David Franklin Houston (1866–1940)

David Franklin Houston distinguished himself in three careers: academic, political, and business. A political scientist by training, he rose to the chancellorship of Washington University in St. Louis. In 1913 President Woodrow Wilson appointed him secretary of agriculture, a position he held until 1920, when he became secretary of the treasury for a brief period. Leaving government in 1921, he eventually became chairman of the board of the Mutual Life Insurance Company.

Born in Monroe, North Carolina, on February 17, 1866, Houston went to South Carolina College and earned a BA degree in 1887. At age twenty-two he became superintendent of the Spartanburg, South Carolina, schools, serving the district until 1891. From Spartanburg, he went to Harvard University, earning an MA degree in 1892.

An opportunity to teach at the university level came in 1894 when Houston became adjunct professor of political science at the University of Texas. Though he never completed a doctoral degree, he published A Critical Study of Nullification in South Carolina as volume 3 in the Harvard Historical Studies Series in 1896, and Texas promoted him to associate professor in 1897. Texas A&M selected him as its president in 1902. Houston returned to the University of Texas as president in 1905. He was appointed chancellor of Washington University in 1908, a position he held officially until 1917, but in reality only until 1913, when he moved to Washington, DC, as secretary of agriculture.

Though Houston’s tenure as Washington University chancellor was short, historian Ralph E. Morrow concluded that “his place in the University’s history cannot be inferred from the length of his term.” A visionary thinker, Houston sought to give St. Louis a university in the top echelons of higher education. His address “A University for the Southwest,” given in 1908 to the city’s Commercial Club, spelled out the opportunity he saw for St. Louis to bolster its status as a great city by providing intellectual leadership within a region in which it already held extensive commercial ties. His vision focused on increasing undergraduate enrollment, but also on reshaping a half-century-old university as a new center for research and graduate studies. Houston was among a coterie of campus leaders, including Robert Somers Brookings, the university's president, who identified the medical school as a promising vehicle for enhancing Washington University’s reputation. During Houston’s tenure, the university began a reorganization of the medical school that put it on the path to becoming one of the nation’s and world’s top institutions for medicine. The reforms to the medical school fit in with other efforts to improve administrative practice and organize the faculty into more distinct departments, ushering Washington University, which had established its hilltop campus west of Forest Park just a few years before Houston’s arrival, into a more modern era.   

When Houston left St. Louis to serve in the Wilson administration, it was Colonel Edward House who served as his connection to the president. Houston had become acquainted with House while in Texas, and according to his memoirs, House approached him about a cabinet post not long after Wilson’s election to the presidency. Houston admired Wilson as a fellow academic and a “principled” man in government. When House asked him about a cabinet position, Houston chose secretary of agriculture because of the importance of farming to the nation.

US entrance into World War I made agriculture even more significant, and Houston and the nation moved quickly to meet the agricultural needs of the Allies. Congress appropriated more than $11 million and directed the Department of Agriculture to increase the production, conservation, and utilization of livestock and plants. This charge included a provision to supply seeds to farmers and to extend and enlarge the availability of market news to them. Both Congress and Houston sought to further develop the cooperative agricultural extension service. Houston’s department made surveys of the country’s food supply, gathered and disseminated information about farm products, and conserved food by preventing loss in storage and transit. The Department of Agriculture provided farmers with advice about market conditions and the distribution of perishable foods, sought to maintain the quality of agricultural products by investigating and certifying their condition, helped farmers secure an adequate labor force, and increased its research role. The department administered control of stockyards and supervised producers of ammonia, other fertilizers, and farm-equipment industries. 

While Houston’s department worked with production, Herbert Hoover and his Food Administration controlled and regulated the commercial distribution of food, promoting conservation and eliminating waste. The two agencies worked well together. Houston praised the administration and faculties of agricultural colleges for their support of his department’s work. Finally, a national advisory committee, created by Houston and Hoover, provided the perspective and advice of farmers and their organizations. In addition, five thousand extension workers linked this elaborate federal machinery to individual farmers. Houston wrote that these agents “constituted the . . . intimate touch with the millions of people in the farming districts.”

Houston’s career in government ended with Wilson’s departure from office. For the next twenty years he pursued a business career, achieving significant success. He was vice president of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company and president of Bell Telephone Company before becoming president of Mutual Life Insurance. Houston died in New York on September 2, 1940.