Parr Family Machine
The Parr Machine functioned on bribery, graft, and illegal donations. Political support came from the southern most 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 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.
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 to a tiny minority amongst a large Mexican-American population. Parr garnered popular support with his charisma, his ability to speak Spanish, and Robin Hood tendencies with sharing the Duval County and Benavides School District coffers. After Archer's death, George inherited the Parr polictical machine, and the populace passed on the name, "El Patron", to him as they did his father.
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 and Republican 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.
Read more about this topic: George Berham Parr
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