Most people say that as you get old, you have to give up things. I think you get old because you give up things.

During the McCarthy controversy he voted for censure of his Republican colleague Senator Joseph McCarthy. 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. 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 the Republican President Dwight D.

He was the grandnephew of Samuel G. Theodore Francis Green (October 2 1867 – May 19 1966) was an American politician from the U. state of Rhode Island.