The Parr Machine functioned on bribery, graft, and illegal donations.[citation needed] Political support came from the southernmost counties in Texas. The machine could produce large numbers of votes, both legal and illegal, from the impoverished and uneducated working-class Mexican-Americans. As a result, the county saw its largely marginalized but large numbers of native Texan yeoman farmers slowly disappear[citation needed] leaving the county commission to be controlled by the Parr family and its cronies. While the Parr Machine had always asserted undue influence over the county's affairs, it was not until Archer Parr that its leadership felt safely secure to overwhelm the remaining independent white farmers by appealing directly to county's new Mexican-American majority by offering them jobs (and in some cases cash directly from the county coffers) in exchange for political support.[citation needed]
The alliance between the Parr-controlled commission and the Hispanic populace made the county a bastion of Democratic strength. By 1940, the white educated population had been reduced[citation needed] to a tiny minority amongst a large Mexican-American population. Parr garnered popular support with his charisma, his fluency in Spanish, and Robin Hood tendencies with sharing the Duval County and Benavides Independent School District coffers. After Archer's death, George inherited the Parr political machine, and the populace passed on the name, "El Patrón", to him as they did his father.
When George attended the 1928 Democratic National Convention in Houston along with his father, people already understood him to be heir apparent, not merely his father's driver. There they plotted with Texas State senator Alvin J. Wirtz, Texas state representative Samuel Ealy Johnson, Jr., and the Bexar County machine to defeat four term Republican Congressman Harry M. Wurzbach in the upcoming election. (Johnson's college student son, Lyndon, also attended.) Wurzbach apparently lost the 1928 election, but was eventually seated in the House because of election fraud.
The discovery of oil in Duval County also created ample opportunities for patronage, allowing Parr to amass a small fortune. To this day, the family's network has limited influence in Texas politics giving its patronage to both Democratic beneficiaries. James Albon Mattox, successfully relied on the old Parr network in his run as the Democratic Party nominee for Texas Attorney General, garnering a majority of the vote in the county despite running against a Mexican-American.
- Archer Parr:
. . . a Texas cattle rancher and politician, who was nicknamed "the Duke of Duval County", where he was the local Democratic Party political boss. Beginning in 1914, Parr was elected to the Texas State Senate for numerous consecutive terms, serving nearly two decades, from 1915 to 1934. He had previously been elected as country commissioner, serving for a decade after repeated re-election. He amassed a great fortune through his career.
Anglo in ancestry, Parr spoke Spanish and acted as a patron, developing a power base among the Mexican Americans who constituted the majority of residents in the county. He retained their favor by supporting his constituents, showing sensitivity to their customs, and sometimes making cash payments. Parr controlled the party machine in the county. By his death in 1942, his son, George Parr, had taken it over, keeping control until 1975.
. . . As a rancher, Parr learned Spanish and began to appreciate Mexican Americans as potential political supporters. They constituted a majority of the population in the county but had been largely ignored by the Anglo elite. Parr treated his workers in the manner of a patron, helping the people and their families, giving favors and looking out for them.[2] He established a system of paternalism.
Parr was first elected to political office in 1896, when he won the office of county commissioner; he was re-elected repeatedly, serving in that position until 1906.[4]
In 1901, the state legislature imposed a poll tax, which effectively disfranchised most blacks and many poor whites, effectively ending the competition from the Republican and Populist parties in Texas.[6][7] Throughout most of the state, the Democratic Party became dominant, and competitive elections were effectively held only at the primary level.
In 1907, John D. Cleary, the county tax assessor, was killed with buckshot in the back. He had "engineered a Democratic sweep of the county elections of 1906."[2] Texas Rangers investigated unsuccessfully. Parr fell under their suspicion because Cleary had been his main political opponent. With Cleary's death, Parr took over the party machinery in the county.
- George Parr:
Parr was a legislative page at the Texas capitol during one of his father's terms in the Texas Legislature and attended the West Texas Military Academy for four years. He graduated from Corpus Christi High School in 1921, where he played end on the football team that won the South Texas championship. Parr attended a variety of post-secondary educational institutions, each briefly, and without completing a degree. He entered the University of Texas Law School in 1923 as a special student, but again left without taking a degree. Still, in 1926 he passed the bar examination and was admitted to practice. Also that year, George's father appointed him to complete the term of George's brother, Givens Parr, as Duval county judge.
