Anderson, Clinton Presba

(1895-1975)

   Clinton Anderson was born in South Dakota. He attended Dakota Wesleyan University until 1915 and the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor until 1916 but did not graduate from either institution. When he discovered he was suffering from tuberculosis in 1917, Anderson moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico. There he became a newspaper reporter and editor before turning to insurance in 1922. Anderson was also active in public affairs and was executive secretary of the New Mexico Public Health Service in 1919 and later chair of the state Democratic Party. During the 1930s, he worked for the New Mexico Relief Administration and later as a field representative for the Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA). In 1940, he was elected to the federal House of Representatives, where he served until 1945 when he was appointed secretary of agriculture by President Harry S. Truman.

   As secretary of agriculture from 1945 to 1948, Anderson helped establish the Famine Emergency Committee under President Herbert Hoover and also addressed the problem of farm prices in the Agricultural Act in 1949 maintaining the price support system rather than the Brannan Plan. In 1948, Anderson was elected to the Senate for New Mexico, and he held his seat until he retired in 1973. His most notable achievement was in support of the space program as chair of the Senate Committee on Aeronautical and Space Science from 1963 to 1973.