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 U.S. House of Representatives.

Career

Richard Austin attended the common schools and then studied until 1873 at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. After a subsequent law degree in 1878 and its recent approval as a lawyer, 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 at the Ministry of Postal Services; after he was between 1881 and 1883 Deputy Doorkeeper in the U.S. House of Representatives. In the following two years until 1885, he served as Special Agent for the War Department. 1885 Austin worked for some time in the newspaper industry in Knoxville, before he returned to his hometown of Decatur, where he worked as a lawyer. In 1888 he was private secretary to Congressman Leonidas C. Houk of Tennessee. After that, he was urban lawyer in Decatur.

Politically, Austin member of the Republican Party. In 1890 he ran unsuccessfully for Congress yet. Two years later he was a delegate to the Republican National Convention in Minneapolis, on the U.S. President Benjamin Harrison was nominated for re-election. Since 1893, Austin was alive again in Knoxville, where he edited the newspaper " Knoxville Republican ." From 1897 to 1906 he served as U.S. Marshal for the Eastern part of the state Tennessee; after he was between July 1906 and November 1907 American Consul in Glasgow ( Scotland).

In the congressional elections of 1908 Austin was elected in the second district of Tennessee in the U.S. House of Representatives in Washington, where he became the successor of Nathan W. Hale on March 4, 1909. After four elections he was able to complete in Congress until March 3, 1919 five legislative sessions. In this time of the First World War fell. In 1913, the 16th and the 17th Amendment to the Constitution in Congress were adopted. Richard Austin in 1918 was not nominated by his party for re-election. He died on April 20, 1919, just weeks after the end of his last term, in the federal capital Washington and was buried in Knoxville.