The Duke Delivers

Like his father before him, George Berham Parr, 47, is the political boss of oil-rich Duval County, in the southernmost appendix of Texas. He is also a banker, beer baron, oil promoter and lawyer. He went to jail for Federal income-tax evasion in 1936. After he got out, one year later, he began again to stretch his grip beyond his small core of about 5,000 Mexican-American voters in Duval to take in the Democratic machines of several neighboring counties.

Last week many Democrats from north and west Texas, who had never considered the dapper "Duke of Duval" anything more than a local political princeling found that he had become a powerful kingmaker. In the stretch of one of the closest political races in U.S. history, he was the man most responsible for Congressman Lyndon Johnson's nomination over Coke Stevenson for the U.S. Senate.

The Johnson-Stevenson primary race was so close (TIME, Sept. 13) that it was still touch & go when the Democratic State Executive Committee met last week to certify the winner. The committee went over the officially counted returns from the state's 254 counties. The votes that tipped the balance came from eight counties in which Parr's influence is especially strong. Parr, who had more than once delivered thumping majorities for conservative Coke Stevenson, had turned on him and delivered them to New Dealing Lyndon Johnson. How Parr could deliver was shown in Duval County's return: Johnson 4,622; Stevenson 40. When the count of 988,295 votes was complete, Johnson had a margin of 87.

Coke Stevenson cried "fraud," and charged that 202 votes had been added to Johnson's total after the polls were closed in Jim Wells County, which is a Parr stronghold. He had affidavits from citizens of the county, who swore they had not voted although the lists showed they had. But Johnson offered affidavits from the same people, in which they swore that Stevenson's men had intimidated them into making their charges. The committee voted, 29 to 28, to include the protested votes and certify Johnson as the winner. Coke Stevenson stalked out, started legal moves to keep Johnson's name off the ballot. He threatened to take his fraud charges to the U.S. Senate to prevent Johnson from being seated.

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