Ralph Flanders

Ralph Edward Flanders, Senator from Vermont 1946-1959

Ralph Edward Flanders (born September 28, 1880 in Barnet , Vermont , † February 9, 1970 in Springfield , Vermont) was an American mechanical engineer, entrepreneur and Republican US Senator from the state of Vermont. He grew up on self-catering farms in Vermont and Rhode Island . First he completed a mechanical engineering apprenticeship and became a technical draftsman before he himself acquired the theoretical basics of a mechanical engineer. He spent five years in New York as an editor for a machine tool magazine. He moved to Vermont and worked for a successful mechanical engineering company, which he later became president. Flanders used his experience as an entrepreneur and advised state commissions in Vermont and state agencies in Washington, DC on public economic policy. Before he was elected US Senator from Vermont, he was President of the Boston Federal Reserve Bank for two years .

Flanders became known in 1954 for advocating a motion of no confidence in Senator Joseph McCarthy . McCarthy had made spectacular claims in previous years about infiltration of federal agencies and government by Soviet spies, communists and their sympathizers. He had used his chairmanship of the Senate Committee as a nationwide televised forum for attacks on people he had accused. Flanders believed that McCarthy's attacks had distracted the nation from far greater communist threats in other parts of the world. This had sown discord and confusion within the United States for the benefit of its enemies. McCarthy was ultimately unable to substantiate his claims. This and his controversial approach ultimately discredited him and the Senate expressed suspicion of him, as a result of which he lost the chairmanship of the Senate.

biography

Flanders was born in Barnet, a town in Caledonia County in northeast Vermont. He was the oldest of nine children. He spent much of his childhood in Rhode Island. In his autobiography, Senator from Vermont , Flanders described life on his family's self-catering farms in Vermont and Rhode Island before leaving to work in the machine tool industry for most of his life. In his first year as a machinist and draftsman, he spent his vacations cycling along the highways between Rhode Island, Vermont and New Hampshire. He later lived for a while in New York City, where he worked for a machine tool magazine. After five years, he decided to return to Vermont. In 1911 he married Helen Edith Hartness, daughter of inventor and industrialist James Hartness . They settled in Springfield, Vermont, where Flanders became President of the Jones & Lamson Machine Company. Flanders and his wife had three children: Elizabeth (born 1912), Anna (also known as Nancy born 1918), and James (born 1923).

Professional career

Flander's career began with an apprenticeship. This was followed by self-taught advances in technology, journalism, management, political consulting, banking and finance, politics, and finally the election to the US Senator from Vermont.

Education and training

Other than attending high schools in Pawtucket and Central Falls , Rhode Island , Flanders had received no formal education. Nevertheless, he was able to acquire solid foundations in mathematics, literature, Latin and ancient Greek. The father did not have the financial means to send his son to university, but from 1896 paid him the apprenticeship fee for a two-year apprenticeship at Brown & Sharpe Manufacturing Company, a leading mechanical engineering company of the time. Besides the practical training in the company, he learned the theoretical foundations of engineering and technical drawing using the correspondence school "International Correspondence School". After completing his apprenticeship, Flanders worked for various mechanical engineering companies in New England. Although he lacked formal education, Flanders was well read in science, engineering, and the arts.

Technical journalism

Flanders started writing early in his career. His articles on machine tools gave him a job as the editor of a mechanical engineering magazine in New York City. He worked there between 1905 and 1910. Numerous trips took Flanders to the companies, whose new developments he reported. In doing so, he made valuable contacts to the leading manufacturers in the industry. As an editor, he wrote articles on gear drives, machining techniques, hobbing, the production of cans, and automobiles. In 1909 Flanders was working on a book about cutting mechanics, in which he exhausted himself so much that he suffered a nervous breakdown. He had to take a break. In 1910 moved to a machine factory in Vermont. He continued to publish and write on technical issues. This was later followed by writings on the role of industry in society. In 1938 Flanders received the Worcester Reed Warner Medal in recognition of his publications on technical issues.

Engineering

Ralph Flanders 1910

Flanders gained his first major experience in mechanical engineering at a company in Nashua, New Hampshire, where he was involved in the development of a box folding machine. He then worked as a draftsman for General Electric until 1905 . When he moved to Springfield , Vermont in 1910 , he became a mechanical engineer with the Fellows Gear Shaper Company. The young engineer soon became aware of James Hartness, president of Jones & Lamson Machine Company (J&L), a competing company in the same location. In 1911 Flanders married Hartness' daughter, Helen. Shortly afterwards, Flanders became director of the department for precision lathes at J & L. There he was able to achieve precision and productivity through improvements to the machines used. In 1912 he became director of the entire company and, after Hartness retired in 1933, also president. As President of J & L, Flanders introduced a series of turret lathes (known as Hartness Turret Lathe), which standardized the then custom production of such machines and some of the advantages of mass production for mechanical engineering. By 1923, Flanders had developed and registered more than twenty patents for J & L.

Flanders and his brother, Ernest, pioneered the development of thread cutting machines. The optical comparators previously developed by Hartness were helpful. This existing technology and Flanders' calculations led to the development of precision lathes and cutting machines, for which the two brothers received the "Edward Longstreth Medal" from the Franklin Institute in 1946 in recognition of their work. Together the brothers had improved the punching technology for threads in soft metals and thereby laid the foundations for this technology in hard metals.

Professional societies

In 1923 Flanders became president of the National Machine-Tool Builders Association. He was President of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) from 1934 to 1936 and Vice President of the American Engineering Council in 1937 . In the 1930s, Flanders chaired the American Standards Association's thread committee . In 1944 the ASME awarded him the Hoover Medal for his services to social issues, civil society and humanity. The British Institution of Mechanical Engineers made him an honorary member.

Public life

From 1917 Flanders was an advisory member for mechanical engineering matters in the "War Industries Board". After World War I, he oversaw international standardization for threads, first as a member and then chairman of the American Standards Association's thread committee in the 1930s .

During the Great Depression , Flanders began to delve into social policy and human development in a technological era. He advocated higher-level leadership through a "program of humanitarian values" that should enable a full life. However, its real goal was full employment . In 1933, during the reign of Franklin D. Roosevelt , Flanders was appointed to the newly created Business Advisory Council by then Trade Minister Daniel Calhoun Roper , a body that was supposed to advise the President on economic policy issues. Flanders became chairman of the committee on unemployment issues.

In the same year the National Recovery Administration (NRA) was created. Flanders was appointed to the agency's industrial advisory board. In 1934, Flanders gave a speech in the presence of President Roosevelt and members of the NRA in which he opposed the government's proposal that weekly working hours should be reduced by 10%, while wages should also be increased by 10%, which would help to distribute the working hours more evenly Work should lead.

In 1937, the governor of Vermont appointed George Aiken Flanders to two commissions: first, a committee that dealt with the modernization of the dairy industry in the state, and second, the flood control commission chaired by Flanders. This commission entered into negotiations with other New England states to negotiate the cost sharing of a system of flood dams.

The New England Council , founded by the governors of the New England states to coordinate industry and trade, elected Flanders president in 1940. His office gave him a comprehensive overview of the manufacturing and working environments in New England. He tried to explain to his colleagues the market opportunities of their products in the context of the expanding Second World War.

In 1942 Flanders was appointed to the Committee for Economic Development (CED) , which dealt with bringing the economy back to peacetime. Flanders was involved in drafting recommendations from the CED to Congress on the role of the World Bank and the IMF .

Banking and investment

From the late 1930s Flanders received supervisory board mandates, first at Shawmut Bank (1938-41) then at the Federal Reserve Bank (1941-44) at the Boston and Maine Railroad, the National Life Insurance Company, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and from Norwich University in Vermont. From 1944 he was President of the Federal Reserve Bank in Boston, Massachusetts for two years. During this time, the bank created the Boston Port Authority to increase cargo capacity for New England.

In 1946 Georges Doriot founded the American Research and Development Corporation (ARDC) with Karl Compton and Flanders, among others , the first venture capital company to finance young companies according to systematic investment rules. Flanders was one of the directors of ARDC.

Career in the US Senate

Ralph Flanders (1940) canvassing photo. Courtesy of the Vermont State Archives, Office of the Secretary of State

In 1940 Ralph Flanders ran unsuccessfully for the US Senate. His main internal antagonist was the popular Republican Senator from Vermont, George Aiken, who had been in office for two terms. Flanders liked and admired Aiken, but was convinced that the incumbent's “liberal ideas” were not conducive to the country's economic recovery.

In 1990 the Rutland Herald, one of Vermont's largest newspapers, named the 1940 Republican primary as dirty and mean. Aiken's side accused Flanders of selling weapons to the Nazis, while Flanders' side claimed that Aiken was being illegally influenced by his handsome 24-year-old power-hungry assistant. In retrospect, Flanders stated that he had given his election advisors too much freedom of choice. For example, an election brochure showed the candidate in a suit with a vest and a piglet in his arms. Although Flanders grew up on a farm and had a keen interest in local agriculture, especially the breed of pig shown in the picture, the photo looked posed and fake. As the Rutland Herald noted, it was common practice in 1940 to keep pigs in many Vermont households. There were many people who did not want a representative who wore his best clothes when dealing with pigs. Aiken won by 7,000 votes. His campaign cost $ 3,219.50 while Flanders had spent $ 18,698.45. Flanders said that this campaign had shown him that he had to be true to himself.

On November 1, 1946, Vermont Governor Mortimer R. Proctor Flanders appointed Republican Senator to serve the remainder of the term of Senator Warren Austin , who had been named Ambassador to the United Nations by President Harry S. Truman . When the election to the Senate took place on November 5, 1946 and Flanders won it, he was already a "Senior Senator" through his previous four-day term in office. In 1952 he was re-elected with an overwhelming majority. He turned down a third term in 1958.

Voting behavior and committee membership

Flander's voting behavior in the Senate was more conservative than that of his senior Senate colleague George Aiken and reflected Flanders' business-friendly orientation. In his second term, which was marked by a Republican majority, Flanders brought seats on the Joint Economic Committee of the Senate and the House of Representatives , the Finance Committee and Committee on Armed Services .

Cold War Politics

Flanders was very interested in national politics related to the Cold War. The worldwide advance of communism worried him precisely because it often took place without the force of arms. On the whole, he thought Harry S. Truman was a good president, but saw his ability to act restricted by the legacy of Hoover's policy of appeasement towards the Soviet Union. Truman's attempts to unite the Chinese nationalists and communists in an alliance also believed Flanders to be wrong. He approved the Marshall Plan as a way of avoiding communist influence in Western Europe. He was critical of the role of Foreign Minister John Foster Dulles, whom he accused of having missed opportunities for friendly bilateral relations with countries like Egypt and India, which instead turned to the Soviet Union.

Flanders found that it was irrational to use 62% of federal revenue for defense purposes while at the same time the Soviet government insisted that it wanted to avoid a nuclear conflict. The Senator advocated that the development of atomic and hydrogen bombs should be pursued with the same intensity as parallel disarmament negotiations. For Flanders, working towards working with the Soviet government on effective arms control was a top priority.

Criticism of Joseph McCarthy

1954 Flanders speech against McCarthy

Flanders was an early and harsh critic of his Republican Senate colleague Joseph McCarthy and his "wrong-way efforts in the fight against communism" and the role he played in the "loss of respect for us around the world." Flanders felt that instead of looking at domestic communists, it would be better to look at the "declaring advance of communist power" so that in the end the United States and Canada were not left as "the last remnants of the free world." . On March 9, 1954, he raised these concerns in a Senate address to McCarthy. He had found out about the speech in advance and stayed away from the meeting. Flanders was glad that President Dwight D. Eisenhower stayed out of the business except for a few words of encouragement. Members of the government indicated that he should stop.

The Times-Argus newspaper in Randolph, Vermont reported that the speech was a sensation. Due to numerous incoming calls and telegrams, Flanders could not appear in the Senate. The approving contributions were in a ratio of 6: 1. His Senate colleagues John Sherman Cooper , Republican from Kentucky and Herbert H. Lehman , Democrat from New York showered him with praise.

Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin 1947–1957

But also votes against were not lacking. The "Rutland Herald" wrote to McCarthy's enemies that McCarthy was a demigod who stood above the laws of the USA and anyone who contradicted him was a "RED". William Loeb , editor of the "Burlington Daily News" wrote: "It had to be someone stupid like Senator Flanders to finally swallow the Democratic bait on McCarthy."

On June 11, 1954, Flanders passed a resolution accusing McCarthy of improper conduct and calling for his dismissal from the Senate committee. On the advice of Senators Cooper and Fulbright and with legal support from the Committee for a More Effective Congress, the resolution was adapted in line with previous censure motions.

The content of the resolution against McCarthy charged him with obstructing the constitutional conduct of the Senate's work. Time magazine reported that a "group of 23 top business leaders, union leaders and education professionals ... wired every US Senator, except McCarthy himself, to approve Senator's resolution against" blatant abuse of power " Stop McCarthy. ”The Senate reprimanded McCarthy at the December 2, 1954 session by 65 votes to 22. The split also ran right through the Republican senators, who voted 22-22. The 1990 Rutland Herald described Vermont public opinion as "grouchy" about Flanders' role. It was concluded that Flanders' beliefs did not necessarily reflect the priorities of his constituency and that the McCarthy problem was not seen as its own.

legacy

Flanders was the author or co-author of eight books, including his autobiography, Senator from Vermont . He wrote on many topics: the problems of unemployment, inflation, opportunities for a cooperative relationship between management and workforce, and his belief that moral law is a law of nature and should be an integral part of everyone's education. His writings are kept at the "Special Collections Research Center" at the Syracuse University Library and at the "Special Collection" at the "Bailey Howe Library" University of Vermont .

During his life, Flanders received more than sixteen honorary doctorates from institutions such as Dartmouth College , Harvard University (Dr. jur.), Middlebury College (D. Sc.) And the University of Vermont (D. Eng.). In 1939 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences . His wife, Helen Hartness Flanders, was a folk song collector and author of several books on New England ballads.

Ralph Flanders died on February 9, 1970. He was buried in the "Summer Hill Cemetery" in Springfield, Vermont with his wife Helen in the family grave of the Hartness family.

Flanders' political legacy has influenced Vermont politics until very recently. In a speech on May 24, 2001, Senator James Jeffords announced his departure from the Republican Party. He quoted Flanders three times and spoke of him as one of five Vermont politicians "whose views, often to the displeasure of party leaders, steered the party in the direction in whose fundamental principles they believed." In speeches at the Georgetown Law Center University and Johnson State College cited Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy Flanders as one of three Vermont politicians who "showed the importance of being firm in your beliefs" and "that conflict must be neither hostile nor negative." Leahy took the opportunity to recall that Flanders was someone who "opposed abuse and violations of the rights of American citizens when it was not popular."

literature

• Jon Margolis: A mighty fall — How an obscure Vermont senator brought down Joseph McCarthy 50 years ago . In: Sunday Rutland Herald & Sunday Times-Argus . Rutland et al. Randolph, Vermont July 11, 2004, pp. 8-11 .
• William V. Shannon: An old-timer says a mouthful . In: New York Post . New York March 14, 1954, p. 2M .

Web links

Commons : Ralph Flanders  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Ralph Flanders in the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress (English)
• Times-Argus article on Flanders and his criticism of McCarthy. ( Memento from May 9, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
• Vermont Public Radio commentary commemorating the 50th anniversary of Flanders's senate speech on McCarthy.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ W. Klingaman: The Encyclopedia of the McCarthy Era . Facts on File, 1996, ISBN 0-8160-3097-9 .
2. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x} R. Flanders: Senator from Vermont . Little, Brown, Boston 1961.
3. ↑ ^{a b c d e f} J. Duffy, S. Hand, R. Orth: Flanders, Ralph E. In: University Press of New England (ed.): Vermont Encyclopedia . University Press of New England, Lebanon, New Hampshire 2003, ISBN 1-58465-086-9 .
4. ↑ Ralph E. Flanders: Interchangeable Involute Gear Tooth Systems . In: Journal of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers . 2410 F, February 1909.
5. ↑ Ralph E. Flanders: Recent developments in gear-cutting machinery . In: Machinery . 2242 C, February 1909.
6. ↑ Ralph E. Flanders: How many gashes should a hob have? In: Machinery . 550 C, January 1909.
7. ^ Ralph E. Flanders: Making solderless cans for food products . In: Machinery . 7500 C, 1909.
8. ↑ Ralph E. Flanders: The design and manufacture of a high-grade motor car - Illustrated detailed description of the factory, methods and products of the Stevens-Duryea Co. In: Machinery . 8279 C, October 1909.
9. ↑ ^{a b} Ralph E. Flanders: Gear-cutting machinery, comprising a complete review of contemporary American and European practice, together with a logical classification and explanation of the principles involved . J. Wiley & Sons, New York 1909.
10. ↑ Flanders, Ralph E .: Construction and Manufacture of Automobiles . In: Machinery's Reference Series . No. 60 . The Industrial Press, New York 1910.
11. ^ ^{A b} James W. Roe: James Hartness — A Representative of the Machine Age at Its Best . The American Society of Mechanical Engineers, New York 1937.
12. ^ Website of the Ernest Flanders family ( Memento from May 9, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
13. ^ Website of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers
14. ^ Henry S. Dennison, L. Filene, R. Flanders, M. Leeds: Toward full employment . McGraw-Hill Book, New York 1938.
15. ↑ Flanders of New England . In: Fortune Magazine . August 1945, p. 135-272 .
16. ^ Website of the Boston Port Authority
17. ↑ Website: "Who Made America? - George Doriot"
18. ^ Joseph W. Bartlett: What Is Venture Capital? In: vcexperts.com. August 2, 2002, accessed June 4, 2016 . 
19. ↑ ^{a b c} Bill Porter, Stephen C. Terry: Down & Dirty — The Aiken-Flanders Primary of 1940 . In: Vermont Sunday Magazine of the Rutland Herald and the Times Argus . Rutland et al. Randolph, Vermont September 9, 1990.
20. ↑ Barney Crozier: Vermont Senator's Speech Heralded McCarthy's End . In: Times-Argus . Randolph, Vermont September 29, 1979.
21. ↑ Tom Hill: Vt.'s Senator Ralph Flanders took on McCarthy, and won . In: Sunday Rutland Herald and Sunday Times . Argus (Vermont) December 3, 1989, p. E1, E4 .
22. ^ The Dispensable Man . In: Time Magazine . 2nd August 1954.
23. ↑ Barney Crozier: Vermont Senator's Speech Heralded McCarthy's End . In: Times-Argus . Randolph, Vermont September 29, 1979.
24. ^ Ralph E. Flanders: Platform for America . Whittlesey House, McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc., New York 1936.
25. ^ Henry S. Dennison, L. Filene, R. Flanders, M. Leeds: Toward full employment . McGraw-Hill Book, New York 1938.
26. ^ Ralph E. Flanders: The Function of Management in American Life, Graduate School of Business . Stanford University, Palo Alto 1949.
27. ↑ Ralph E. Flanders: Letter to a generation . Beacon Press, Boston 1956.
28. ↑ James Jeffords: Transcript: Jeffords statement. In: CNN InsidePolitics. May 24, 2001, accessed December 20, 2010 . 
29. ↑ Patrick Leahy: Senator Patrick Leahy Delivers 2008 Commencement Address . Johnson State College, Johnson, Vermont May 17, 2008 ( jsc.edu [accessed June 4, 2016]).
30. ↑ Editorial: Leahy takes lead on Judiciary Committee . In: Burlington Free Press . December 17, 2006 ( greenmountainpac.com ).