James M. Hyde
Encyclopedia
James M. Hyde was a metallurgist who was noted for inventing a process that revolutionized the American mining industry. He was also a member of the Los Angeles, California, City Council from 1931 to 1939.
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Hyde was born June 25, 1873, in Mystic Bridge, Connecticut
, the son of William Penn Hyde and Seraphine Smith Carr. He studied mining engineering and geology at Stanford University
, where he was an instructor in assaying before graduating in 1901. In 1916 he moved from Littleton, Colorado
, to Palo Alto, California
, and he was married in 1923 to Bessie Lorraine Ransom. They had one daughter, Helen Elizabeth. Hyde resigned from Stanford in 1927 and moved to Los Angeles.
He died July 18, 1943, in his home at 1300-3/4 North Sycamore Avenue in Hollywood.
as curator of its museum and then was advanced to the position of bureau secretary. He resigned in July 1901, and in November 1902 made "charges of the most sensational character" against state Mineralogist Lewis E. Aubury over what was termed "Mismanagement, . . . public advertisement of private interests and a desire for personal aggrandizement." The board met and decided by unanimous vote, "That the matter . . . be ignored entirely."
In 1989 Hyde was posthumously inducted into the National Mining Hall of Fame and Museum in Leadville, Colorado, as a result of his installation of the first froth flotation
process in the United States. The museum states:
Hyde learned about flotation when working in the London, England, laboratories of Minerals Separation, Limited
, and when his contract expired, he went to work for mining specialist Herbert Hoover
, later the President of the United States. He was assigned to study the Butte and Superior Copper Company
for possible investment and to experiment with various forms of flotation.
Hyde's patent, however, did not remain uncontested. He was sued by his former employer, Minerals Separation, and the case went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which held in 1916 that he had infringed some patents but not the main one claimed.
Other litigation followed.
After Hyde's resignation from Stanford, he continued his mining ventures, including an attempt in 1935 to reopen the Good Hope Mine
in Riverside County. A state inquiry was held in 1935 on the financing of this mine.
In 1925 Hyde became a candidate himself—for the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate, but Republican Senator Samuel M. Shortridge
was renominated and reelected the next year.
by Mayor John C. Porter, serving until 1930, when he had a disagreement with Porter and "resigned to develop a mine."
In the 1930s, the 2nd District was generally Hollywood west of Vermont
, north of Melrose and west to Beverly Hills. Hyde ousted incumbent Councilman Thomas F. Cooke
from his 2nd District seat in 1931 and was reelected every two years until the election of 1939, when he was defeated by Norris J. Nelson
. In that year Hyde was said to be the victim of a "purge" of the City Council directed by Mayor Fletcher Bowron
.
1932 In an open letter, he attacked the Rev. Martin Luther Thomas, chief investigator for City Prosecutor Johnson, claiming Thomas was engaged in a "racket " of soliciting money, to be sent to the City Hall. Hyde claimed that "highly profitable gambling, bootlegging, etc.," were thriving openly under Mayor John C. Porter.
1933 He introduced a resolution asking for a State Senate inquiry into vice conditions
in Los Angeles, claiming that intimate relations existed among "criminals, peace officers, law-enforcement agencies and unscrupulous politicians" and demanding investigation by an outside agency.
1934 Hyde also introduced a resolution that would have put the council on record in opposition to public assistance to the unemployed in favor of a plan that would have governmental agencies help in granting credit to "those who can create employment for themselves and others." He said prosperity depended on individual initiative, not "artificially created public works."
1935 Turning his back on the Republican Party, he worked for the election of Upton Sinclair
's End Poverty in California team on the grounds that Sinclair's proposals were more conservative than those of Governor Frank Merriam
.
1935 Hyde was accused of asking "patent paving" contractors and others to invest in his Good Hope Mine
venture, but he said he always kept his private business separate from his City Council activities.
1936 Hyde and Councilman Parley Parker Christensen were able to block the allocation of $2,000 to deliver to Berlin, Germany, the flag that had flown over the 1932 Olympics
in Los Angeles. The two council members "assailed Hitler and Nazism and said their constituents did not want the city to spend public money" to send the Games flag to Germany.
1938 Hyde charged that the telephone in his office had been tapped, probably by the Police Department, and he asked for a grand jury
investigation. According to a subsequent letter from Mayor Frank L. Shaw
, a City Hall investigation found that "Councilman Hyde's telephone has not been tapped [and] could not conceivably have been tapped," and Shaw charged Hyde with "behavior unbecoming an official of this city."
1938 The councilman was named chairman of a five-man City Council committee that was authorized to investigate the police department.
Biography
Hyde was born June 25, 1873, in Mystic Bridge, Connecticut
Mystic Bridge Historic District
Mystic Bridge Historic District is a historic district on U.S. 1 and CT 27 in the Stonington side of the village of Mystic, Connecticut. The district represents the core of the early settlement of that name on the east bank of the Mystic River.The district features Queen Anne and Italianate...
, the son of William Penn Hyde and Seraphine Smith Carr. He studied mining engineering and geology at Stanford University
Stanford University
The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...
, where he was an instructor in assaying before graduating in 1901. In 1916 he moved from Littleton, Colorado
Littleton, Colorado
Littleton is a Home Rule Municipality contained in Arapahoe, Douglas, and Jefferson counties in the U.S. state of Colorado. Littleton is a suburb of the Denver-Aurora Metropolitan Statistical Area. Littleton is the county seat of Arapahoe County and the 20th most populous city in the state of...
, to Palo Alto, California
Palo Alto, California
Palo Alto is a California charter city located in the northwest corner of Santa Clara County, in the San Francisco Bay Area of California, United States. The city shares its borders with East Palo Alto, Mountain View, Los Altos, Los Altos Hills, Stanford, Portola Valley, and Menlo Park. It is...
, and he was married in 1923 to Bessie Lorraine Ransom. They had one daughter, Helen Elizabeth. Hyde resigned from Stanford in 1927 and moved to Los Angeles.
He died July 18, 1943, in his home at 1300-3/4 North Sycamore Avenue in Hollywood.
Metallurgy and mining
In 1900 Hyde went to work for the California State Mining BureauCalifornia Geological Survey
Although it was not until 1880 that the California State Mining Bureau, predecessor to the California Geological Survey, was established, the "roots" of California's state geological survey date to an earlier time...
as curator of its museum and then was advanced to the position of bureau secretary. He resigned in July 1901, and in November 1902 made "charges of the most sensational character" against state Mineralogist Lewis E. Aubury over what was termed "Mismanagement, . . . public advertisement of private interests and a desire for personal aggrandizement." The board met and decided by unanimous vote, "That the matter . . . be ignored entirely."
In 1989 Hyde was posthumously inducted into the National Mining Hall of Fame and Museum in Leadville, Colorado, as a result of his installation of the first froth flotation
Froth flotation
Froth flotation is a process for selectively separating hydrophobic materials from hydrophilic. This is used in several processing industries...
process in the United States. The museum states:
Without this process, there would be no mining industry as we know it today: virtually the entire world of copper, lead, zie and silver is first collected in the froth of the flotation process. . . . Froth flotation has permitted the mining of low-grade and complex ores that otherwise would have been unprofitable, and thanks to James Hyde, many old "worthless" tailings dumps have been converted into profitable mines.
Hyde learned about flotation when working in the London, England, laboratories of Minerals Separation, Limited
Minerals Separation, Limited
Minerals Separation Ltd, was a small London-based company involved in developing a technique of ore extraction. Between 1910 and 1912, Minerals Separation Limited obtained a license to use a process of ore dressing known as De Bavay's Sulphide Process....
, and when his contract expired, he went to work for mining specialist Herbert Hoover
Herbert Hoover
Herbert Clark Hoover was the 31st President of the United States . Hoover was originally a professional mining engineer and author. As the United States Secretary of Commerce in the 1920s under Presidents Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge, he promoted partnerships between government and business...
, later the President of the United States. He was assigned to study the Butte and Superior Copper Company
Copper mining in the United States
Copper mining in the United States has been a major industry since the rise of the northern Michigan copper district in the 1840s. In 2007 the United States produced 1.19 million metric tonnes of copper, worth $8.8 billion, making it the world's third largest copper producer, after Chile and Peru...
for possible investment and to experiment with various forms of flotation.
Hyde demonstrated great intuition and genius, by designing a unit with two sections, one of rougher cells and the other of cleaner cells. The rougher concentrate was cleaned in the cleaner cells and the cleaner tailingsTailingsTailings, also called mine dumps, slimes, tails, leach residue, or slickens, are the materials left over after the process of separating the valuable fraction from the uneconomic fraction of an ore...
were returned to the rougher cells. This was the first time the “rougher-cleaner circuit” was employed and the procedure has never been disputed. He was awarded a patent on the process in 1911.
Hyde's patent, however, did not remain uncontested. He was sued by his former employer, Minerals Separation, and the case went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which held in 1916 that he had infringed some patents but not the main one claimed.
. . . there were many investigators at work in this field to which the process in suit relates when the patentees [Minerals Separation] came into it, and it was while engaged in study of prior kindred processes that their discovery was made. While the evidence in this case makes it clear that they discovered the final step which converted experiment into solution, "turned failure into success" . . . yet the investigations preceding were so informing that this final step was not a long one, and the patent must be confined to the results obtained by the use of oil within the proportions often described in the testimony and in the claims of the patent as "critical proportions." . . .
Other litigation followed.
After Hyde's resignation from Stanford, he continued his mining ventures, including an attempt in 1935 to reopen the Good Hope Mine
Good Hope Mine
Good Hope Mine was the principal gold mine in the Pinacate Mining District, Riverside County, California.Good Hope Mine was reputedly discovered by a Frenchman named Mache, although the washes in the area were originally placer mined by Mexicans in the 1850's during the California Gold Rush using...
in Riverside County. A state inquiry was held in 1935 on the financing of this mine.
Federal
By March 1920, Hyde was active in Republican politics, working as an engineer for Herbert Hoover, who was being mentioned as a candidate for President. Concerning Hoover's campaign intentions, Hyde was "believed by political observers to speak with more authority than any other San Franciscan."In 1925 Hyde became a candidate himself—for the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate, but Republican Senator Samuel M. Shortridge
Samuel M. Shortridge
Samuel Morgan Shortridge was a Republican Senator from California.A descendant of Daniel Boone, he was born in Mount Pleasant, Iowa and moved to California as a child with his family, which settled in San Jose in 1875. He practiced law in San Francisco, California for most of his life.He lost the...
was renominated and reelected the next year.
Los Angeles
Hyde, who in 1929 was living at 1954 Argyle Avenue, Hollywood, was appointed to the Los Angeles Board of Public WorksPublic works
Public works are a broad category of projects, financed and constructed by the government, for recreational, employment, and health and safety uses in the greater community...
by Mayor John C. Porter, serving until 1930, when he had a disagreement with Porter and "resigned to develop a mine."
Elections
See also List of Los Angeles municipal election returns, 1931–39In the 1930s, the 2nd District was generally Hollywood west of Vermont
Vermont Avenue
Vermont Avenue is one of the longest running north/south streets in Los Angeles, California with a length of about . Located just west of the Harbor Freeway for the major portion south of Downtown Los Angeles, it starts in Griffith Park at the Greek Theatre in the Los Feliz neighborhood as a...
, north of Melrose and west to Beverly Hills. Hyde ousted incumbent Councilman Thomas F. Cooke
Thomas F. Cooke
Thomas F. Cooke was an Iowa and California banker and a City Council member in Los Angeles, California, between 1929 and 1931.-Biography:...
from his 2nd District seat in 1931 and was reelected every two years until the election of 1939, when he was defeated by Norris J. Nelson
Norris J. Nelson
Norris J. Nelson was a member of the Los Angeles, California, City Council from 1939 to 1943, after which he served in Europe with the U.S. Army.-Biography:...
. In that year Hyde was said to be the victim of a "purge" of the City Council directed by Mayor Fletcher Bowron
Fletcher Bowron
Fletcher Bowron was the 35th Mayor of Los Angeles, California from September 26, 1938 until June 30, 1953. Until Thomas Bradley passed his length of service during the 1980s, Bowron held the distinction of having the longest tenure in that position in city history.Bowron was born in Poway,...
.
Controversies
1931 Hyde voted against instructing the city attorney to appeal a judge's decision ordering the city to stop the practice of segregating its swimming pools by race, a decision that was put into effect in summer 1931. The vote was 6 in favor of an appeal and 8 opposed, including Hyde, a decision that resulted in the pools being immediately desegregated.1932 In an open letter, he attacked the Rev. Martin Luther Thomas, chief investigator for City Prosecutor Johnson, claiming Thomas was engaged in a "racket " of soliciting money, to be sent to the City Hall. Hyde claimed that "highly profitable gambling, bootlegging, etc.," were thriving openly under Mayor John C. Porter.
1933 He introduced a resolution asking for a State Senate inquiry into vice conditions
Vice
Vice is a practice or a behavior or habit considered immoral, depraved, or degrading in the associated society. In more minor usage, vice can refer to a fault, a defect, an infirmity, or merely a bad habit. Synonyms for vice include fault, depravity, sin, iniquity, wickedness, and corruption...
in Los Angeles, claiming that intimate relations existed among "criminals, peace officers, law-enforcement agencies and unscrupulous politicians" and demanding investigation by an outside agency.
1934 Hyde also introduced a resolution that would have put the council on record in opposition to public assistance to the unemployed in favor of a plan that would have governmental agencies help in granting credit to "those who can create employment for themselves and others." He said prosperity depended on individual initiative, not "artificially created public works."
1935 Turning his back on the Republican Party, he worked for the election of Upton Sinclair
Upton Sinclair
Upton Beall Sinclair Jr. , was an American author who wrote close to one hundred books in many genres. He achieved popularity in the first half of the twentieth century, acquiring particular fame for his classic muckraking novel, The Jungle . It exposed conditions in the U.S...
's End Poverty in California team on the grounds that Sinclair's proposals were more conservative than those of Governor Frank Merriam
Frank Merriam
Frank Finley Merriam was an American politician who served as the 28th governor of California from June 2, 1934 until January 2, 1939...
.
1935 Hyde was accused of asking "patent paving" contractors and others to invest in his Good Hope Mine
Good Hope Mine
Good Hope Mine was the principal gold mine in the Pinacate Mining District, Riverside County, California.Good Hope Mine was reputedly discovered by a Frenchman named Mache, although the washes in the area were originally placer mined by Mexicans in the 1850's during the California Gold Rush using...
venture, but he said he always kept his private business separate from his City Council activities.
1936 Hyde and Councilman Parley Parker Christensen were able to block the allocation of $2,000 to deliver to Berlin, Germany, the flag that had flown over the 1932 Olympics
1932 Summer Olympics
The 1932 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the X Olympiad, was a major world wide multi-athletic event which was celebrated in 1932 in Los Angeles, California, United States. No other cities made a bid to host these Olympics. Held during the worldwide Great Depression, many nations...
in Los Angeles. The two council members "assailed Hitler and Nazism and said their constituents did not want the city to spend public money" to send the Games flag to Germany.
1938 Hyde charged that the telephone in his office had been tapped, probably by the Police Department, and he asked for a grand jury
Grand jury
A grand jury is a type of jury that determines whether a criminal indictment will issue. Currently, only the United States retains grand juries, although some other common law jurisdictions formerly employed them, and most other jurisdictions employ some other type of preliminary hearing...
investigation. According to a subsequent letter from Mayor Frank L. Shaw
Frank L. Shaw
Frank L. Shaw was the first mayor of a major American city to be recalled from office, in 1938. He was also a member of the Los Angeles City Council and then the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors...
, a City Hall investigation found that "Councilman Hyde's telephone has not been tapped [and] could not conceivably have been tapped," and Shaw charged Hyde with "behavior unbecoming an official of this city."
1938 The councilman was named chairman of a five-man City Council committee that was authorized to investigate the police department.