GRADY, Henry Woodfm, American jour nalist and orator : b. Athens, Ga., 24 May 1850; d. Atlanta, Ga., 23 Dcc. 1889. He was gradu ated from the University of Georgia in 1868, studied at the University of Virginia in 1868 70, began his journalistic career with contribu tions to the Atlanta Constitution, and for that journal in 1870 described a press tour of Georgia and the resources and possibilities of the State. At Rome, Ga., he edited the Courier, and later established and edited the unsuccess ful Daily Commercial. In 1871 he became Georgia correspondent of the New York Her ald, and in the same year purchased an interest in the Herald of Atlanta, publication of which was suspended in 1876. He then established the Courier, which did not long continue, and in 1880 bought a quarter interest in the Consti tution, of which paper he remained until his death editor and part owner. He was an able journalist, writing for the New York Herald some noteworthy letters, including an account of the Hamburg riots in South Carolina; and while editor of the Constitution, publishing in its columns vivid descriptions of the Charleston earthquake, and in various magazines articles on the condition and promise of the South. He also became locally known for his oratory, largely through his lecture, Just given at Atlanta. In 1886, at the annual ban
quet of the New England Society in New York, he made a distinguished address on 'The New South,) which was widely printed and at once gave him a national prominence. Other well known speeches by him were one on prohibition at Atlanta in 1887, one at the Texas State Fair in Dallas in 1888, and his final and greatest effort, 'The Future of the Negro) (December 1889), before the Merchants' Association of Boston. Grady was the first to present to the North the views of the more enlightened por tion of the reconstructed South,— its belief that the "struggle between the States was war and not rebellion," but at the same time its readi ness to identify itself with the united progress of the nation. His eloquent services in this behalf were of much importance. He aided in the establishment of the Confederate Vet erans' Home, the election of Gen. J. B. Gordon as governor of the State and the organization of the Atlanta expositions of 1::7 and 1889. He declined public office, but was frequently mentioned for nomination to the United States Senate. Consult the