Oil on canvas, Thomas Stephens, Collection of U.S. House of Representatives

KNUTSON, Harold, a Representative from Minnesota; born in Skien, Norway, October 20, 1880; immigrated to the United States in 1886 with his parents, who settled in Chicago, Ill., and later moved to a farm near Clear Lake, Sherburne County, Minn.; attended the common and agricultural schools; apprenticed as a printer; published the Royalton Banner at Royalton, the Foley Independent at Foley, and the Wadena Pioneer Journal at Wadena; delegate to the Republican State conventions in 1902, 1904, and 1910, and to the Republican National Convention in 1940; associate editor of the St. Cloud Daily Journal-Press in 1910 and 1911; president of the Northern Minnesota Editorial Association in 1910 and 1911; elected as a Republican to the Sixty-fifth and to the fifteen succeeding Congresses (March 4, 1917-January 3, 1949); majority whip (Sixty-sixth and Sixty-seventh Congresses); chairman, Committee on Pensions (Sixty-seventh through Seventy-first Congresses), Committee on Indian Affairs (Sixty-eighth Congress), Committee on Insular Affairs (Seventy-first Congress), Committee on Ways and Means (Eightieth Congress), Joint Committee on Internal Revenue Taxation (Eightieth Congress); unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1948 to the Eighty-first Congress; again became active in the publishing of the Wadena Pioneer Journal until his death in Wadena, Minn., August 21, 1953; interment in North Star Cemetery, St. Cloud, Minn.