[1] After attending primary schools he served as a private in Company D, Fourteenth Regiment, Minnesota Volunteer Infantry, during the Spanish–American War in 1898.

[citation needed] He graduated from high school in 1899 and attended Highland Park College, Des Moines, Iowa, afterwards the University of Minnesota at Minneapolis.

[citation needed] In 1910 at the age of 29, he defeated incumbent James Albertus Tawney in the Republican primary election with the support of Theodore Roosevelt, Gifford Pinchot and other Progressive Republicans, running on a platform of drastically reduced tariffs and opposition to Cannonism.

[citation needed] Anderson chaired the Congressional Joint Commission of Agricultural Inquiry in 1921 and 1922.

[citation needed] Anderson later became 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, IL, and Washington, D.C., 1924–1929; llVice-llPresident, secretary, and, later, member of the board of directors of General Mills, Inc., Minneapolis, 1930–1948; and, finally, president of the Transportation Association of America, Chicago, 1943–1948.