Difference between revisions of "George Parr"
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All of the additional voter names essential to Johnson's nomination were signed in the same blue ink and in the same handwriting. According to the presiding election judge, copies of the voter signatures needed for verification were stolen, amid allegations of fraud. Stevenson long attributed his failure to defeat Johnson for the Senate nomination as “the stuffed ballot box.” In subsequent years, Stevenson supported primarily Republican candidates for national and state office, including U.S. Senator [[Barry Goldwater]] of [[Arizona]], who ran against President Johnson in 1964 and made an especially weak showing in Texas as well as nationwide. | All of the additional voter names essential to Johnson's nomination were signed in the same blue ink and in the same handwriting. According to the presiding election judge, copies of the voter signatures needed for verification were stolen, amid allegations of fraud. Stevenson long attributed his failure to defeat Johnson for the Senate nomination as “the stuffed ballot box.” In subsequent years, Stevenson supported primarily Republican candidates for national and state office, including U.S. Senator [[Barry Goldwater]] of [[Arizona]], who ran against President Johnson in 1964 and made an especially weak showing in Texas as well as nationwide. | ||
| − | Parr blamed the Ballot Box 13 dispute on one of his closest friends, Ed Lloyd,<ref>"Stolen Election: Landslide Lyndon," Today in History, August 28, 1948.</ref> a lawyer in Alice in Jim Wells County who wrote in the additional voter names to the final tally reported to the state Democratic Party. Parr further claimed that Stevenson was himself responsible for his own loss in such a close contest where a few hundred additional votes could have changed the outcome. Parr said that Stevenson's tendency to avoid making appointments to vacant state positions; this policy hurt Stevenson with local voters. Parr and Judge Manuel “Black Hawk” Raymond recommended that Stevenson appoint, E. James “Jimmy” Kazen (1912–2003) of [[Laredo]], as the district attorney for Webb County. Raymond was related to Kazen. In 1944, Kazen was elected to a full term as DA and remained in that position until 1958.<ref>Anthony R. Carrozza, ''The Dukes of Duval County: The Parr Family and Texas Politics,'' (Norman: University of Oklahoma | + | Parr blamed the Ballot Box 13 dispute on one of his closest friends, Ed Lloyd,<ref>"Stolen Election: Landslide Lyndon," Today in History, August 28, 1948.</ref> a lawyer in Alice in Jim Wells County who wrote in the additional voter names to the final tally reported to the state Democratic Party. Parr further claimed that Stevenson was himself responsible for his own loss in such a close contest where a few hundred additional votes could have changed the outcome. Parr said that Stevenson's tendency to avoid making appointments to vacant state positions; this policy hurt Stevenson with local voters. Parr and Judge Manuel “Black Hawk” Raymond recommended that Stevenson appoint, E. James “Jimmy” Kazen (1912–2003) of [[Laredo]], as the district attorney for Webb County. Raymond was related to Kazen. In 1944, Kazen was elected to a full term as DA and remained in that position until 1958.<ref>Anthony R. Carrozza, ''The Dukes of Duval County: The Parr Family and Texas Politics,'' (Norman: University of Oklahoma, 2017), pp. 45-46.</ref> “That’s how come Lyndon Johnson got to be President,” quipped Parr in regard to the senatorial election, which in time provided the opportunity for Johnson to seek the nation's highest elected office, first in 1960, when he instead became vice president under John F. Kennedy, and again in his only election as president in 1964.<ref>Evan Anders, ''Parr, George Bertram," ''The Handbook of Texas.''</ref> |
| − | Parr was particularly in | + | Parr was particularly in Johnson's debt because the congressman in 1946 had urged President [[Harry Truman]] to grant a [[pardon]] to Parr, who had served a nine-month imprisonment in the 1930s for federal income tax evasion. Without the pardon, Parr further claimed that Stevenson was responsible for his own defea because a few hundred votes would have reversed the outcome. Parr's political empire seemed to be collapsing. When Parr was convicted again in 1974 for federal income tax evasion and faced a ten-year prison sentence, he committed [[suicide]] on April 1, 1975, at Los Harcones, his Duval County ranch.<ref name=freshs/> |
| − | Dudley Lynch wrote that had Parr been imprisoned in 1975, “his enemies would have danced ecstatically in the street. But in putting a .45 caliber slug through his brain, he had turned his exodus into a triumph.” Duval County turned out in big numbers for | + | Dudley Lynch wrote that had Parr been imprisoned in 1975, “his enemies would have danced ecstatically in the street. But in putting a .45 caliber slug through his brain, he had turned his exodus into a triumph.” Duval County turned out in big numbers for Parr's funeral; some 150 cars stretched for a mile while awaiting the service.50 Incidentally, George Parr and Coke Stevenson died three months apart in 1975; Lyndon Johnson had succumbed two years earlier in retirement at Stonewall in Gillespie County. As his presidential ambitions developed in the 1950s, Johnson tried to distance himself from any association concerning George Parr.<ref name=freshs/><ref>Anders, ''Boss Rule in South Texas,'' p. 10.</ref> |
In 1954, Parr was elected as the Duval County [[sheriff]]. | In 1954, Parr was elected as the Duval County [[sheriff]]. | ||
Latest revision as of 21:20, June 4, 2021
| George Berham Parr, II
(Texas political boss instrumental in the 1948 nomination of future President Lyndon B. Johnson to the United States Senate) | |||
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| Born | March 1, 1901 San Diego, Duval County, Texas | ||
| Died | April 1, 1975 (aged 74) Los Harcones Ranch Duval County Resting place: | ||
| Political Party | Democrat | ||
| Spouse | Thelma Duckworth Parr (m. 1923, divorced, remarried late 1930s, divorced, 1949) (2) Eva Parr Children: Parents: Alma mater: | ||
- See also: Democrat election fraud
George Berham Parr, II also known as the Duke of Duval (March 1, 1901 – April 1, 1975), was an attorney, rancher, and popular though corrupt and extremely ruthless Democrat political operative in his native Duval County, located in south Texas. Through his mastery of the Partido Viejo, or "Old Party," He was instrumental in the nomination in 1948 of Lyndon B. Johnson to the United States Senate.[1]
Contents
Background
Parr's father, Archer "Archie" Parr (1860–1942), was a state senator from 1915 to 1935. As a teenager, young Parr was his father's senatorial pageboy. In 1926, at the age of twenty-five, he was appointed as the county (administrative) judge of Duval County, based in the seat of government in the isolated town of San Diego, Texas. Two of his brothers had declined to enter politics, and George received his father's blessing. At the time, this San Diego was described as "a village less than a whistle stop on the railroad," with limited highway connections as well. Parr's biographer, Dudley Lynch, said that the stagnation began even before Parr's birth. The Spanish deed for Duval County dated back to 1528, when Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca (1490–1558) supposedly explored the area while headed to Mexico. Lynch wrote that the small population of San Diego, "had a lot of time on their hands." The labor force was small and largely unskilled. Industry could not locate there because of the lack of available water. Lynch termed Parr "an Anglo who spoke Spanish and understood Mexican customs, and sensed the political potential residing in Duval's outraged Mexican majority. "[1]
Career
In 1952, a small anti-Parr faction in Duval County blamed Parr for the bungled assassination in 1952 of 21-year-old Jacob Stokes "Buddy" Floyd, Jr., who was engaged to be married. Buddy's father, "Jake" Stokes, Sr., was an outspoken opponent of the Parr machine. He was active in the former Freedom Party, a collection of World War II veterans who challenged the Partido Viejo. The senior stokes was an attorney in Alice in Jim Wells County, who said that the bullet which killed his son was meant for him. Mario "Turk" Sapet was convicted of the Floyd murder, but his accomplice, Alfred Cervantes, escaped and was never apprehended. Dudley Lynch said that the evidence against Parr in the Floyd case was both highly circumstantial and highly incriminationg."[1]
In 1948, Parr received national attention as a principal backer and benefactor of of Lyndon Johnson, then the U.S. Representative from Texas' 10th congressional district, who was running in the Democratic primary that summer for the U.S. Senate against the conservative former Governor Coke Stevenson (1888–1975) of Junction in Kimble County. Parr had in 1942 and 1944 engineered a lopsided margin for Stevenson, but in the Senate race, he was approached by Johnson, who relished the support of the outh Texas patrons, or political bosses operating machine counties. Stevenson led in the first primary with 39.7 percent of the votes cast, compared to Johnson's 33.7 percent. In the runoff between Stevenson and Johnson on August 28, Parr ordered 202 additional votes, all but two of which were cast for Johnson, to be added to the amended runoff vote count for Box 13 in Jim Wells County. Johnson won the nomination by eighty-seven disputed votes statewide.[2] As the Democratic nominee, Johnson had no probable dispatching Republican Jack Porter, a Houston oilman who became active in the 1940s in the long-range goal of transforming the state GOP from “a patronage club” into a competitive political force. Johnson polled exactly two thirds of the vote, 702,985; Porter, 349,665.[3]
All of the additional voter names essential to Johnson's nomination were signed in the same blue ink and in the same handwriting. According to the presiding election judge, copies of the voter signatures needed for verification were stolen, amid allegations of fraud. Stevenson long attributed his failure to defeat Johnson for the Senate nomination as “the stuffed ballot box.” In subsequent years, Stevenson supported primarily Republican candidates for national and state office, including U.S. Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona, who ran against President Johnson in 1964 and made an especially weak showing in Texas as well as nationwide.
Parr blamed the Ballot Box 13 dispute on one of his closest friends, Ed Lloyd,[4] a lawyer in Alice in Jim Wells County who wrote in the additional voter names to the final tally reported to the state Democratic Party. Parr further claimed that Stevenson was himself responsible for his own loss in such a close contest where a few hundred additional votes could have changed the outcome. Parr said that Stevenson's tendency to avoid making appointments to vacant state positions; this policy hurt Stevenson with local voters. Parr and Judge Manuel “Black Hawk” Raymond recommended that Stevenson appoint, E. James “Jimmy” Kazen (1912–2003) of Laredo, as the district attorney for Webb County. Raymond was related to Kazen. In 1944, Kazen was elected to a full term as DA and remained in that position until 1958.[5] “That’s how come Lyndon Johnson got to be President,” quipped Parr in regard to the senatorial election, which in time provided the opportunity for Johnson to seek the nation's highest elected office, first in 1960, when he instead became vice president under John F. Kennedy, and again in his only election as president in 1964.[6]
Parr was particularly in Johnson's debt because the congressman in 1946 had urged President Harry Truman to grant a pardon to Parr, who had served a nine-month imprisonment in the 1930s for federal income tax evasion. Without the pardon, Parr further claimed that Stevenson was responsible for his own defea because a few hundred votes would have reversed the outcome. Parr's political empire seemed to be collapsing. When Parr was convicted again in 1974 for federal income tax evasion and faced a ten-year prison sentence, he committed suicide on April 1, 1975, at Los Harcones, his Duval County ranch.[1]
Dudley Lynch wrote that had Parr been imprisoned in 1975, “his enemies would have danced ecstatically in the street. But in putting a .45 caliber slug through his brain, he had turned his exodus into a triumph.” Duval County turned out in big numbers for Parr's funeral; some 150 cars stretched for a mile while awaiting the service.50 Incidentally, George Parr and Coke Stevenson died three months apart in 1975; Lyndon Johnson had succumbed two years earlier in retirement at Stonewall in Gillespie County. As his presidential ambitions developed in the 1950s, Johnson tried to distance himself from any association concerning George Parr.[1][7]
In 1954, Parr was elected as the Duval County sheriff.
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 Billy Hathorn, "Jim Wells, George Parr, Pepe Martin, and Gene Falcon: The Spirit of 'El Patron' along the Rio Grande of South Texas, Fresh Studies in Rio Grande Valley History, 2020, pp. 7-10.
- ↑ Dudley Lynch, George Parr, pp. 58-59.
- ↑ "Houma Jackson "Jack" Porter (1896–1986), "Key Republican in Texas in the 1950s Is Deat at 90, The New York Times, December 10, 1986.
- ↑ "Stolen Election: Landslide Lyndon," Today in History, August 28, 1948.
- ↑ Anthony R. Carrozza, The Dukes of Duval County: The Parr Family and Texas Politics, (Norman: University of Oklahoma, 2017), pp. 45-46.
- ↑ Evan Anders, Parr, George Bertram," The Handbook of Texas.
- ↑ Anders, Boss Rule in South Texas, p. 10.
External links
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