Ralph Flanders - Legacy

Legacy

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

During his lifetime, Flanders received more than sixteen honorary degrees from institutions that included Dartmouth College, Harvard University (LL.D.), Middlebury College (D. Sc.) and the University of Vermont (D. Eng.). His wife, Helen Hartness Flanders, was a folk song collector and author of several books on New England ballads.

Flanders died in 1970 and he is buried in the Summer Hill Cemetery in Springfield, Vermont, alongside his wife, Helen, and members of the Hartness family.

Flanders’s Senate legacy has continued to inspire Vermont politicians. In his May 24, 2001 speech announcing his departure from the Republican Party, Vermont Senator James Jeffords cited Flanders three times and spoke of him as one of five Vermont politicians who, “spoke their minds, often to the dismay of their party leaders, and did their best to guide the party in the direction of those fundamental principles they believed in.” 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” and who, “rose up against abuses, against infringements upon Americans' rights when doing that was not popular.”