Burton E. Sweet

Who was Burton E. Sweet?

Burton Erwin Sweet was a four-term Republican U.S. Representative from Iowa's 3rd congressional district, then a wide but short chain of counties in north-central and northeastern Iowa, in the shape of a monkey wrench.

Born on a farm near Waverly, Iowa, Sweet attended the common schools and the Iowa State Normal School at Cedar Falls. He graduated from Cornell College in Mount Vernon, Iowa in 1893, and from the University of Iowa College of Law at Iowa City in 1895. He was admitted to the bar in 1895 and commenced practice in Waverly. He was Waverly's city solicitor from 1896 to 1899. In 1900 he was elected to the first of two two-year terms in the Iowa House of Representatives. In 1902, after 3rd congressional district Congressman and Speaker of the United States House of Representatives David B. Henderson announced his retirement from Congress, Sweet finished third on each convention ballot for the Republican nomination, losing to Benjamin P. Birdsall. In 1904, when Sweet's final term in the legislature ended, he served as delegate to the Republican National Convention. He was also a member of the Republican State Central Committee from 1902 to 1906. Although he was a lawyer, he also owned two sections of farmland.