William Ewart Humphrey (March 31, 1862 – February 14, 1934) was an American politician who served as a member of the United States House of Representatives from 1903 to 1917.

[1] When the economic Panic of 1893 struck, he moved to Seattle, Washington, continuing to practice law.

[2] Humphrey was elected as a Republican to fill Washington's new third seat in the House of Representatives in 1902.

President Calvin Coolidge appointed Humphrey as a member of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in 1925, and he was reappointed for another six-year term in 1931.

[3] Humphrey, however, refused to recognize his dismissal, and brought a lawsuit in the United States Court of Claims to seek compensation for his continued employment, and legal questions from the lawsuit went (posthumously) before the United States Supreme Court in Humphrey's Executor v. United States, 295 U.S. 602 (1935), in which the Court ruled that Roosevelt's decision to terminate Humphrey violated an express limitation on presidential power set forth by Congress in the Federal Trade Commission Act.