REID, WHITELAW (1837-1912), American journalist and diplomatist, was born of Scotch parentage, near Xenia, 0., on Oct. 27, 1837. He graduated at Miami University in 1856, and spoke frequently in behalf of John C. Fremont, the Republican candidate for the presidency in that year. In 1860 he became leg islative correspondent at Columbus for several Ohio newspapers, including the Cincinnati Gazette, of which he was made city editor in 1861. He was war correspondent for the Gazette in 1861-62, serving also as volunteer aide-de-camp to generals Thomas A. Morris, William S. Rosecrans in West Virginia, and was Wash ington correspondent of the Gazette in 1862-68. In 1868 he be came a leading editorial writer for the New York Tribune, in the following year was made managing editor, and in 1872, upon the death of Horace Greeley, became the principal proprietor and editor-in-chief. In 1905 Reid relinquished his active editorship of the Tribune, but retained financial control. He served as minister to France in 1889-92, and in 1892 was the unsuccessful Repub lican candidate for vice president on the ticket with Benjamin Harrison. In 1897 he was special ambassador of the United States
on the occasion of Queen Victoria's jubilee; in 1902 was special ambassador of the United States at the coronation of King Ed ward VII., and in 1905 became ambassador to Great Britain. In 1881 he married a daughter of Darius Ogden Mills (1825-1910), a prominent financier. He died in London on Dec. 15, 1912.
His publications include After the War (1867) ; Ohio in the War (1868) ; Some Consequences of the Last Treaty of Paris (1899) ; Our New Duties (1899) ; Later Aspects of Our New Duties (1899) ; Problems of Expansion (1900); The Greatest Fact in Modern History (1906) ; How America Faced its Educa tional Problem (1906) ; The Scot in America and the Ulster Scot (1912), and posthumously, American and English Studies (1913).
See Royal Cortissoz, The Life of Whitelaw Reid (1921).