Career 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Kansas-Nebraska Act, which effectively repealed the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. In 1859, he made a 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. 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. Hyde was a loyal supporter of
Samuel J. Tilden and played an important part in bringing the
1876 Democratic National Convention to St. Louis. 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. 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. The discord was ended when bystanders led the two in opposite directions. 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.
Building fire 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. ==Legacy==