Authors' Club
an American or- Austria proper after it had thus been stripped of its richest provinces. On ganization founded in New York City in Nov. 13, two days after the Emperor's 1882, and incorporated in 1887. It is abdication, the National Assembly de- governed by an executive committee manded the creation of a republic without a president. Any person who that should bear the name of German is the author of a published book proper Austria, and arrangements were made to literature, or of creditable literary for the election of a National Constituent work equivalent to such a book, is eli- Assembly on the basis of universal suf-gible to membership. frage. That election took place on Feb. AUTHORS' LEAGUE OF AMER- 16, 1919, and the new body proceeded to frame a constitution. A desire prevailed to unite with Germany, but this was later forbidden by the Peace Conference.
The framing of the peace treaty with Germany took so much time that it was June 2, 1919, before the Austrian terms were handed to the Austrian delegates at St. Germain-en-Laye, a suburb of Paris. The treaty followed closely the lines of the German treaty. Austria was compelled to recognize the new states of Czecho-Slovakia, Jugoslavia, and Hungary, and to cede large portions of her remaining territory to Italy and Poland.
Of her former population of about 50,- 000,000, she lost 43,000,000, and her former area of 240,000 square miles was reduced proportionately. She renounced her extra-European rights, accepted the League of Nations covenant and agreed to demobilize her aerial forces. Other economic and political concessions were demanded by the Treaty, which bore heavily on the vanquished state. As in the case of Germany, the Austrians protested vigorously against what they called the harshness of the Allied terms , but after several months of correspondence and counter-proposals the treaty ICA, an organization of authors formed to protect their interests and those of others engaged in the production of books and works of art, especially with reference to copyright. The league gives business advice to its members and provides confidential information in regard to publishers, managers, and others engaged in the sale of copyright material .
Allied to the League is the Authors ' League Fund, which has the object of furnishing assistance to authors and others in temporary financial difficulties.
The league holds annual meetings at which questions affecting writers and publishers are discussed.
AUTOCHTHONES' (a-tok'thō-nēz), the Greek name for the original inhabitants of a country, not settlers, considered as having sprung from the soil itself. The Athenians were fond of being SO called; were fond of being so called; the ancients counted among autochthonous races also the Arcadians, Latins, Gauls, and Scythians. The Latin equivalent term was aborigines.