Hubert Durrett Stephens (July 2, 1875 – March 14, 1946) was an American lawyer and politician who served two terms as a Democratic United States Senator from Mississippi from 1923 until 1935.

[1] He served as a town alderman in New Albany for one term, then in 1907, he received an appointment to fill a vacancy as district attorney in the Third Judicial Circuit.

Stephens advocated for a free trade approach and thus opposed the protective tariff that was a hotly debated issue of the day.

He rose to the rank of vice chairman of the Banking and Currency Subcommittee, where he called the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 “the greatest piece of constructive legislation that has been enacted in the history of the nation.”[3] The district Stephens represented was agrarian and rural, leading the congressman to advocate for federal support for rural road and transportation development.

He opposed a bill limiting railroad employees to an eight-hour work day, but supported federalization of the nation’s railways during World War I.

Stephens aligned himself with others from the lower Mississippi Valley in the contentious debate over establishment of flood control plain in the region.

A prominent national magazine of the day cited Stephens as being “the only senator in recent times who has evinced a willingness to forego his right to talk.”[9] Stephens generally opposed liberal immigration policies, although he supported legislation paving the way for admission and naturalization of foreign women married to U.S. servicemen.

Prior to his death, he instructed that his official papers from his time in office be burned, leaving little available record of his public service.