Edgar Hinde

Edgar Hinde was an Independence officer whose connection to Harry S. Truman ran from the Army’s wartime camp in Oklahoma to local electioneering in Missouri. A friend, witness, and campaign worker, Hinde preserved contrasting glimpses of Truman: the nervous new commander facing a skeptical battery, the morally disciplined officer in France, and the candidate urged to seek Ku Klux Klan backing. Hinde’s role matters not because the record supplies a full account of his life, but because his recollections and interventions illuminate both Truman’s military reputation and the political pressures surrounding his first campaign.

Identity and Military Friendship

Hinde was among the fellow officers from Independence whom Truman counted as one of his real pals while serving at Camp Doniphan. Their association belonged to a close military circle that also included Sergeant Edward Jacobson, Father L. Curds Tiernan, Edgar Hinde, Spencer Salisbury, and Roger Sermon. Later, Hinde remembered Truman not only as a fellow officer but as a friend whose conduct could be judged under the demanding circumstances of Army life.

In describing Truman’s moral character, Hinde recalled that he was among the cleanest men he had known and said he had never seen him do anything questionable. Hinde considered the Army a searching test of a person’s morals. His testimony therefore tied Truman’s reputation not to abstract praise but to the setting in which he had observed him: military life, where, in Hinde’s view, conduct faced a particularly stringent test. The recollection became one of the personal assessments that helped establish the image of Truman as a man of unusual rectitude.

Witness to Truman’s Command

Hinde also recalled the doubts surrounding Truman’s appointment to command Battery D of the 2nd Battalion, 129th Field Artillery, known as Dizzy D. The battery had a reputation as a difficult unit, composed mostly of Irish Catholics from Kansas City. Hinde remembered that previous captains had failed to handle the men, and that Truman, a third-degree Mason, seemed to face a particularly rough assignment in a Catholic battery.

The new commander did not initially look like the figure the men expected to dominate a rowdy unit. Hinde recalled that the men were a “pretty wild bunch of Irish,” and described the suspicion that greeted Truman as they sized him up. The account complements the recollections of soldiers who thought the short, bespectacled captain looked more like a store clerk or professor than a forceful commander. Truman himself later said he had never been more terrified. Hinde’s memory thus places the battery’s wary reception alongside Truman’s own account of his fear, before his command could prove itself.

From Comrade to Campaign Worker

After the war, Hinde became one of the men who helped Truman campaign for eastern judge of Jackson County. When Truman spoke at a night rally in Sugar Creek, Hinde remembered the speech as “the poorest effort of a speech I ever heard in my life.” His blunt criticism did not mean he withdrew his support. Hinde, Edward McKim, Tom Murphy, and Ted Marks worked steadily for the campaign, knocking on doors, distributing leaflets, and appearing wherever help was needed. Murphy later recalled that they would do whatever was necessary for Truman.

The contrast is revealing: Hinde could judge Truman’s public speaking harshly while remaining committed to his candidacy. The campaign needed that practical work as well as Truman’s improving speeches. His supporters also circulated a flyer describing him as the most beloved captain and officer in France or elsewhere, drawing directly on the loyalty and reputation he had earned among the men who served with him. Hinde’s participation helped carry that wartime standing into county politics.

The Ku Klux Klan Dispute

Hinde’s political advice to Truman was more troubling. As the Ku Klux Klan gained strength in Jackson County, with crosses burned near Lee’s Summit and Klan support behind two of Truman’s opponents, Hinde urged him to join, believing it was “good politics.” Hinde had already become a member; he later explained that he joined “to see what was going on, you know.” He told Truman that a Klan organizer named Jones would meet him and that Klan backing could be secured if Truman joined.

Truman initially refused, but later gave Hinde ten dollars for membership and agreed to meet Jones privately at the Baltimore Hotel. When Jones demanded a promise that Truman would never hire Catholics if elected, Truman ended the discussion. He cited his command of a largely Catholic battery in France and insisted that he would choose employees as he saw fit. The money was apparently returned. Hinde’s role in this episode complicates the portrait of a loyal wartime friend: his counsel exposed Truman to a political bargain that would have repudiated the bonds and standards associated with his Army service. Hinde’s recollections elsewhere affirmed Truman’s moral cleanliness; here, his own appeal to expediency helped bring that character under pressure. Truman’s refusal, rather than Hinde’s recommendation, became the decisive act.