[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 90 (Wednesday, June 23, 1999)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1363]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

[[Page E1363]]



              HAPPY 90TH BIRTHDAY, GOVERNOR ELMER ANDERSON

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. BRUCE F. VENTO

                              of minnesota

                    in the house of representatives

                        Wednesday, June 23, 1999

  Mr. VENTO. Mr. Speaker, today Governor Elmer L. Anderson is 90 years 
of age. My sincere best wishes and congratulations. While serving in 
public office, Elmer Anderson has had a profound impact shaping 
discourse as well as public, social and environmental policy in our 
state of Minnesota.
  Elmer Anderson is a businessman, public official and citizen--a 
Minnesota 20th century renaissance man. Happy Birthday, Governor 
Anderson.
  Mr. Speaker, I submit this June 17, 1999 St. Paul Pioneer Press 
article by Steve Dornfeld for the Record.

                [From the Pioneer Press, June 17, 1999]

                          A Minnesota Treasure

                           (Steven Dornfeld)

       Former Gov. Elmer L. Anderson has had more careers than 
     most of folks could manage in several lifetimes--politician, 
     corporate CEO, newspaper publisher, farmer, philanthropist 
     and civic leader. And he's been enormously successful at all 
     of them.
       But Anderson, who turns 90 today, will be remembered most 
     for his high ideals his innovative mind and his selfless 
     dedication to the public good throughout a life that spanned 
     most of the 20th century. He is a genuine Minnesota treasure.
       ``It would be pretty hard to quarrel with the notion that 
     Elmer Anderson is Minnesota's greatest living citizen,'' says 
     Tom Swain, a long-time friend who headed Anderson's 
     gubernatorial staff.
       The people who know Anderson best tend to speak of him in 
     superlatives.
       ``He's about the wisest, the most principled, the most 
     visionary person I have ever met,'' says former U.S. Sen. 
     Dave Durenberger, who handled community affairs for H.B. 
     Fuller Co. when Anderson was CEO of the St. Paul adhesives 
     manufacturing firm.
       Russell Fridley, a leading Minnesota historian and former 
     director of the Minnesota Historical Society, says Anderson 
     ``exemplifies the best of the citizen politician.''
       The former governor is more restrained in assessing his 
     accomplishments. Several days ago, as he reflected on his 
     long life, Anderson said, ``I cannot help but have a great 
     sense of appreciation and gratitude. I have been very lucky 
     to have survived for so long and to have done well in a 
     number of different areas.
       ``Everyone seems so kind and so indulgent as you grow old--
     and of course, all of your enemies die off,'' he added with a 
     chuckle.
       Anderson held public office for just 12 years--10 as a 
     state senator and two as governor. He served in the Senate in 
     the 1950s when it was dominated by rural conservatives who 
     say a very limited role for state government.
       Then, as now, Anderson prided himself on being a ``liberal 
     Republican.'' Anderson achieved the chairmanship of the 
     Senate Public Welfare Committee, and championed mental health 
     and child welfare programs.
       Fridley recalls one legislative session in which the DFL-
     oriented Liberal Caucus captured control of the House, while 
     the Republican-oriented Conservatives held the Senate. When 
     the major appropriations bills emerged from committee, 
     Fridley says, a leading House Liberal complained, ``You know 
     what Elmer Anderson did? He put $10 million more into welfare 
     than we did.''
       In 1960. Anderson won election as governor, defeating DFL 
     incumbent Orville Freeman. But the term of governor was just 
     two years at that time and his stint as Minnesota's chief 
     executive was short-lived.
       DFLers accused Anderson of rushing the completion of 
     Interstate 35 so he could reap the political benefits. They 
     charged that the rush job resulted in shoddy construction 
     that would cost the state millions to repair. The charges 
     ultimately proved to be false, but Anderson lost to DFL Lt. 
     Gov. Karl Rolvaag by a scant 91 votes.
       The close election triggered a protracted recount in which 
     thousands of disputed ballots were examined, one by one. But 
     the result did not change.
       Many Anderson stalwarts wanted him ``to appeal it all the 
     way'' to the Supreme Court, Swane recalls. But he says 
     Anderson did not want to appear to be usurping the office and 
     throw the state into political turmoil, so he ``gulped hard'' 
     and accepted the outcome.
       ``In my early years, when I was a young politician, I used 
     to think what a waste it was that Elmer could only serve two 
     years as governor--that the state was deprived of all that 
     talent,'' Durenberger says.
       But Durenberger says he has come to see Anderson's defeat 
     as Minnesota's ``good fortune''--because it freed Anderson 
     from the constraints of partisan politics and enabled the ex-
     governor to be the principal statesman and civic leader he 
     has been for the last four decades.
       After leaving public office, Anderson returned to H.B. 
     Fuller and helped build it into a Fortune 500 company--one 
     known for an employee- and customer-centered philosophy that 
     would be ridiculed on Wall Street today.
       ``I always had a philosophy at Fuller that making a profit 
     was not our No. 1 priority,'' Anderson says. He believed that 
     if a business paid attention to it customers and generously 
     rewarded employees who did their best, profits would follow.
       But Anderson did not disappear from the political scene. He 
     took the lead in pushing two major initiatives from his term 
     as governor--the enactment of the so-called Taconite 
     Amendment to help revitalize Minnesota's Iron Range, and the 
     creation of Voyageurs National Park.
       In later years, Anderson distinguished himself as chairman 
     of the University of Minnesota Board or Regents, president of 
     the Minnesota Historical Society, a leader in efforts to 
     protect Minnesota's natural resources, a lover of books and a 
     promoter of reading.
       In 1976, after retiring from H.B. Fuller, Anderson 
     fulfilled a life-long dream when he acquired two weekly 
     newspapers in Princeton, merged them and began building a 
     publishing enterprise. Today it has 25 community newspapers 
     and 7 shoppers with $30 million in annual sales and 475 
     employees.
       Until recently, when he began working on his autobiography, 
     Anderson produced two signed editorials a week for his 
     newspapers that frequently were quoted by pundits and 
     policymakers throughout the state.
       While Anderson eyes and limbs are failing him, his mind is 
     as nimble as ever--and he still is involved in projects like 
     preserving endangered areas along the North Shore of Lake 
     Superior. ``I've always had projects and when I get involved 
     in projects, I like to see them through,'' Anderson says.
       Not long ago, Tom Swain arranged a get-acquainted luncheon 
     between Anderson and new University of Minnesota President 
     Mark Yudof. Swain, who was serving as a university vice 
     president at the time, through the ex-governor and regents' 
     chairman was someone Yudof should meet.
       Swain figured the luncheon would be strictly a social 
     occasion ``But when we sat down, by golly, Elmer has his own 
     agenda. He had four for five things he wanted Yudof to be 
     aware of. His mind just never quits.''
       If Elmer Anderson has one shortcoming, it is this: the man 
     simply does not know how to retire.

     

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