Paul O. Husting

Paul Oscar Husting (April 25, 1866 – October 21, 1917) was a member of the Democratic Party who represented Wisconsin in the United States Senate from 1915 to 1917.

Biography

He was born in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin of Luxembourgish and Metis ancestry and graduated from the University of Wisconsin Law School. His grandfather, Solomon Juneau, was Mayor of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He began his political career as an attorney and served as the district attorney of Dodge County from 1902 to 1906, and in the Wisconsin State Senate from 1907 to 1913. He was elected to the United States Senate in 1914 and served in the Senate from 1915 until his death. He was chairman of the Committee on Fisheries during 1917 and chairman of a committee investigating trespasses on Indian lands during his entire time in the Senate.

He was killed in a duck hunting accident on Rush Lake near Pickett, Wisconsin, the only United States senator known to have been killed this way. According to the New York Times, while rising in a row boat after telling him to fire, the Senator's brother Gustave shot him accidentally in the back. He died later in the day. He is interred at the Graceland Cemetery in Mayville, Wisconsin.

Husting's death was of political importance. In 1919 the Senate would have been under Democratic control had he not been succeeded by a Republican (in 1919 the Senate had 49 Republicans and 47 Democrats and the Vice-President was a Democrat).

References

• Paul O. Husting at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress