Flanders used his experience as an industrialist to advise state and national commissions in Vermont, New England and Washington, D.C., on industrial and economic policy.

McCarthy had made sensational claims that there were large numbers of Communists and Soviet spies and sympathizers inside the federal government and elsewhere.

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.

[3] When 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.

[5] In his first years as a machinist and draftsman, he spent his vacations traveling by bicycle over country roads between Rhode Island and Vermont and New Hampshire.

[6] Later, he lived for a time in New York City where he edited a machine tool magazine,[7] but after five years decided to move back to Vermont.

[4] Flanders's career began with an apprenticeship, progressed into engineering, journalism, management, policy consulting, banking, finance, and finally politics when he was elected U.S.

[9] Unable to afford college tuition after his high school graduation, in 1896 Flanders's father bought him a two-year apprenticeship at the Brown & Sharpe Manufacturing Company, a leading machine tool builder.

[4] Despite his lack of a formal university education, he was a self-taught scholar, who read extensively in the literatures of science, engineering and the liberal arts.

[18][19] In 1909, while working long hours on his definitive book on gear cutting machinery, his energy gave out and he suffered a "nervous breakdown".

[31] These incorporated advances in thread technology (furthered by the Hartness optical comparator) and Flanders's engineering calculations for gear-cutting machinery.

[19] In 1942, the two brothers received the Edward Longstreth Medal of the Franklin Institute as recognition of this accomplishment, which improved the accurate manufacture of die-cut screws in soft metal and solved the problem of thread-grinding on hardened work.

This commission was to negotiate with other New England states a means of sharing costs in a system of flood-control dams as part of recovering from the massive floods of 1927 and attempting to prevent a reoccurrence.

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

Flanders reported[49] helping to shape the CED's recommendations to Congress on roles for the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.

[8][53] During this period, the bank helped establish the Boston Port Authority to revitalize New England's capacity for sending and receiving goods by cargo ship.

"[48] In August 1946, incumbent Senator Warren Austin resigned to accept U.S. President Harry S. Truman's appointment as Ambassador to the United Nations.

[65] He observed that, "Even in the established democracies, ... the voters are easily seduced into leaving politics to skillful politicians who are themselves without a sense of general, social responsibility.

In Flanders's view, moral law required honesty, compassion, responsibility, cooperation, humility, and wisdom—values that all cultures hold in common.

He felt that Roosevelt and his advisors did not heed Secretary of the Navy, Frank Knox's warning that it was "easily possible that hostilities would be initiated by a surprise attack upon the fleet or the Naval Base at Pearl Harbor."

However, he was critical of John Foster Dulles, Secretary of State, for mishandling opportunities to create friendly alignment with Egypt and India, countries which instead sided with the Soviet Union.

[77] Flanders felt that spending 62% of federal income on defense was irrational, when the Soviet government claimed it wished to avoid nuclear conflict.

[78] 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".

One message called his speech 'a fine example of Vermont courage, humor and decency,' while another told him, 'Your remarks brought a breath of fresh clean air from the Green Mountains.'

The editor of a national publication said: 'It was one of the few recent indications that the Republican Party on Capitol Hill is not wholly devoid of courageous moral leadership.'

And an editorial in the Rutland Herald stated, 'The effect of the speech was to hearten that vast majority of Americans who hate communism but who also revere the Constitution.

Comparing McCarthy to 'Dennis the Menace' of cartoon fame, the Vermonter delivered a scathing address in which he lambasted the Wisconsin man for dividing the nation.

He marveled at the way the Soviet Union was winning military successes in Asia without risking its own resources or men, and said this nation was witnessing 'another example of economy of effort ... in the conquest of this country for communism.'

Upon the advice of Senators Cooper and Fulbright and legal assistance from the Committee for a More Effective Congress he modified his resolution to "bring it in line with previous actions of censure.

"[97] In speeches to Georgetown University Law Center and Johnson State College, Senator Patrick Leahy cited Flanders as one of three Vermont politicians who showed, "the importance of standing firm in your beliefs," "that conflict need not be hostile or adversarial"[98] and who "rose up against abuses, against infringements upon Americans' rights when doing that was not popular.