Husting entered the University of Wisconsin Law School, passed the state bar examination, and was admitted to the bar in 1895. He initially practiced law in Mayville by himself, but in 1897 associated himself with C. W. Lamoreux until the latter was elected judge, upon which the firm of Husting & Brother was formed.[1][2]
Public office
Husting was elected district attorney of Dodge County in 1902 and reelected in 1904.[2] He was elected to the state senate in 1906, and reelected in 1910. In the state senate, he advocated conservation of the state's natural resources, the income tax, the "Husting bill" establishing a maximum passenger railroad fare of two cents per mile, initiative and referendum, and direct election of United States senators. He offered the original resolution to investigate, and assisted in the investigation of, the Wisconsin primary and election of 1908, which resulted in the enactment of the state's Corrupt Practices Act.[2]
Husting was the first United States senator from Wisconsin to be elected by a direct vote of the people, defeating the incumbent Governor, Francis E. McGovern, at the November 1914 election by 967 votes.[2] He succeeded Isaac Stephenson as the United States senator on March 4, 1915, and served in the Senate from 1915 until his death. During his time in the U.S. Senate, he was chairman of the Committee on Fisheries during 1917 and chairman of a special committee investigating trespasses on Indian lands during his entire time in the Senate.
Husting was the only Democrat to win a state-wide election in Wisconsin between 1892 and 1932.
Death and political consequences
Photo from the Library of Congress
Husting was killed in a duck hunting accident on Rush Lake near Pickett, Wisconsin. While rising in a row boat after telling his brother Gustav to fire, Gustav accidentally shot his brother in the back. Husting fell into a coma, and died later that same day. The New York Times described him as "the most aggressive leader" of the "loyalist" (e.g. supportive of Woodrow Wilson's pro-Allied policies) forces in Wisconsin, and contrasted him with "Senator La Follette and the pro-German constituency behind him".[3] He is interred on the Husting family plot at Graceland Cemetery in Mayville.[4]
Husting's death was of political importance. In 1919 the Senate would have been under Democratic control had he not been succeeded by Republican Irvine Lenroot, as a consequence of which in 1919 the Senate had 49 Republicans and 47 Democrats (Vice-PresidentThomas R. Marshall was a Democrat, and had the power to break all ties).
Personal life and family
Paul Husting was the second of seven children born to John P. and Mary M. (née Juneau) Husting. John P. Husting had emigrated to Wisconsin from the Grand Duchy of Luxemburg in 1855. Mary M. Juneau was the twelfth of sixteen children born to Solomon Juneau—the co-founder and first mayor of Milwaukee, Wisconsin.[2]
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