Claudius H. Huston

Claudius Hart Huston (1876 – 1952) was a politician from the U.S. state of Tennessee.

Huston, a Republican from Chattanooga and a delegate to the 1924 Republican National Convention was chairman of the Transcontinental Oil Company, director of the International Germanic Trust Company of New York, and later chairman of the Republican National Committee.

Huston had also headed the Tennessee River Improvement Association, which maintained a Washington D.C. lobby to oppose government operation of a $150,000,000 power plant, built during World War I to make nitrates for gunpowder. The association favored acceptance of some private bid for the plant's use and Huston sent more than $156,000 to his office in Washington D.C. within a four year period. In 1928, he greatly helped write the Muscle Shoals plank in bipartisan platforms. His association lobbied for the Muscle Shoals bid of the American Cyanamid Co., under which Union Carbide Co. would get a share of surplus Muscle Shoals power.

In 1929, Huston had a stock account under a different name with Blyth & Bonner, a brokerage firm in Manhattan. After realizing he was $19,381 short, he solicited $22,000 from the head of Union Carbide, Fred H. Haggerson to keep his Muscle Shoals lobby alive and then put the money into his stock account. That June he obtained $14,100 from Haggerson which also went to Blyth & Bonner, as margin for the purchase of $46,000 worth of stocks. From that purchase, he was able to secure a profit of $526, which he later claimed in court was unpaid interest on money he advanced to the Tennessee River Improvement Association. Two months after he received the second contribution, he paid the association the full $36,100, in installments. This resulted in the investigation of Huston’s activities, which prompted many Republicans to demand his resignation as the party’s chairman.

His daughter Alice married Fulton Lewis, a famous television and radio broadcaster.

External links

• Political Graveyard
• The Nation, September 25, 1929
• New York Times
• Time Magazine March 31, 1930
• Time Magazine August 4, 1930
• Time Magazine March 15, 1943
• Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library

Party political offices
Preceded by Hubert Work	Chairman of the Republican National Committee 1929-1930	Succeeded by Simeon D. Fess