Richard W. Austin

Richard W. Austin

Richard Wilson Austin (born August 26, 1857 in Decatur , Alabama , †  April 20, 1919 in Washington, DC ) was an American politician . Between 1909 and 1919 he represented the state of Tennessee in the US House of Representatives .

Career

Richard Austin attended the public schools of his home country and then studied until 1873 at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville . After completing a law degree and being admitted to the bar in 1878, he began to practice in his new profession in Knoxville. In the following years he worked in various positions in the federal capital Washington. From 1879 to 1881 he was employed by the Ministry of Post; after that he was deputy door keeper in the US House of Representatives between 1881 and 1883 . In the following two years until 1885 he served as a special agent for the War Department . In 1885 Austin worked in the newspaper industry in Knoxville for some time before returning to his hometown of Decatur to practice law. In 1888 he was the private secretary of Congressman Leonidas C. Houk of Tennessee. Then he was a municipal lawyer in Decatur.

Politically, Austin was a member of the Republican Party . In 1890 he ran unsuccessfully for Congress . Two years later he was a delegate to the Republican National Convention in Minneapolis , where US President Benjamin Harrison was nominated for re-election. From 1893 Austin lived again in Knoxville, where he published the newspaper "Knoxville Republican". From 1897 to 1906 he served as US Marshal for the eastern part of the state of Tennessee; thereafter he was American consul in Glasgow ( Scotland ) between July 1906 and November 1907 .

In the congressional election of 1908 , Austin was elected to the US House of Representatives in Washington in the second constituency of Tennessee, where he succeeded Nathan W. Hale on March 4, 1909 . After four re-elections, he was able to complete five legislative terms in Congress by March 3, 1919 . During this time the First World War fell . In 1913, the 16th and 17th amendments to the Constitution were passed in Congress. In 1918 Richard Austin was no longer nominated for re-election by his party. He died on April 20, 1919, just a few weeks after the end of his last legislative term, in the federal capital, Washington, and was buried in Knoxville.

Web links

• Richard W. Austin in the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress (English)

• Richard W. Austin in the database of Find a Grave (English)