1922 Encyclopædia Britannica/Hainisch, Michael

HAINISCH, MICHAEL (1856-), Austrian official and writer, president of the Austrian Federal Republic from Dec. 8 1921, was born Aug. 15 1856. He was originally a lawyer and an official of the Treasury and of the Education Department, but retired to his estates in Lower Austria and Styria, where he carried on model farming, became a leader of the Austrian branch of the Fabian movement, and one of the founders of the Central People's Library. Holding aloof from political parties, he was chosen Federal president because of his personal authority, although he was not a member of Parliament, nor a candidate for the presidency. He was a fertile author of works on sociology and politics: Zukunft der Oesterreicher (1892); Zur Wahlreform (1895); Kampf ums Dasein und Sozialpolitik (1899); Heimarbeit (1906); Fleischnot und Alpine Landwirtschaft. Once a Radical Socialist, he became with advancing years a Conservative Agrarian. During the World War he introduced grain monopoly.