Edwin J. Chilgren was a Minnesota

Minnesota

Minnesota is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States. The twelfth largest state of the U.S., it is the twenty-first most populous, with 5.3 million residents. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the thirty-second state...

 politician and a Speaker of the Minnesota House of Representatives. After emigrating to Minnesota at the age of seven, Chilgren fought with the United States Marines during World War I. He was elected to the Minnesota House of Representatives

Minnesota House of Representatives

The Minnesota House of Representatives is the lower house in the Minnesota State Legislature. There are 134 members elected to two-year terms, twice the number of members in the Minnesota Senate. Each senate district is divided in half and given the suffix A or B...

 in 1926, where he caucused with the Liberal Caucus

Liberalism in the United States

Liberalism in the United States is a broad political philosophy centered on the unalienable rights of the individual. The fundamental liberal ideals of freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of religion for all belief systems, and the separation of church and state, right to due process...

in the then-nonpartisan body. He became chair of the taxes committee in 1955, and in 1959 he was elected speaker, a position he held until conservatives took control of the house in 1963.

Chilgren retired from the legislature after the 1964 elections. He died in 1972.