William Hyde (journalist)

Hyde began his newspaper career around the time of the adoption by Congress in 1854 of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which effectively repealed the Missouri Compromise, stoking national tensions over the extension of slavery. He wrote editorials for the Belleville Tribune in defense of Stephen A. Douglas, the principal backer of the legislation, and then took a partnership in the newspaper.[1][3] In 1856 he edited the Sterling (Illinois) Times[3] and also worked actively for James Buchanan, the successful Democratic candidate for president.[4][10]

He next went to Springfield, the state capital, in the hope of being elected clerk of the Illinois House of Representatives. Instead, on January 8, 1856, he became the correspondent there for the Missouri Republican while also being a committee clerk. He was said to have been the first reporter west of the Mississippi River to receive and send a news message on the wires.[3][4][10]

In 1859, he made a notable trip in a balloon with three other men, from St. Louis to Jefferson County, New York, an estimated eight hundred miles, a distance flight that was not bested for half a century. The others were balloon builder John La Mountain, balloonist John Wise and Vermont businessman O.A. Gager.[4][11]

Under the editorship of Nathaniel Paschall, Hyde was promoted to city editor of the Republican in 1860. He became managing editor in 1866, upon Paschall's death. He directed the editorial policy in that position for nineteen years.[1][4][12]

Hyde was a loyal supporter of Samuel J. Tilden and played an important part in bringing the 1876 Democratic National Convention to St. Louis.[4]

He retired from the Republican in 1886 and, after a trip abroad, he was appointed by President Grover Cleveland as postmaster in St. Louis. Later, he published an unsuccessful newspaper called The Ballot in St. Joseph, Missouri. Hyde then went to Salt Lake City, where he became an editor on The Herald and helped organize the Democratic Party in Utah. He resigned, returned to St. Louis, and took a job in the post office.[4]

He began work on an encyclopedia of the history of St. Louis, which was completed after his death by Howard L. Conard.[4]

Hyde was reputed to be "a man of few words and of quick action".[13]

He was part of a delegation which went to Washington, D.C., to unsuccessfully lobby for the Democratic National Convention to be held in St. Louis. Articles in the Post-Dispatch accused the committee members of losing the bid because they were drunk.[14][15][16] It was said that when Hyde returned to St. Louis, "he found that the alleged disgrace attached to the asserted Washington spree had preceded him, and his blood began to boil."[17]

One of the articles was reprinted in the Globe-Democrat, whose managing editor was Joseph B. McCullagh, and when Hyde and McCullagh met by chance at Fourth Street and Olive, a sharp-tongued quarrel ensued.[18] The discord was ended when bystanders led the two in opposite directions.[19]

On March 1, the Post-Dispatch printed a verse which, according to the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, gave the idea "that Mr. Hyde had been mistaken by Washington people for a walking whisky-still."[16] Hyde threatened to thrash the "gentleman from Austria" (Joseph Pulitzer, publisher of the Post-Dispatch) "within an inch of his life."[20]

In the evening, Hyde encountered Pulitzer on Olive Street near Fourth; Hyde called him "a damned Austrian Jew" and struck him full in the face. The "stunning blow" knocked off Pulitzer's eyeglasses and scattered his papers. One witness said that Pulitzer drew a revolver, but it fell to the ground. The two grappled, and Pulitzer was struck again in the face; he fell to the sidewalk with Hyde on top of him, then they grappled in a gutter "full of mud and slush." Bystanders stopped the combat, and Hyde walked away. Pulitzer was helped into a barber shop and rubbed down.[14][16][17][21]

Hyde narrowly escaped injury during a fire on May 24, 1870, which destroyed the Republican building on Chestnut Street. The St. Louis Globe-Democrat reported that Hyde "had a valuable private library in his room, [and] rushed up to save some of the books" by throwing a dozen of them out a window before his retreat was cut off and he "incontinently plunged through the fire," escaping with a few minor bruises.[22]