By Joel Chandler Harris
When the people of Georgia had once more gained control of their State government, the political tempest that had been raging slowly quieted down. A pot that has been boiling furiously doesn’t grow cool in a moment, but it ceases almost instantly to boil; and though it may cool slowly, it cools surely. There was not an end of prejudice and unreason the moment the people had disposed of those who were plundering them, but prejudice began to lose its force as soon as men had the opportunity to engage in calm discussion, and to look forward hopefully to the future. In the midst of bayonet and carpet-bag rule, the State could not make any real progress. It is only during a time of peace and contentment that the industrial forces of a community begin to display their real energy.
No State in the South had suffered so severely as Georgia during the war. She placed in the field more than a hundred and twenty thousand soldiers,—twenty thousand more than her voting population at the beginning of the war. The taxable wealth of the State in 1867 was more than four hundred and eighty-one millions less than it was in 1861,—a loss of more than three fourths. After the reconstruction period, all the State had to show, in return for the treasure that had been squandered by the carpet-bag politicians, was a few poorly equipped railroads that had been built on the State’s credit. In some instances railroad bonds were indorsed when there was no road to show for them; in others, bonds were issued in behalf of the same road under different names; so that the people lost by fraud as much or more than the amount of improvement that had been made. The “developers” who had connected themselves with the bayonet administration were much more interested in “developing” their own private interests than they were in developing the resources of the State.
But when the bayonet administration had been driven out, not less by Northern opinion, which had become disgusted with the reckless dishonesty that was practiced under the name of republicanism, than by the energetic opposition of all good citizens of the State, there came a welcome end to the bitter controversy that had been going on. The fierce rancor and prejudice that had been aroused gradually died out; so that in 1872, shortly after the State had been rescued from misrule, Horace Greeley, the great abolition editor, received in Georgia a majority of more than seventy-one thousand votes over the straight-out Democratic candidate. This, more than any other event, showed the improving temper of the people, and their willingness to make compromises and concessions for the purpose of restoring the Union and burying the spirit of sectionalism.
With this improved temper there came an improvement in the material conditions of the State. Free negro labor was a problem which the planters had to meet. For a time it presented many difficulties. It was hard to make and enforce contracts with the negroes, who had been demoralized and made suspicious by The Union League and by the harsh and unjustifiable acts of men who acted under the name, but not under the authority, of the Ku Klux Klan. But gradually all these difficulties were overcome. The negroes settled down to work, and with them a good many white men who had been left adrift by the fortunes of war and the prostration of industries. This vast change was not brought about in a day or a month, or even in a year, but was the gradual outgrowth of a bitter feeling,—the slow awakening to the fact that matters were not as bad on a better acquaintance as they had seemed. There was, of course, the negro problem; but the wiser men soon saw that this problem, such as it was, would settle itself sooner or later. The result was that everybody began to take a day off from politics occasionally, and devote themselves to the upbuilding of the resources of the State.
At first, and for several years, the negro problem seemed to be a very serious matter indeed. All the statesmen, all the politicians, all the historians, and all the newspaper editors, discussed it morning, noon, and night for a long time. Some wanted it settled one way, and some another. At the North the men who had indorsed and approved the bayonet governments of the South thought that laws ought to be passed giving the negroes social equality with the whites. Finally a compromise was made with what is called the “Civil Rights Law,” which was intended to give the negroes the same privileges at the hotels, theaters, and other public places, that the whites had. The Northern politicians pretended to believe that the efforts they were making were for the benefit of the negroes, though no doubt the majority of them knew better. Of course, the Southern people resisted the pressure thus brought to bear by the Northern sectionalists, and the result was what might have been expected. The condition of the negro was made more uncomfortable than ever, and the color line was more closely drawn. To show how shortsighted the politicians were and are, it is only necessary to call attention to one fact, and it is this: that while the Civil Rights Law has kept negroes out of public places both North and South, they ride on the street cars side by side with the white people, and it frequently happens that an old negro woman who comes into a crowded car is given a seat by some Southerner who has tender recollections of his negro “mammy.”
It is worthy of note, that while the politicians on both sides were fighting the shadows that the “negro problem” called up, the problem was solving itself in the only way that such vast problems can be settled in the order of Providence,—by the irresistible elements of time and experience. A great deal of misery, suffering, and discontent would have been spared to both races, if, after the war, the conservative men of the North had either insisted on the policy that Abraham Lincoln had mapped out, or had said to the pestiferous politicians who were responsible for carpet-bag rule, “Hands off!” No doubt some injustice would have been done to individuals if the North had permitted the negroes to work out their political salvation alone, but the race itself would be in a better condition every way than it is today; for outside interference has worked untold damage and hardship to the negro. It has given him false ideas of the power and purpose of government, and it has blinded his eyes to the necessity of individual effort. It is by individual effort alone that the negro race must work out its destiny. This is the history of the white race, and it must be the history of all races that move forward.
When Georgia, with the rest of the Southern States, had passed safely through the reconstruction period, the people, as has been seen, found themselves facing new conditions and new possibilities. Slavery had been abolished utterly and forever; and wise men breathed freer when they saw that a great obstacle to progress and development had been abolished with it. Instinctively everybody felt that here was cause for congratulation. A few public men, bolder than the rest, looking out on the prospect, thanked God that slavery was no more. They expected to be attacked for such utterances, but they were applauded; and it was soon discovered, much to the surprise of everybody, that the best sentiment of the South was heartily glad that slavery was out of the way. Thus, with new conditions, new prospects, and new hopes,—with a new fortune, in fact,—it was natural that some lively prophet should lift up his voice and cry, “Behold the New South!”
And it was and is the new South,—the old South made new by events; the old South with new channels, in which its Anglo-Saxon energies may display themselves; the old South with new possibilities of greatness, that would never have offered themselves while slavery lasted. After these hopes, and in pursuit of these prospects, Georgia has led the way. Hundreds of miles of new railroads have been built in her borders since the dark days of reconstruction, hundreds of new factories have been built, immense marble beds and granite quarries have been put in operation, new towns have sprung into existence, and in thousands of new directions employment has been given to labor and capital. In short, the industrial progress the State has made since 1870 is more than double that of the previous fifty years.
It was natural, that, out of the new conditions, new men should arise; and, as if in response to the needs of the hour and the demands of the people, there arose a man who, with no selfish ends to serve and no selfish ambition to satisfy, was able to touch the hearts of the people of both sections, and to subdue the spirit of sectionalism that was still rampant long after the carpetbag governments in the South had been overthrown by the force of public opinion. That man was Henry Woodfin Grady. He took up his public work in earnest in 1876, though he had been preparing for it since the day that he could read a school history. In that year he became one of the editors of the “Atlanta Constitution,” and at once turned his attention to the situation in which his State had been left by the war, and by the rapacity of those who had come into power by means of the bayonet. Whether he used his tongue or pen, the public soon found out that he had control of that mysterious power which moves men. Whether he wrote or whether he spoke, he had the gift and the inspiration of eloquence; and from first to last he could never be induced to use this great gift for his personal advancement, nor could he be induced to accept a political office. With a mind entirely sincere and unselfish, he addressed himself to the work of restoring unity between the North and South, and to putting an end to the sectional strife which the politicians were skillfully using to further their own schemes. He was asked to be a United States senator, and refused; he was asked to be a congressman, and refused. For the rest, he could have had any office within the gift of the people of Georgia; but he felt that he could serve the State and the South more perfectly in the way that he had himself mapped out. He felt that the time had come for some one to say a bold and manly word in behalf of the American Union in the ear of the South, and to say a bold and manly word in behalf of the South in the ear of the North. He began this work, and carried it on as a private citizen; and the result was, that, though he died before he had reached the prime of his life, he had won a name and a popularity in all parts of the country, both North and South, that no other private citizen had ever before succeeded in winning.
It was Henry Grady that gave the apt name of “The New South” to the spirit that his tireless energy and enthusiasm had called from the dark depths of reconstruction. Of this spirit, and the movement that sprang from it, he was the prophet, the pioneer, the promoter. He saw the South poor in the midst of the most abundant resources that Providence ever blessed a people with, and he turned aside from politics to point them out. He saw the people going about in deep despair, and he gave them the cue of hope, and touched them with his own enthusiasm. He saw the mighty industrial forces lying dormant, and his touch awoke them to life. He saw great enterprises languishing, and he called the attention of capital to them. Looking farther afield, he saw the people of two great sections forgetting patriotism and duty, and reviving the prejudices and issues that had led to the war, and that had continued throughout the war; and he went about among them, speaking words of peace and union,—appealing to the spirit of patriotism which held the Northern and Southern people together when they were building the Republic, when they stood side by side amid the sufferings of Valley Forge, and when they saw the army of a mighty monarch surrender to the valor of American soldiers at Yorktown. With the enthusiasm of a missionary and the impetuous zeal of an evangelist, he went about rebuking the politicians, and preaching in behalf of peace, union, and genuine patriotism.
Such was the mission of Henry W. Grady, and the work that he did will live after him. “The New South” will cease to be hew, but the people will never cease to owe him a debt of gratitude for the work that he did in urging forward the industrial progress of this region, and in making peace between the sections. He was the builder, the peacemaker.
