George Berham Parr - Struggles and Demise of Political Machine

Struggles and Demise of Political Machine

In 1950, Parr had become a thorn in the side of Governor Allan Shivers and Attorney General John Ben Shepperd. Federal officials began to investigate the machine. Some 650 indictments were brought forth against machine members, 300 of them at the state level. Parr, however, eluded indictment, and his conviction for fraud was later dismissed. Under the protection of Lyndon Johnson, Parr eluded all attempts to investigate and convict him for fraud, bribery, corruption, racketeering, and murder. Ironically, Shepperd was a political advisor to Johnson even as he attempted to bring indictments against Parr. The Parr Machine was challenged by the Freedom Party in Alice, Texas, led by Jake Floyd. The Parrs lost control of that district court, an important office the Parr Machine was used to controlling all over South Texas. The botched assassination of Buddy Floyd, Jake's son, mistakenly shot and killed by Mario Sapet, on September 8, 1952, also signaled turbulent times for the Parr Machine.

However, political candidates would time to time make him an object of their reforming campaigns. In 1954 Governor Allen Shrivers declared war on the Parr Faction and sent down a team of Texas Rangers and state investigators. He was charged with embezzlement but beat the case. The Parr Machine maintained control of Jim Wells and Duval Counties despite the legal and political backlash.

With the end of the Johnson Administration in 1968, Parr lost his primary political protector. Under advice from Johnson and other prominent figures, he relinquished control of his machine to his nephew Archer III, by the early 1970s. The law finally caught up with Parr in 1974 when he was convicted of income tax evasion and given a ten year prison term. He was found dead at his ranch on April 1, 1975, the apparent victim of suicide. When Parr's machine collapsed soon after his death, Duval County's small white large landowning minority attempted to retain control of the county politically but was unable to halt the take-over of the county Democratic party by the now overwhelmingly large Mexican-American population. Nonetheless, the family and its network remains influential so that although the county has remained one of the strongest and most consistently Democrat localities in Texas, frequently giving both national and local candidates margins greater than 70 percent.

George's father was Archie Parr who began the Dynasty of Duval County, Archer Parr is the third Duke of the Duval County Dynasty.