Footnote on Flanders:
BOY, RALPH L.
Footnote on FLANDERS A study in conservatism By Ralph L. Roy ON MARCH 9, 1954, paunchy, stoop - shouldered Ralph E. Flanders rose from his Senate seat to deliver some paternal advice to a young...
...Or perhaps, as others have suspected, Flanders is a Fair Deal fifth-columnist calling himself a Republican...
...political leaders in both major camps begged him to forget the whole thing...
...Flanders preaches that America is in her "Time of Troubles"--a phrase he borrows from Arnold J. Toynbee...
...Moreover, it is not unusual for enterprising politicians to deliver speeches echoing high moral ideals, bristling with denunciations of "atheistic, godless Communism," and studded with fitting quotations from Holy Writ, Abraham Lincoln, Herbert Hoover and Fulton Sheen...
...Flanders's reputation in his native state is that of a sane, steady conservative...
...The Congressional scorecard prepared and published by the New Republic may be a dubious scale in which to weigh anyone's "record," although it is widely employed by professional liberals...
...Why, then, his impassioned campaign against McCarthy, especially in view of opposition in some top GOP circles...
...Like many New England Republicans, he associates it with the Democratic city bosses of recent years, like Ed Kelly of Chicago, Frank Hague of Jersey City, and Jim Curley of nearby Boston...
...But Flanders meant what he said...
...The New York Daily News outlines three possibilities: "Maybe he wanted to cut himself in on some of McCarthy's abundant publicity...
...As a boy, he was "bound out" by his destitute father to earn room and board...
...Nor has he been aided by a commanding appearance, an engaging personality, oratorical skill or political finesse--none of which he possesses...
...Some of the contributing factors are obvious...
...Three months later, a select bipartisan committee brought in a unanimous report favoring the censure of Joe McCarthy...
...But, fundamentally, Flanders's crusade against the Wisconsin demagogue is based upon a deeply rooted philosophy that colors his outlook on all public issues...
...Since his election in 1946 (against an Aiken-backed GOP opponent in the primary), Flanders has freely castigated the kind of liberal "whose emotions are stirred whenever he reads a tag"--that is, who supports everything labeled "pro-labor" and opposes everything labeled "pro-business...
...Flanders views Joe McCarthy as a major obstacle to an intelligent foreign policy, thereby contributing heavily to America's "Time of Troubles...
...The Senator is a Toynbee enthusiast, and, in his leisure hours, he is an avid reader of other significant books as well--e.g., historical interpretations by Oswald Spengler and Flinders Petrie...
...Flanders is depicted as particularly "reactionary" on matters of taxation and public utilities (including tide-lands oil and Dixon-Yates...
...Perhaps Flanders's most important "break" was his marriage to Helen Hartness, daughter of a Governor of Vermont (who was also his boss...
...he never entered college, though today he holds sixteen honorary degrees...
...His supporters pay tribute to his courage and integrity, sometimes refer to him as "Fearless Flanders," ask for autographs, and wish him well...
...Hence, all our efforts should be directed toward reversing this trend, which can be done only if we wage an incessant, intelligent battle against totalitarianism at home and abroad...
...On the McCarthy issue, one out of every 350 Vermonters responded, 78 per cent of them in support of Flanders's position...
...What it meant was that "love and good will" be poured out "by any means, conventional or unconventional, known or unknown" upon the peoples of the world, especially those under Communist rule...
...President, let us try God...
...He surprised many of his colleagues soon after the Korean War broke out when he rose to deliver a speech entitled "Let's Try God...
...In 1940, for example, he lost a tight primary battle (36,000 to 29,000) against the present senior Vermont Senator, George D. Aiken, whom Flanders criticized as "too far to the left...
...McCarthy, he charged on the Senate floor, is dividing his country, his church and his party, so that, "were the junior Senator from Wisconsin in the pay of the Communists, he could not have done a better job for them...
...As a result of his campaign against McCarthy-style patriotism, Flanders's office has been flooded with 20,000 letters, divided almost evenly pro and con...
...Some "100-per-cent Americans" attack him as a "tool of the Jews" who receives orders from the "Invisible Government...
...We had only one solid achievement in matters of foreign policy to date (1950): EDC...
...Footnote on FLANDERS A study in conservatism By Ralph L. Roy ON MARCH 9, 1954, paunchy, stoop - shouldered Ralph E. Flanders rose from his Senate seat to deliver some paternal advice to a young colleague from Wisconsin...
...he was crudely accused of senility...
...As to the third, the facts point in another direction...
...This did not require "hundreds of millions of righteous" or that "the throne of grace be bombarded with hundreds of millions of prayers...
...By the time he was elected to succeed Warren R. Austin in the Senate in 1946, Flanders was well known as an engineer (inventor of the automatic screw - thread grinder), industrialist (chairman of the board, Jones and Lamson Co...
...Whatever may be the final outcome of Senator Flanders's challenge to the exploits of his better-known Wisconsin colleague, most Vermont Republicans (including this writer) are proud that another favorite son has made a significant contribution to the struggle for human decency...
...and Bryant Chucking Grinder Co...
...While our sights should be focused on totalitarian advances abroad, McCarthy has diverted our attention to phantoms at home...
...Senator Flanders's success certainly cannot be traced to his educational background...
...Ralph E. Flanders was born in poverty in the little Vermont town of Barnet...
...It was, of course, common knowledge that the Vermonter is a devout Protestant (Congregationalist), that he is a leader in a weekly Senate "prayer group," that he has even introduced a Constitutional amendment to the effect that "this nation devoutly recognizes the authority and law of Jesus Christ, Saviour and Ruler of nations" (an amendment, by the way, which he introduced by request and does not support...
...Since he entered the Senate eight years ago, Flanders has been urging bold new efforts to win the struggle for men's minds...
...Our "get tough" policy based on military strength, he contended, had failed...
...such fiction as Huxley's Brave New World, Orwell's 1984, and Vonnegut's Player Piano...
...His major contribution in the sphere of international affairs was in sponsoring the "frivolous" Cohn-Schine sweep across Europe, leaving doubt in the minds of our allies as to "the seriousness, responsibility and intelligence of this government...
...His rise to national fame is a consequence of a sharp mind, devotion to duty, unusual insight into human nature, marked individualism, and a few fortuitous events...
...In this connection, Flanders has found McCarthyism "so clearly in the direction of fighting Communism with fascism that I am seriously disturbed...
...anthropological studies, especially those of Margaret Mead...
...The most gratifying response has come from Flanders's home state, where the GOP is about to celebrate one hundred years of continuous reign...
...Third, Flanders--a rational, soft-spoken man himself--despises demagoguery...
...and, as the New York Times phrased it, he entertains "the perhaps quaint belief that righteousness comes before strategy...
...He warns that America may be on the road to decline and decay...
...Reinforced with a granite will characteristic of his Green Mountain heritage, the 73 - year - old Vermont Republican girded for battle, assembled the relevant facts, and set out on a moral crusade...
...His counsel was ignored...
...who might take exception to his methods or stand in the way of his ambition...
...financier (president, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston), economist (chairman,research division, Committee for Economic Development), and author (Taming Our Machines, Platform for America, Toward Full Employment, etc...
...and, at 15, he entered a machine shop as an indentured apprentice at a wage of four cents an hour...
...Maybe, as McCarthy has surmised out loud, the Vermonter is senile...
...Those who know Flanders's youthful spirit and mild temperament dismiss the first two insinuations as typical products of the McCarthy Bund...
...Flanders's recent preoccupation with McCarthyism has been explained by his foes in a variety of ways...
...Be that as it may, it conjures up a rather negative image of Flanders's voting habits...
...In the first place, Flanders has a robust moral sense...
...Second, he is a fervent democrat--accustomed as he is to the democracy of the Vermont town meeting--and he sharply rebuked McCarthy for assuming the role of "private eye, prosecutor, judge, jury and sen-tencer...
...His "record": CONGRESS VOTES "Right" "Wrong" 80th ......6 8 81st ......8 4 82nd ......3 9 83rd ......3 8 A recent ADA tabulation covering twelve "basic issues" over the past six years lists him as casting five "good" votes, but seven "bad" ones...
...Finally, the Vermont Senator realizes that McCarthy has seized upon the issue of Communism as a political weapon for hacking not only at Democrats but also at Republican...
...When he suggested that one way to achieve this end would be to send balloons across the Iron Curtain carrying messages of peace and friendship, the country's foreign-policy experts guffawed, while the Soviet New Times denounced him as a "warlike Republican from Vermont State...
...RALPH L. ROY a Methodist minister now at Union Theological Seminary, is the author of Apostles of Discord...
...Today, she is his closest adviser, mother of three children, a great social asset and a celebrated collector of folk ballads...
...In 1952, the Senator was returned to office by a tally of 111,406 to 42,630--which was 2,000 votes more than Eisenhower received...
...The Senator answered: "Mr...
...What should America do...
...The present-day student of human history," says Flanders, "will find it difficult to escape a conviction as to cycles of civilization...
...In Korea, he added sadly, "we find ourselves ruining the people we set out to protect...
...But the abusive mail is heavy, much of it addressed to "Comrade Flanders," labeling him a "traitor," even suggesting that he "drop dead...
...Flanders went on to specify...
Vol. 37 • November 1954 • No. 45
