When the good times evaporate
Harvey Parnell’s rise to political power in Arkansas was almost accidental.
He became governor in a time of growth and optimism. But when the good times evaporated with the Great Depression, he found himself unable to effectively move the state forward.
Parnell was born in the tiny Orlando community in Cleveland County in 1880. He was one of seven children in a farming family. He attended local schools, and in 1898, he moved into nearby Warren to complete high school. He began working as a store clerk until he graduated. He was the last Arkansas governor to never attend college.
After graduation, he settled into a quiet career as a clerk and a bookkeeper. By the age of 20, he started his own dry goods store. He made a good living, and eventually married and had two daughters. In 1904, Parnell bought some acreage in Chicot County and began farming on the side. In 1918, Parnell was elected to the state House of Representatives in a district that included all of Chicot County and rose to the state senate in 1922, representing both Chicot and Ashley counties.
It was while in the state senate that his career took a remarkable turn. As his first term was winding down in 1926, the Arkansas Supreme Court ruled, after a series of baffling lawsuits, that the vote of the people creating the office of lieutenant governor in 1914 was legal, and therefore, the office existed. He quickly announced his candidacy, put together an almost unparalleled political machine from the allies he had collected over the years, and was elected almost without opposition.
As the first lieutenant governor in the state since Reconstruction, Parnell helped push through a modern highway construction bill favored by Gov. John Martineau. In March 1928, Martineau accepted an appointment as a federal judge, making Parnell the new governor. He called a special session of the legislature to address the new roads program, which approved $18 million to fund the new highways and $7.5 million in bonds to construct toll bridges.
Parnell ran for a full term and won a four-way primary. He won the general election that fall with 77 percent of the vote.
In the new legislative session in early 1929, Parnell pushed to modernize state services. A state income tax was passed in an attempt to relieve the property tax burden of farmers. With new funds available, Parnell commissioned new buildings for the School for the Deaf and opened a new psychiatric hospital. The state took control of the financially troubled Henderson-Brown College in Arkadelphia and began operating it as Henderson State Teachers College. In addition, the school year was increased to eight months.
That fall, the stock market crashed, heralding the beginning of the Great Depression. Problems Arkansas farmers had been facing only got worse. With their finances crippled by deflation, farmers also had to fight a devastating drought.
As the Depression deepened, Parnell found himself overwhelmed by the magnitude of the crisis. All his powers of persuasion and organization failed him. Unemployment skyrocketed and farms failed. State revenues collapsed.
The South Arkansas Oil Boom had already peaked and no longer had nearly the impact on state finances that it had a few years before.
With all the spending the state had done on infrastructure, there was almost nothing left. The state was now in danger of defaulting on the bonds it had passed. Over 100 banking corporations collapsed in Arkansas in 1930 alone.
With no idea of how to combat the crisis, he reluctantly began establishing commissions to study issues of unemployment, state spending and highway construction. He urged residents to rely on charities for relief from the Depression.
But with so many in such desperate situations, charities themselves struggled. With most blaming President Herbert Hoover for the Depression, Parnell nevertheless won re-election easily in 1930.
By the winter of 1930-31, approximately one-third of Arkansas families had to rely on Red Cross food relief – in a state where upwards of 80 percent of the people worked the land. Farm incomes fell to an average of $230 per year. By January 1931, angry Lonoke County farmers marched into England demanding food from local stores and quietly dispersed once they got it.
The state had no money to help the poor. Most of the state budget was locked up in paying off highway debts. Parnell cut the state budget 20 percent and insisted the state had turned the corner in spite of all evidence to the contrary.
Amidst the situation, Parnell was increasingly accused of corruption from both election contests and his conduct as governor. He was never indicted for any misconduct, but with the economy stubbornly idle, his political career was over. He decided not to run for a new term in 1932.
Parnell left office at the end of his term in 1933 frustrated and turned the governorship over to the incoming Marion Futrell.
He returned to Chicot County to resume farming, but President Roosevelt appointed him to serve as an administrator for the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, a Depressionera federal program that helped stabilize bank finances. He quietly worked for the RFC office in Little Rock for the next three years until his death from a heart attack in 1936.
Dr. Ken Bridges is a professor of history and geography at South Arkansas Community College in El Dorado and a resident historian for the South Arkansas Historical Preservation Society. Bridges can be reached by email at kbridges@southark.edu.