The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 70, July 1966 - April, 1967 Page: 474

Southwestern Historical Quarterly

zlatiotN Ckfer's DZ/ar:
co rexas i 1888
Edited by JOHN HAMMOND MOORE
THE MOST DELIGHTFUL TIME THAT I HAVE EVER SPENT!" WAS
a fifteen-year-old Atlanta youth's reaction to a ten-day
trip to Texas in the fall of 1888. Well might this young
man have reveled in the luxuries of a private car, servants, and
lavish attention, for he was destined to have an exotic career as
bon vivant, world traveler, writer, and social leader.
The author of this diary, Telamon Cruger Cuyler Smith, was
the son of Captain and Mrs. Henry Hunter Smith, who moved
to Atlanta shortly after young Telamon was born in Rome,
Georgia, on July 2, 1873. The youth became a close companion
of Henry Grady, whose father, Henry W. Grady, was the edi-
tor of the Atlanta Constitution and the spokesman for the
"New South." In October, 1888, when officials of the Texas
State Fair invited Grady to the Lone Star state, the editor
decided to take the two boys with him. Traveling in private cars
of the Louisville & Nashville Railroad-a line in which Grady
had invested with considerable success-the party included six-
teen persons. Among them, in addition to Grady and the two
boys, were Evan P. Howell, publisher of the Constitution;
Grady's secretary, James R. Holliday; a former governor of
Georgia, Henry E. McDaniel; the newspaper's office boy, Roscoe
Anderson; a barber named Bob Steele; and three Negro serv-
ants. Eckstein Norton, president of the Louisville & Nashville,
joined the group at Memphis, Tennessee. Proceeding across
Arkansas, they ventured briefly into Indian Territory and then
moved on to Dallas, where Grady delivered a stirring address
on two vital issues of the day: race relations and industrial
growth. The Atlanta editor and his friends then traveled
to Austin, San Antonio, Houston, and Galveston, returning
home via New Orleans.
Upon his completion of a law degree at the University of

474