Theodore F. Green | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Chair of theSenate Committee on Foreign Relations | |
| In office January 3, 1957 – January 3, 1959 | |
| Preceded by | Walter F. George |
| Succeeded by | J. William Fulbright |
| United States Senator fromRhode Island | |
| In office January 3, 1937 – January 3, 1961 | |
| Preceded by | Jesse H. Metcalf |
| Succeeded by | Claiborne Pell |
| 57thGovernor of Rhode Island | |
| In office January 3, 1933 – January 5, 1937 | |
| Lieutenant | Robert E. Quinn |
| Preceded by | Norman S. Case |
| Succeeded by | Robert E. Quinn |
| Member of theRhode Island House of Representatives | |
| In office 1907 | |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Theodore Francis Green (1867-10-02)October 2, 1867 Providence, Rhode Island, U.S. |
| Died | May 19, 1966(1966-05-19) (aged 98) Providence, Rhode Island, U.S. |
| Resting place | Swan Point Cemetery, Providence, Rhode Island |
| Political party | Democratic |
| Education | Brown University Harvard University University of Bonn University of Berlin |
| Signature |  |
| Military service | |
| Allegiance |  United States Rhode Island |
| Rank | First lieutenant |
| Unit | Rhode Island Militia |
| Battles/wars | Spanish–American War |
Theodore Francis Green (October 2, 1867 – May 19, 1966) was an American politician fromRhode Island. ADemocrat, Green served as the 57thGovernor of Rhode Island (1933–1937) and in theUnited States Senate (1937–1961). Green was a strong supporter ofWilsonianinternationalism during the administrations ofFranklin D. Roosevelt andHarry S. Truman. He served as chairman of theSenate Foreign Relations Committee from 1957 to 1959. At the time of his retirement in 1961, he set the record at age 93 of the oldest person to serve in the Senate; the record was subsequently broken byStrom Thurmond.
Born inProvidence, Rhode Island, to Arnold Green, a lawyer, and Cornelia Abby Burges, he graduated from Providence High School in 1883 andBrown University in 1887, receiving aMaster of Arts degree from Brown in 1888. He attendedHarvard Law School from 1888 to 1890 and studied at theUniversity of Bonn andUniversity of Berlin from 1890 to 1892. A lifelong bachelor, Green devoted himself to the law, politics, and civic, business, and cultural activities. Admitted to theRhode Island Bar in 1892, he long practiced law, taking time during theSpanish–American War to serve in the Rhode Island Militia as afirst lieutenant in command of a provisional infantry company. He served as president of J. P. Coats Company from 1912 to 1923 and Morris Plan Banker's Association from 1900 to 1929.[1]
Green began his career in public life in 1907 as a member of theRhode Island House of Representatives. Active in Democratic Party politics as chairman of state committees and a delegate toDemocratic National Conventions, he was an unsuccessful candidate for governor (1912, 1928, 1930) and theU.S. House of Representatives (1920). Party loyalty, perseverance, and theGreat Depression won him election as governor in 1932. He served two terms (1933–1937).[2]
Until the1934 United States elections, theRepublican Party dominated theRhode Island Senate. This resulted in part from the unequal nature of senatorial districts; every municipality in the state was represented by a senator, despite significant imbalances in population between different towns. For example, both the 485 residents ofWest Greenwich and the 275,000 residents ofProvidence were represented by one senator each. Republicans won small towns with majority Protestant populations, while Democrats won larger cities with significant immigrant Catholic populations; as a consequence, even when Democrats won the statewide vote, Republicans would win more senatorial districts. The Senate additionally held much of the executive and appointment power in the state, such as the power to name judges. This left the state governor oftentimes a figurehead, especially if they were a Democrat. Democrats called this system "feudal" and analogized it to the United Kingdom'srotten boroughs, even though unequally-sized state legislative upper houses were common in the United States prior to the 1964 Supreme Court decision inReynolds v. Sims.[3][4]
The 1934 elections were a national Democratic landslide, with Green winning re-election as governor, and Democrats winning control of theRhode Island House of Representatives. However, they fell just short of controlling the Rhode Island Senate, winning 20 seats to Republicans' 22. Democrats claimed fraud in two races where Republicans had won. On January 1, 1935, Lt. Gov.Robert E. Quinn refused to allow two Republican senators who were certified as elected to take office. A committee of three senators (two Democrats and one Republican) was appointed to recount the ballots for these two races. Behind closed doors, the committee reviewed the ballots and then unanimously proclaimed the Democrats as the winners. With the Senate in Democratic control, the General Assembly quickly reorganized state government, vacated the Supreme Court, and purged many Republican-dominated boards and commissions. AProvidence Journal editorial likened this incident to a Central American "coup d'etat".[5][6] However, state Democrats celebrated the incident as overturning a long period ofminority rule, and would later refer to it as the "Bloodless Revolution."[3]
At the age of 69, Green was elected to theUnited States Senate in the Democratic landslide of1936 and served four terms, retiring in 1961. Described as "the president's man", he was loyal to the Democratic presidents with whom he served and, to a larger extent than many other northern Democrats, to PresidentDwight D. Eisenhower, a Republican. Green vigorously supported domestic New Deal measures, including PresidentFranklin D. Roosevelt's controversial "Court packing" bill in 1937, but that failed. He voted for the wages and hours and low-cost housing bills in 1937, and advocating farm and work relief, he sustained continuing appropriations for New Deal relief measures.[7]
As a senior member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Green took a strong internationalist position in world affairs, especially regarding opposition to Nazi expansion in Europe. Green advocated expansion of the Navy and the Army, revision of the neutrality laws despite isolationist opposition, and passage of theLend-Lease Bill, which in one of his many radio talks he called "Aid to America".[8]
During World War II, Green vigorously objected to a proposal to exempt farm workers from the draft as a means to increase agricultural production and secured passage of a law releasing government-owned silver for war purposes. He supported a law providing for absentee voting for servicemen stationed in the United States and headed a Senate committee investigating violations of theHatch Act.
Throughout his senatorial career, Green supported civil rights legislation. He struggled to enact laws to ban the poll tax, to make lynching a federal crime, and to change Senate rules to make it easier to end filibusters. Consistently working closely with Majority LeaderLyndon B. Johnson, he helped secure eastern liberal support for theCivil Rights Act of 1957. As the nation moved to the right at mid-century, Green retained his liberal faith, voting to uphold PresidentHarry Truman's vetoes of the restrictive McCarran-Walter Immigration Bill of 1952 and the McCarran Internal Security Act of 1950. During the McCarthy controversy, he voted for censure of his Republican colleague SenatorJoseph McCarthy.[9]
For 20 of his 24 years in the Senate, Green served on theForeign Relations Committee, beginning in 1938 and interrupted from 1947 to 1949. An early and steadfast internationalist committed to theUnited Nations, he stoutly sustained President Truman's Cold War initiatives, including theTruman Doctrine, theMarshall Plan, theNorth Atlantic Treaty Organization, andintervention in Korea. At the 1952 meeting of the UN General Assembly, to which Truman appointed him as a delegate, Green expressed his faith in the world organization as the "last great hope of mankind."[10] He stood with the minority of 31 senators who by one vote prevented the two-thirds majority necessary to pass anamendment initiated by SenatorJohn W. Bricker to limit the president's powers in foreign policy.[11]
In April 1943, a confidential analysis by British scholarIsaiah Berlin of the Foreign Relations Committee for the BritishForeign Office succinctly characterized Green as:
a former Governor of his State, he is, for all his years, a typical "progressive" pro-New Deal businessman. While he is a man of limited intellect, he is right-minded to a degree and a completely reliable ally of the Administration. He is a free trader with a particular hatred of the "SilverBloc" in the Senate.[12]
Though wary of reductions in foreign aid programs with the coming of the Eisenhower administration, Green was one of the few northern Democrats to support administration measures in the Republican-dominated Senate of the Eighty-third Congress. In the Eighty-fifth Congress (1957–1958), Green served as Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee. He was a loyal ally of Democratic Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson.[13]
In 1959, with his health failing, the 92-year-old Green resigned his chairmanship; he left the Senate at the conclusion of his term in 1961. Green died in Providence, Rhode Island on May 19, 1966, at the age of 98. He was interred atSwan Point Cemetery in Providence.[14]
Following the death ofFenimore Chatterton ofWyoming on May 9, 1958, Green became the oldest living former US Governor, and the oldest living former US Senator following the death ofGeorge Pepper in 1961.
| Party political offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Lewis A. Waterman | Democratic nominee forGovernor of Rhode Island 1912 | Succeeded by Patrick H. Quinn |
| Preceded by Alberic A. Archambault | Democratic nominee forGovernor of Rhode Island 1930,1932,1934 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Democratic nominee forU.S. Senator fromRhode Island (Class 2) 1936,1942,1948,1954 | Succeeded by |
| Political offices | ||
| Preceded by | Governor of Rhode Island 1933–1937 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Chairman of theSenate Foreign Relations Committee 1957–1959 | Succeeded by |
| U.S. Senate | ||
| Preceded by | U.S. senator (Class 2) from Rhode Island January 3, 1937 – January 3, 1961 Served alongside:Peter G. Gerry,J. Howard McGrath, Edward L. Leahy,John O. Pastore | Succeeded by |
| Honorary titles | ||
| Preceded by | Oldest living U.S. senator May 24, 1961 – May 19, 1966 | Succeeded by |
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| Class 2 | ||
| Rules (1870–1947) | | |
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| Rules and Administration (1947–present) | ||
| International | |
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| National | |
| People | |
| Other | |
