The Boulevardier Brahmin

At 92, when he gracefully announced his retirement from the Senate, he was the oldest man ever to have served in Congress. Indeed, few men of any age have served with quite the verve and elegance that Rhode Island's Theodore Francis Green brought to Capitol Hill. A kindly, conscientious man of great wealth and deep erudition whose favorite Latin proverb was Senesco discern --I grow old learning--he insisted: "I never rest, but I relax. I don't worry, I don't get excited. I laugh a lot." That formula assured Teddy Green a life as full and gay as it had been long when it ran out last week at 98 in the 22-room Providence mansion that had been in his family since 1822.

Descended from the first, hardy colonists, who came to Rhode Island in 1636 with the state's founder, Roger Williams, Theodore Francis Green (he liked always to use his full name) was raised amid a millionaire's soft comforts and a typical New England Brahmin's stern devotion to public service and politics. His great-great-grandfather was a delegate to the Continental Congress; his great-grandfather was a U.S. Senator from 1817 to 1820. Green first met a U.S. President, Rutherford B. Hayes, when he was ten; with the exception of James A. Garfield, he got to know every one since.

Like Buddhism. Bachelor Green spent most of his life practicing law and minding the family fortune. A fervent liberal and internationalist, Democrat Green tried three times for the governorship of doughtily Republican Rhode Island, was finally elected in 1932. "It's a curious thing," he said of his rigorously reformist record as Governor. "As long as I got beaten, my conservative friends tolerated my liberal views as an idiosyncrasy, as though I had taken up Buddhism. But when I won the governorship, they were angry."

As a spry 69-year-old, Green ran for the U.S. Senate in 1936, won handily and--much to the chagrin of Rhode Island Republicans--stayed on for 23 years. "They seemed to think that they could wear me out and tire me down," he chuckled later. "But they couldn't."

In Washington, he came on as a dignified boulevardier, sporting pince-nez, a jaunty mustache and rich tweed suits. Blessed with the evergreen exuberance of a Yankee Maurice Chevalier, he always appreciated a pretty face and seldom missed a party along Washington's Embassy Row.

He was an expert collector of Chinese art and a physical-culture buff who continued to wrestle at the Y.M.C.A. until he was 75, played tennis until he was 88. Behind his back, the sinewy Senator's aides called him "Tarzan." He shunned the Senate elevators, instead sprinted up the stairs in the Capitol, and invariably walked the 21 miles from his apartment to Capitol Hill. He detested the automobile and owned only one car, a 1932 Buick, which he never learned to drive.

"Support the President." Though he was a Senate mainstay in helping push through controversial programs for Presidents Roosevelt and Truman, Green authored no major bills and restricted his floor speeches to crisp little talks. The high point of his congressional career came in 1957 when, at 89, he became chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, succeeding Georgia's venerable Walter George. For two years Green did a creditable job, holding to his maxim: "In the field of foreign policy, if in doubt, support the President."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.