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Show Great Orator Had a Warning Henry W. Grady Seemed to Have Premonition of Evil Before Going to Boston, Where He Contracted Con-tracted Fatal Cold. "In the early part of December. 1889 I think it was about two weeks after congreBs had met in regular session ses-sion I was sitting in my office in Washington one evening when a man camo in, threw himself Into an unoccupied un-occupied chair, and said: 'Hello!'" In this way the late Amos J. Cum-mlngs. Cum-mlngs. who in 1889 was closing his first term in congress, described to me his last meeting with Henry W. Grady, editor of the Atlanta Constitution, Consti-tution, who gained national fame in a single night by a speech which he made on "The New South" before tha members of the New England society In New York on the evening of Forefathers' Fore-fathers' Day, 18S6. "I noticed the moment Grady sat down," Mr. Cummings went on, "thnt he seemed to be in 111 health, or else was mentally" distressed. He pushed his hat upon the back side of his head, leaned forward, placed his elbows el-bows upon the table, and dejectedly rested his chin in both hands. "'Don't you feel well?' I asked; and he replied that so far as he knew he was perfectly well physically, but that he had been laboring under a fit of great depression, which had seized him the very moment he took the train at Atlanta for the north. "Thinking to cheer him up a bit. I said to him that no man who had gained so swiftly the brilliant reputation repu-tation which had come to him from one address ought to have a moment's mo-ment's depression. He gave me no direct answer, but said Instead: " 'I am on my way to Boston. Tbey have Invited me to deliver an address there on the evening of Forefathers' Day. "They asked me last year, but I was unable to go to Boston then That New York address, so far as Its success was concerned, was as great a surprise to me as it could have been to any of those who invited me to speak at the New England dinner.' "Having said this, Grady buried his face in his hands. I thought that he was fearful that he would not maintain main-tain at Boston the reputation he had gained three years earlier In New York. I asked him if he was to speak upon the same subject. 'The New South." How fervid was his rhetoric upon that occasion! With what perfection per-fection of the spoken word he prophesied prophe-sied the future of the united coun- g . : try! How apt were his metaphors, entirely free from any grandiloquent flourish, the more effective by reason of their simplicity! I thought of this and I wondered whether he would be able at Boston to stir the sons of New England In the New England capital as he had moved the sons of New England in New York. "He must have known what was In my mind, for Jie said that he was not at all concerned about the effect of his Bpeech in Boston. And he was not going to speak of the new south, but of some phases of the negro question 'It will be a more serious subject than the one I chose for New York because the negro question Is the grave one of the South." he continued 'But I am going to tell them about It exactly what I think." "Again Grady stopped, and once more rested his face in his hands At last he said: "I don't know what has come 5v6r nie. I have npt the slightest anxiety about my Boston speech, but I can't shake off this feeling feel-ing of depression. If I were superstitious, supersti-tious, I should say that It is portentous.' porten-tous.' "I suggested to . him that perhaps his stomach was out of order. " 'No,' he replied, 'it is not that. But I don't know what it is I went to New York with a light heart, and with real enthusiasm. I go to Boston laboring under this depression ' "He tried to shake off the feeling, we chatted for a while, and then, with a forced cheerfulness, he bade me good bye. A few days later I read the reports In the papers of Grady's Boston address, learned that he had maintained his New York reputation, and I said to myself: 'Now that fit of depression will pass.' "A few days later the news came from Atlanta that Henry W. Grady was dead. It Is my recollection that he caught a cold at Boston which developed de-veloped swiftly into mortal disease. And I have never had any doubt that some monition had come to him of what his destiny was to be the real explanation of the depression that he was laboring -under when last I saw him." (Copyright, 1010, by E. J. Edwards. All Rights Reserved.) |