In 1932, change swept the nation with the election of FDR, and it also swept Rhode Island as Theodore Francis Green (1867-1966) was elected its governor. Although Republicans had dominated Rhode Island since the party’s inception, there could be the occasional Democratic governor. However, the governor was quite weak, not even having control over the budget except to veto the whole package, thus the occasional Democratic governor would be at worst an annoyance to the consistently Republican legislature. Green, who had been a figure in state politics since his election to the state legislature in 1907, would not serve as a mere annoyance.

Theodore Green had been something of a perennial candidate beforehand. He had run for governor twice before without success, in 1912 and 1930. He came close both times, but 1912’s closeness was the product of the conservative/Bull Moose split in the GOP and Rhode Island voters had narrowly supported retaining Republican officeholders in 1930. Green had also run for Congress in 1918, but was defeated by 11 points. However, 1928 had already been a warning for Republicans as to what the future held as Democrat Al Smith had won the state. While Smith hadn’t been the first Democrat to win Rhode Island since the Republican Party’s founding, he was the first to win without there being a split in the Republican vote. In 1932, Green won the gubernatorial election by 12 points over Republican incumbent Norman Case, roughly the same margin that FDR won the state.

1935’s “Bloodless Revolution”

The 1934 midterms did not go well for Republicans, and that applied to Rhode Island. Senator Felix Hebert lost reelection to Democrat Peter Gerry, and Democrats won control of the Rhode Island House. Still in question, however, was the state Senate. There were two seats that were so close they were being contested. Although the official results had Republicans winning 22 Senate seats to the Democrats’ 20, Democrats claimed fraud in two elections that Republicans had been certified the winners, and Lieutenant Governor Robert Quinn refused to allow the two Republicans, B. Earle Anthony of Portsmouth and Wallace Campbell of South Kingstown, to take office (Conley). Thus, Governor Green and Quinn engineered the creation of a commission of two Democratic and one moderate Republican senator to recount the ballots behind closed doors. While this was occurring, Republican senators were prevented from leaving the chamber so as to deny this proceeding a quorum, and the three senators after emerging unanimously proclaimed Democrats Joseph P. Dunn of Portsmouth and Charles A. White of South Kingstown the winners of the races (Conley). Now that the Democrats finally had unified government, they proceeded to purge state government of Republican officeholders and vacated the Supreme Court. The five Republican justices were offered large pensions if they left by noon the next day, and they did (Conley). Furthermore, the Democrats granted the governor more power than the post’s previously weak state. The governor could now have control over the state budget rather than the finance commissioner, a post that was appointed by the Senate (Conley).

This event was likened to a Central American coup by The Providence Journal, a newspaper that had been controlled in the past by Henry Anthony and in that time was owned by Republican Senator Jesse Metcalf’s brother (Frias). The Chicago Tribune’s owner, Colonel Robert R. McCormick, had an even more dramatic reaction. He hauled down the American flag in the Tribune’s lobby and cut out one star, representing Rhode Island, but had the star promptly replaced after being informed that this was an illegal act (Conley). Much like with the Dorr Rebellion, however, others regarded this act as consistent with democracy, and the Democrats of the time regarded Thomas Dorr as a hero.

One way in which Governor Green built up popular support was by managing to unify Irish, Italian, and French ethnic workers, the latter two having often voted Republican in the past. The Green Administration, with its Democratic majority, managed to get a bill providing for a forty-eight hour work week into law, a measure long opposed by the state’s Republicans (Conley). Another way was towards the state legislature by offering jobs to its members in exchange for favorable votes. During the time of unified control, one-third of legislators were given state jobs, an example being one Republican state senator who got a state job after voting to confirm Green’s department heads (Frias). It was possible in that time that legislators could hold office and have state jobs at the same time! Green reflected on the change in the wealthy Republicans he knew after his victories, “As long as I got beaten, my conservative friends tolerated my liberal views as an amiable idiosyncrasy, as though I had taken up Buddhism. But when I won and began to get results and make reforms, they were angry. Many cut me on the street, turned their backs on me in the clubs” (MacKay). For Democrats, Green was their Henry B. Anthony in the sense that it was he who truly led them to victory in the state, and he was just as able to play hardball. In 1936, Green defeated Republican Jesse Metcalf for reelection by four points. This, along with the presidential election in which FDR won the state by 13 points, was a referendum on the first New Deal, and Metcalf had proven one of the strongest detractors of the New Deal. For instance, he was one of only eight senators to oppose Social Security!

Senator Green

As a senator, Theodore Green proved a staunch supporter of FDR. He was one of twenty senators to vote to uphold the “court packing plan”, supported the Fair Labor Standards Act, and housing legislation. Unlike his Republican predecessors, he was a supporter of organized labor. Green also was quite a contrast to Rhode Island’s other senator, Peter Gerry. Gerry was a critic of President Roosevelt’s domestic policy. However, like Gerry, Green was wealthy and such wealth helped his campaigns as well as those of Democrats. He was even more supportive on the president on foreign policy, backing all of FDR’s pre-war measures as a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. The voters clearly approved of his work as well as his attentiveness to constituent service, and he was reelected by 15 points in 1942.
A confidential analysis of him by Isaiah Berlin for the British government read, “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 “Silver Bloc” in the Senate” (Hachey, 146).

Green was a staunch proponent of the Truman Administration both in its liberal domestic policy as well as its internationalist foreign policy. In 1950, he was among the liberals who opposed the McCarran Internal Security Act, the central feature of the law being the registration of communists with the Justice Department. Green would likewise vote to uphold President Truman’s veto of the McCarran-Walter Immigration Act in 1952, regarding the legislation as too restrictive for upholding the national origins quota system.

When Lyndon B. Johnson became Senate Majority Leader in 1955, Senator Green made himself a strong ally. Although normally a strong supporter of civil rights legislation, Green voted for the two weakening amendments to the Civil Rights Act of 1957: the striking of the implementation of the 14th Amendment and the jury trial amendment. Such votes were possibly cast in the name of supporting what Majority Leader Johnson wanted. By the misfortune that many of his Senate colleagues who had been in office before him also served a long time, Green had throughout his career lacked an important committee chairmanship, but finally in 1957 he ascended to chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Although certainly a welcome figure by Senate Democrats for his internationalist views, by this time Green was 90 and his hearing was compromised. By the end of his one term as chairman, it was clear that Green’s age was having too great of an impact, and Johnson managed to get him to vacate his post for fellow internationalist J. William Fulbright of Arkansas. In 1960, Green opted not to run for another term on account of his advanced age, at the time setting a record for oldest senator in history at 93. The liberal Americans for Democratic Action’s average score for him from 1947 to 1960, not counting unopinionated absences, was an 88%, indicating a solid liberalism, while DW-Nominate has him at -0.342. In their 1960 release of ratings, the conservative Americans for Constitutional Action gave him an 11% based on 77 votes from 1955 to 1959.

Historians who have looked into Rhode Island since Green’s rise have had some ambivalence about whether the Democratic rise improved the situation on ethics. Brown University historian William McLoughlin stated on the Democratic rise, “In the long-run it replaced one party rule and patronage by the Republicans for the same kind of single-party system run by the Democrats. None could deny, however, that at least the state was run by its majority” (MacKay).

References

ADA Voting Records. Americans for Democratic Action.

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https://adaction.org/ada-voting-records/

Conley, P.T. Robert E. Quinn and the Political Revolution of 1935. Small State Big History.

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https://smallstatebighistory.com/robert-e-quinn-and-the-political-revolution-of-1935/

Frias, S. (2015, October 7). Going backwards on ethics. The Providence Journal.

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https://www.providencejournal.com/story/opinion/2015/10/07/going-backwards-on-ethics/33324742007/

Green, Theodore Francis. Voteview.

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https://voteview.com/person/3783/theodore-francis-green

Hachey, T.E. (1973-1974). American Profiles on Capitol Hill: A Confidential Study for the British Foreign Office in 1943. The Wisconsin Magazine of History, 57(2), 141-153.

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https://web.archive.org/web/20131021185357/http://berlin.wolf.ox.ac.uk/published_works/singles/bib139a/bib139a.pdf

Hill, R. Theodore Francis Green of Rhode Island. The Knoxville Focus.

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https://www.knoxfocus.com/archives/theodore-francis-green-of-rhode-island/

MacKay, S. (2018, February 19). T.F. Green, The Largely Forgotten Man For Whom The RI Airport Is Named. The Public’s Radio.

Retrieved from

https://thepublicsradio.org/article/tf-green-largely-forgotten-man-whom-ri-airport-named/