Warren Green

Warren Green (March 10, 1869 – April 27 1945) was the thirteenth Governor of South Dakota. Green, a Republican from Hazel, South Dakota, served from 1931 to 1933.

Warren Green was born in Jackson County, Wisconsin, the oldest of eight children. He family emigrated to Dakota Territory and settled in Hamlin County in the spring of 1881. Green grew up there and went into the farming business. He served in several local offices and married Elizabeth Jane Parliament in 1899. They had four children.

Green served three terms in the state senate, South Dakota Legislature. He was elected in 1906, 1922 and 1924. He served on the starte Board of Charities and Corrections from 1913-1920.

He was elected governor in 1930 and took office at the beginning of the Great Depression. He inherited a massive state debt that he met with tax reform and budget reductions. He reduced salaries from 10 to 20 percent. He also had to deal with drought, a grasshopper plague, a crop failure and an exceptionally hard failure. He sought re-election in 1932 by was defeated by Tom Berry. He went back to his farm at Hazel. He died April 27, 1945. ["Biographical Directory of the South Dakota Legislature, 1889-1989" (1989), p. 385]

Notes