Sydney Anderson


Sydney Anderson was a Representative from Minnesota; born in Zumbrota, Minnesota, Goodhue County, Minnesota to a Norwegian-born mother and a Swedish-born father; attended the common schools; was graduated from high school in 1899; attended Highland Park College, Des Moines, Iowa, and the University of Minnesota at Minneapolis; studied law; was admitted to the bar in 1903 and commenced practice in Minneapolis, Minnesota; moved to Kansas City, Missouri, and thence to Lanesboro, Minnesota, and continued the practice of law from 1904–1911; served as a private in Company D, Fourteenth Regiment, Minnesota Volunteer Infantry, during the Spanish–American War.
In 1910 at the age of 30, he defeated incumbent James Albertus Tawney in the Republican primary election with the support of Theodore Roosevelt, Gifford Pinchot and other Progressive Republican, running on a platform of drastically reduced tariffs and opposition to Cannonism, and was subsequently elected to the 62nd, 63rd, 64th, 65th, 66th, 67th, and 68th congresses, ; chairman of the Congressional Joint Commission of Agricultural Inquiry in 1921 and 1922; declined to be a candidate for reelection in 1924 to the 69th congress; vice chairman of the research council of the National Transportation Institute at Washington, D.C., in 1923 and 1924; president of the Millers' National Federation, Chicago, and Washington, D.C., 1924–1929; vice president, secretary, and, later, member of the board of directors of General Mills, Inc., Minneapolis, Minnesota, 1930–1948; president of the Transportation Association of America, Chicago 1943–1948; died in Minneapolis, Minnesota; interment in Lakewood Cemetery.