Farewell to a wag, an orator

"I could have been a great politician if only I had started right," Herbert Hyde once remarked. "Unfortunately, my mother taught me to tell the truth."

Despite such limitations, Hyde, who died last week at age 80 of leukemia, turned out to be a pretty fair politician. He served off and on in the legislature in the 1960s, 1970s and 1990s, was chairman of the state Democratic Party and state secretary of crime control and public safety. He tried to become attorney general and lieutenant governor; but as the man said, he wasn't a great politician.

In an age of cookie-cutter politicians with blow-dried hair and telegenic smiles, Hyde was a mountain original.

"I remember him as Lincoln-like," said Wade Smith, a Raleigh lawyer. "He was rough-hewn. Plain features. No pretension of any kind whatsoever. Plain clothing. Plain haircut. Plain glasses. Real as real can be."

But there was nothing plain about his mind. The Asheville lawyer could quote at will from the Bible or from the complete works of William Shakespeare, books he always kept near. He kept a well-thumbed copy of the U.S. Constitution in his jacket pocket.

Hyde was a living piece of Americana -- a plug of tobacco or a cigar in his mouth during the day, switching to a beer and a sour pickle at night.

He was a reminder of an earlier era. Hyde liked to note that his great-grandfather and Thomas Jefferson breathed the same mountain air in 1826.

Storytelling came naturally to mountaineers such as Hyde. His grandmother once said their one-room mountain cabin had holes large enough to throw a dog through.

Hyde and U.S. Sen. Sam Ervin Jr. -- another mountain lawyer and former state legislator -- may have been the two best orators ever to grace the halls of the legislature.

In 1973, Hyde defeated a bill to outlaw cussing in Swain County -- one of two North Carolina counties where it was still permitted.

"There ought to be a refuge somewhere," Hyde said, "where a man could go and when he really is provoked that he can say something with impunity."

Hyde spoke out against a '60s law banning communists from speaking on state-supported campuses, for passage of the Equal Rights Amendment, and for education.

Hyde was sometimes called a Tar Heel Mark Twain. Here are three examples of Hyde-isms:

* "Some folks say there is no humor in government. That is untrue. There are many jokes there. I know. I am personally acquainted with several of them."

* "Most self-made men I know brag about their product. That's all right with me. At least it takes a mighty big burden off the Good Lord."

* "I am a lawyer and a Democrat and a politician. Perhaps I should stop right there, because I have already told you too much."

Last Saturday night, Hyde was honored in absentia by the Democrats at a fundraising dinner in Asheville. He died the next day.

It was quite an honor for a man who claimed he was "born in a log cabin -- which I built myself."