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By attending courses at the University of Texas law school right through the summers, he plowed through the three-year law curriculum in two years, graduated with the highest average in his class. Toward the end of his second year, mindful that jobs were scarce for young lawyers in 1932, he ran for the state legislature from his home district. Elected on graduation day, he took his place among his fellow Democrats in the Texas house of representatives as a gangly country boy of 22. "When he got up and spoke," a former colleague recalls, "things that were vague and misty would become clear. The fellows listened to him, young as he was."
Six-County Empire. Attorney General (later Governor) James Allred spotted Freshman Legislator Anderson as a promising young man, lifted him out of the legislature to serve as assistant attorney general. Moving along fast, Anderson became state tax commissioner at 24, head of the state unemployment commission at 26. In 1937 the W. T. Waggoner Estate, a 500,000-acre cattle, wheat and oil empire sprawling over six Texas counties, hired him away as general counsel. When the estate's general manager died in 1941, old Guy Waggoner called the clan together and said, "Let's let this boy run the business," meaning Robert Anderson, then 31. His pay as general manager: $60,000 a year, plus hefty bonuses.
Besides increasing the Waggoner empire's profits, General Manager Anderson succeeded over the years in transforming its local image from stone-hearted colossus to soft-hearted rich uncle. In Vernon, Texas, where his office was, Anderson headed fund-raising drives, got each drive off to a fast start by contributing a chunk of Waggoner funds. With Anderson's help, Vernon got a $1,000,000 Methodist church, a municipal auditorium, a recreation hall for teenagers, a Boy Scout camp.
Anderson's public services during his Waggoner years extended far beyond Vernon. He served as deputy chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank in Dallas, as chairman of the statewide board of education. In 1951 he sat on a commission set up by the president of Columbia University, Dwight David Eisenhower, to study manpower utilization during World War II. Ike was impressed. So was Anderson.
Rock Y. Brass. In 1952 Anderson wrestled down his longtime loyalty to the Democratic Party and backed Dwight Eisenhower for President. (Anderson finally changed his registration to Republican in 1955.) After the election, recalling Anderson from the manpower-commission days, Ike asked "Engine Charlie" Wilson, his nominee for Defense Secretary, to look Anderson over as a prospect. Wilson tapped Anderson to be Secretary of the Navy. "Charlie Wilson claims he discovered Bob Anderson," the President later told a Texas visitor. "Actually, I was the one who found him. If I had a dozen more like Bob Anderson, I could run this place."