Georgia and Georgians - the Digital Library of Georgia

GEORGIA AND GEORGIANS , 2873throughout the Union. His speech before the Duckworth Club, of Cincinnati, in the spring of-1905, on "A Definite Democracy," sounded the keynote for the reorganization of the democratic party for the next campaign.Colonel Graves was not without a large following of friends and admirerslong before that time, but when his Grady memorial was read throughout thecountry it was realized that an orator indeed had arisen who need not shrinkfrom comparison with any man, North or South, and since that time he hasbeen in constant demand on the hustings and the- platform. An idea of hispopularity is conveyed in the significant fact that within a single summer hewas forced to decline more than 100 formal invitations to deliver commencement addresses.With a brilliant reputation for college oratory, Graves began life as ateacher in the public schools of West Point and La Grange, Georgia, andwithin his period of pedagogic service he attracted much attention for twomemorial addresses., delivered over the graves of Confederate soldiers.The routine of the schoolroom proved irksome to his eager ambition, andhe sought more congenial employment. About this time the sensational contest between Joseph E. Brown and Gen. A. R. Lawton convulsed the state,and the young orator and journalist caught its graphic points in a ringingarticle that went into Avery's History of Georgia as "the finest bit of descriptive writing of that decade.'' From this he blossomed easily into newspaperlife and went to Florida, where he rose rapidly from reporter to managingeditor of the Union, the only daily in the state. He afterward establishedthe Daily Herald, and became, with one exception, the most distinguishedman in the state, at the age of twenty-nine years. He engaged actively inthree political campaigns and with his eloquen.ce swept the hustings as witha prairie fire. The chronicles of 1882-87 in Florida speak of his campaignspeeches as being without a parallel in the history of that commonwealth.It was a common thing for his enthusiastic audiences to carry him on theirshoulders frijm the public platform, and in many instances the horses wereunhitched from his carriage and he was drawn by the leading citizens throughcrowded streets and amid shouting multitudes who pelted him with flowersand adulation. And all this not as a candidate, for he always ignored anddeclined- office, but simply as a spontaneous tribute -to an eloquence whichHenry W. Grady declared the most phenomenal he had ever listened to.After having led the democratic electoral ticket in Florida in 1884, the healthof the young journalist-orator and that of his wife became impaired by theFlorida climate, and they returned to Georgia. Here he was immediatelyoffered and duly accepted the position of editor in chief of the AtlantaJournal upon its reorganization, in 1887. But the desire for absolute freedom and independence of utterance led him to resign this responsible positionand its brilliant prospects and to accept the editorship and absolute controlof the Tribune, at Rome, which recorded three wonderfully brilliant andsuccessful years under his management. He finally resigned voluntarily hisposition as editor, in loyalty to a political conviction not held to be in harmony with the views and interests of all others associated in the ownershipof the paper. "Within a year after his return to Georgia Graves was chosen,without any personal effort, to lead the democratic electoral ticket of thestate, in 1888, and thus presented the only instance in the political historyof the South of a young man, under thirty-two who had in two successivepresidential campaigns been chosen a democratic elector at large in two greatstates and led the ballot in both of them.About this time Henry W. Grady died. Graves and Grady had beenbosom friends, and the former had a letter from the latter saying that noman ever understood him as did the friend who survived him and who wasdestined to complete his work. Graves' oration over Grady's dead body hasgone into all languages, been published in all countries, is spoken today by