course pursued by the United
States. To bis felIow-townsmen there could
be no expiation. They had thought of the
war but as a conflict in which the South had
been right, and which was to lie renewed at
the earliest opportunity. Yet, growing up
in these surroundings. Grady came to per-
ceivG first that there were two sides to the
question, and next that the Southern side
was perhaps the wrong side.
Being newspaper editor and a man OF
intrepid sOnl he expressed these thoughts in
his journal, and his candor and honesty
were so manifest that people Listened to
him. More still After a time some became
convinced, and even those who stood aloof
admitted that there was much truth in what
he said. So he Tipened to become
leader of the New South. His stirring
speeches, dealing with the future and its
hopes, contrasted wildly with the stale
platItudes of Jeff Davis, Jubal Early and
the other moumers over the corpse Of the
past. He appealed to broken spirited aud
impoverished people with promises of resur-
rection and assurances of new chances in
life not dependent on slavery. He cheered
up his fellow-ctizens by telling them that
though the cause of human bondage was
lost all was not lost, and that perhaps the
years to come had in store for the South good
things which could never have been at
tained under thu old regime.
lie was in the full tide of this work when
his life was cut short. His people, realizing,
when he was gone, how really great he had
been, have just raised a statue to his mem
ory, which was inaugurated on Wednesday
by speech from the Governor of New
York On the base of the statue is in
scrbed his name and age, and following this
are these words, the close of which is quoted
from speech delivered by Mr.. Grady only
TWO years ago:
lie never held nor sought puDlic Office. When
he died lie was literally loving nation into
peace. This hour little needs the loyalty that
is loyal TO one section and yet holds the other in
enduring suspicion and estrangement."
Tie South can i'll spare such men as
Grady. 1t is largely his work that has rec
onciled SoutheTners TO accept the verdict of
the war. 1t took hundred years for the
English TO eradicate the bitter feelings
aroused by the expulsion of the Stuarts.
Enemies and friends of the Napoeonic era
cherished their feuds for half a century
after the great Emperor had died at St.
Helena. In our Southern States the rancor
which defeat usually engenders has been
passing away more rapidly. By the begin
ming of the next century it will probably
have disappeared. This will have been
largely the work of such leaders of the New
South as Henry ". Grady. He more richly
deserves statues than many who get them.