Joel Chandler Harris' life of Henry W. Grady including his writings and speeches
History
Joel Chandler Harris' life of Henry W. Grady including his writings and speeches
Grady, Henry Woodfin, 1850-1889
The lecture course that Mr. Grady instituted was never followed up,
although it was a successful one. It was his way, when he had organized
an enterprise and placed it on its feet, to turn his attention to
something else. Sometimes his successors were equal to the emergency,
and sometimes they were not. The Young Men’s Library has been in good
hands, and it is what may be termed a successful institution, but it is
not what it was when Mr. Grady was booming the town in its behalf. When
he put his hand to any enterprise or to any movement the effect seemed
to be magical. It was not his personal influence, for there were some
enterprises beyond the range of that, that responded promptly to his
touch. It was not his enthusiasm, for there have been thousands of men
quite as enthusiastic. Was it his methods? Perhaps the secret lies
hidden there; but I have often thought, while witnessing the results he
brought about, that he had at his command some new element, or quality,
or gift not vouchsafed to other men. Whatever it was, he employed it
only for the good of his city, his State, his section, and his country.
His patriotism was as prominent and as permanent as his unselfishness.
His public spirit was unbounded, and, above all things, restless and
eager.
I have mentioned only a few of the more important enterprises in Atlanta
that owe their success to Mr. Grady. He was identified with every public
movement that took shape in Atlanta, and the people were always sure
that his interest and his influence were on the side of honesty and
justice. But his energies took a wider range. He was the very embodiment
of the spirit that he aptly named “the New South,”—the New South that,
reverently remembering and emulating the virtues of the old, and
striving to forget the bitterness of the past, turns its face to the
future and seeks to adapt itself to the conditions with which an
unsuccessful struggle has environed it, and to turn them to its profit.
Of the New South Mr. Grady was the prophet, if not the pioneer. He was
never tired of preaching about the rehabilitation of his section. Much
of the marvelous development that has taken place in the South during
the past ten years has been due to his eager and persistent efforts to
call the attention of the world to her vast resources. In his newspaper,
in his speeches, in his contributions to Northern periodicals, this was
his theme. No industry was too small to command his attention and his
aid, and none were larger than his expectations. His was the pen that
first drew attention to the iron fields of Alabama, and to the wonderful
marble beds and mineral wealth of Georgia. Other writers had preceded
him, perhaps, but it is due to his unique methods of advertising that
the material resources of the two States are in their present stage of
development. He had no individual interest in the development of the
material wealth of the South. During the past ten years there was not a
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