52 Facts About Ralph Flanders

Ralph Edward Flanders was an American mechanical engineer, industrialist and politician who served as a Republican US Senator from the state of Vermont.

Ralph Flanders grew up on subsistence farms in Vermont and Rhode Island and was an apprentice machinist and draftsman before training as a mechanical engineer.

Ralph Flanders spent five years in New York City as an editor for a machine tool magazine.

Ralph Flanders was president of the Boston Federal Reserve Bank for two years before being elected US Senator from Vermont.

Ralph Flanders was noted for introducing a 1954 motion in the Senate to censure Senator Joseph McCarthy.

Ralph Flanders used his Senate committee as a nationally televised forum for attacks on individuals whom he accused.

Ralph Flanders felt that McCarthy's attacks distracted the nation from a much greater threat of Communist successes elsewhere in the world and that they had the effect of creating division and confusion within the United States, to the advantage of its enemies.

When Ralph Flanders was six, his family moved to Lincoln, Rhode Island, where his father farmed while overseeing the manufacture and sales in Pawtucket of a bookrack he designed.

Ralph Flanders attended school in Providence and Central Falls, and was an 1896 graduate of Central Falls High School.

Ralph Flanders's career began with an apprenticeship, progressed into engineering, journalism, management, policy consulting, banking, finance, and finally politics when he was elected US Senator from Vermont.

Ralph Flanders began writing early in his career, and his published articles on machine tool technology led to a job as an editor of Machine magazine in New York City.

Ralph Flanders traveled widely to visit the companies that he wrote about, which provided him many valuable contacts with leaders in the industry.

Ralph Flanders took time off to recover, and in 1910 he accepted an offer to work at a machine tool company in Vermont.

Ralph Flanders continued to write on technical and other matters throughout his life and developed a broad philosophy of the role of industry in society.

Ralph Flanders redesigned that lathe to achieve higher productivity and accuracy.

Ralph Flanders became a director in 1912 and president of the company in 1933 after Hartness retired.

Ralph Flanders became president of the National Machine-Tool Builders Association in 1923.

Ralph Flanders served as president of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers from 1934 to 1936.

Ralph Flanders was vice president of the American Engineering Council in 1937.

In 1917, Ralph Flanders served in the Machine-Tool Section of the War Industries Board.

Ralph Flanders addressed employing spiritual guidance with a "program of human values" to achieve a good life.

Ralph Flanders was appointed to the industrial advisory board of the NRA.

Ralph Flanders's role increased his awareness of the labor and business assets in New England.

Ralph Flanders tried to alert his peers to the prospect of US involvement in the expanding Second World War.

In 1942, Ralph Flanders became involved in the Committee for Economic Development, an offshoot of the Business Advisory Council, whose purpose was to help re-align the nation to a peacetime economy after the war.

Ralph Flanders reported helping to shape the CED's recommendations to Congress on roles for the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.

In 1940, Ralph Flanders ran an unsuccessful campaign for the United States Senate.

Aiken's side accused Ralph Flanders of selling arms to the Nazis, and Ralph Flanders's side suggested that "Aiken was unduly influenced by his administrative assistant, a pretty 24-year-old with a fondness for power".

In retrospect, Ralph Flanders felt that he had allowed his campaign advisers to make too many of the decisions.

Vermont had not elected a Democrat to any statewide office since the founding of the Republican Party in 1854, and as expected, Flanders easily won his contest, receiving 75 percent to Democratic nominee Charles P McDevitt's 25.

Ralph Flanders declined to seek a third term in 1958.

Conservatives, according to Ralph Flanders, could find themselves offering "reasoned objections to foolish proposals" by emotionally motivated liberals.

Ralph Flanders had a strict Congregationalist religious beginning, which evolved with his experience into a belief in "moral law".

Ralph Flanders referred to the Marshall Plan as an important application of moral law to public policy.

In testifying on the Employment Act before the Banking and Currency Committee of the Senate in 1945, Ralph Flanders defined the "right to a job," as implying a responsibility shared among individuals, organized labor, businesses, and governments, as follows:.

Ralph Flanders felt that, to quell inflation, wage increases should be tied to productivity increases, rather than the cost of living.

Ralph Flanders recommended splitting gains in productivity three ways: to the worker for higher wages, to the company for higher profits and to the consumer for lower prices.

Ralph Flanders felt that with this approach everyone would benefit at the company level and in the national economy.

Ralph Flanders recognized the president's political genius and leadership skills, but deplored his advocacy of raising taxes.

Ralph Flanders voted in favor of the Civil Rights Act of 1957.

Ralph Flanders was concerned about the worldwide encroachment of Communism even without force of arms.

Ralph Flanders felt that President Truman was generally a good president, but was hampered by the Roosevelt legacy of appeasing the Soviets.

Ralph Flanders felt that Truman's commitment to bringing the Nationalist and Communist Chinese factions together into an alliance was mistaken.

Ralph Flanders endorsed the Marshall Plan as a way to avoid Communist influence in Western Europe.

Ralph Flanders was an early and strong critic of fellow Republican Senator Joseph McCarthy's "misdirection of our efforts at fighting communism" and his role in "the loss of respect for us in the world at large".

Ralph Flanders felt that rather than looking inward for communists within US borders, the nation should look outward at the "alarming world-wide advance of Communist power" that would leave the United States and Canada as "the last remnants of the free world".

In 1911, Ralph Flanders married Helen Edith Hartness, the daughter of inventor and industrialist James Hartness.

Ralph Flanders was the author or coauthor of eight books, including his autobiography, Senator from Vermont.

Ralph Flanders wrote about many issues: the problems of unemployment, inflation, ways for achieving a cooperative relationship between management and labor, and his belief that "moral law is natural law" and should be an integral part of everyone's education.

Ralph Flanders's papers are located at the Special Collections Research Center at Syracuse University Library and at the Special Collections of the University of Vermont's Bailey-Howe Library.

Ralph Flanders's wife, Helen Hartness Flanders, was a folk song collector and author of several books on New England ballads.

Ralph Flanders was buried at Summer Hill Cemetery in Springfield alongside his wife and members of the Hartness family.