 Ralph Edward Flanders ( September 28 , 1880 – February 19 , 1970 ) was an American mechanical engineer , industrialist and Republican U.S. Senator from the state of Vermont . He grew up on subsistence farms in Vermont and Rhode Island , became an apprentice first as a machinist , then as a draftsman , before training as a mechanical engineer . He spent five years in New York City as an editor for a machine tool magazine . After moving to Vermont , he managed and then became president of a successful machine tool company . Flanders used his experience as an industrialist to advise state and national commissions in Vermont , New England and Washington , D.C. on public economic policy . He was president of the Boston Federal Reserve Bank for two years before being elected U.S. Senator from Vermont . 
