After service in the United States Navy during World War I, he worked as a teacher in South Milwaukee from 1920 to 1927 while he studied law at Marquette University, becoming a practicing lawyer in 1927.
He was first elected to the Wisconsin State Assembly in 1940 as a Democrat, representing Milwaukee County's southern suburbs.
[3] It was in part due to McParlan's strategic place in the Senate that the "Oak Creek Law" was passed in 1955, enabling semi-rural Oak Creek, part of his district, to incorporate as a city, thus frustrating annexation by the City of Milwaukee.
[4] When student demonstrators at the University of Wisconsin-Madison took over campus in 1967 in protest over the presence of Dow Chemical, manufacturers of napalm, McParland pronounced, "We should shoot them if necessary.
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