Background
Green was born on October 2, 1867 in Providence, Rhode Island, the son of Arnold Green, a lawyer, and Cornelia Abby Burges.
Green was born on October 2, 1867 in Providence, Rhode Island, the son of Arnold Green, a lawyer, and Cornelia Abby Burges.
Heir to a textile fortune, Green was educated at private schools. He graduated from Providence High School, received his B. A. (1887) and M. A. (1890) from Brown University, and attended Harvard University Law School and the universities of Bonn and Berlin.
From 1894 to 1897 Green was an instructor in Roman law at Brown. He devoted his long life to the practice of law and business. He entered politics in 1906 as a member of a reform party that fused with the Democratic party, and he became active in efforts to reform his state's government. He served in the Rhode Island House of Representatives in 1907 and was an unsuccessful candidate for governor in 1912 and 1930 and for Congress in 1920. He was elected governor of Rhode Island in the Democratic landslide of 1932, running ahead of the state ticket. From a legislature in which the Republicans held a small majority, he was able to secure a compromise relief bill before Franklin Roosevelt took office; the bill enabled the state to borrow Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC) funds to afford work for the unemployed and rebated debts owed by towns and cities. In the next two years he strengthened the governor's office by wielding vetoes, assuming administration of RFC funds, controlling federal patronage, and taking charge of the legislative program. Re-elected in 1934 by a larger plurality than in 1932, Green staged a coup that gave the Democrats control of both houses of the legislature, opening the door to further reform. Like Roosevelt, Green effectively used the radio to win public support for his actions and policies. In 1936, Green was elected to the United States Senate, beginning a long career characterized by devout faith in democracy and humanitarianism, party loyalty, and internationalism. In his first year he supported the New Deal measures on housing, taxation, and unemployment. Despite opposition from his constituents, he supported Roosevelt's Court-packing plan and voted to confirm Hugo Black's nomination to the Supreme Court. Green voted for Harry Truman's Fair Deal measures and to sustain presidential vetoes. During the legislative struggle over the civil rights bill of 1957, the Senate majority leader, Lyndon B. Johnson, turned to Green to win eastern support for the compromise by which jury trials were to be used in criminal cases but not in civil ones. Believing the United States had made a mistake by not joining the League of Nations, Green favored revision of the neutrality laws in the late 1930's in order to aid Democratic governments in Western Europe and supported the Lend-Lease Act. During World War II he introduced the companion to a House bill that provided absentee voting for members of the armed forces in the continental United States and suspended poll taxes for these voters. After it was enacted over strenuous southern opposition, he devoted his efforts to extending the ballot to overseas service personnel. However, Green vigorously opposed the watered-down Absentee Voting Act of 1944. It was as a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that Green made his most important contribution. Assigned to the committee in 1938, he served until 1959, the sole interruption occurring during the Eightieth Congress (1949-1951). He upheld Truman's foreign policies, including the Truman Doctrine, the NATO alliance, the Marshall Plan, and the Korean intervention. Green opposed the Bricker amendment to restrict executive power in foreign relations. His twenty years of service came to a climax in 1951 when he became committee chairman. As chairman, he generally supported President Eisenhower, but he looked askance at Secretary of State John Foster Dulles' wide range of activities outside the United Nations. During the first year and a half of his committee chairmanship, Green discharged his duties with vigor. Late in 1958 his hearing and vision became impaired; on January 30, 1959, he tendered his resignation as chairman. He had experienced no difficulty in being thrice re-elected to the Senate in 1942, 1948, and 1954. On May 27, 1957, at the age of eighty-nine years, seven months, and twenty-six days, he became the oldest man ever to serve in the Congress. In January 1960, his health failing visibly, Green announced he would not again be a candidate. He died in Providence on May 19, 1966.
President of J. P. Coats (1912-1923); President of the Morris Plan Bankers' Association (1924-1927)
Green was a wit, a social favorite, a dandy in dress, and an athlete who played tennis until he was eighty-eight.
Green never married.
