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ANDREW MCLEAN, Editor of the
Brooklyn (N. Y.) Citizen, was born August 7, 1848, in Renton,
Dumbartonshire, Scotland, on the banks of the River Leven. He came to the
United States in the latter part of 1863, having worked his passage on the
bark Agra, and at once enlisted in the United States Navy, where he
served as a boy aboard the light-draft monitor Chimo of the Potomac
flotilla until the close of the Civil War. He was honourably discharged
from the service and returned to Brooklyn, where his uncle, Andrew, was
engaged in the drygoods business, and after attending a commercial college
at the age of twenty began the work as a journalist to which his life has
been devoted.
Mr. McLean’s career is in many ways
a remarkable one. At the age of twenty-four he was City Editor of the
Brooklyn Daily Eagle, later becoming Editor-in-Chief of this widely
influential newspaper. He remained with
The Eagle
until 1886, when he was largely instrumental in
founding the Brooklyn Daily Citizen, of which he became and is
still the Chief Editor. He is a man of high character and forceful
personality, and personally and through his writings has been a recognized
influence in the community. He is as active and vigorous as ever in his
profession and seems destined to many years of further usefulness. While
not an active politician, his calling has often brought him into contact
with politics, into which he has brought the same energy and enthusiasm
and holds the same high reputation of integrity. He has represented the
Democratic party in many conventions and was a delegate to the
Constitutional Convention of the State of New York in 1915. He was
Chairman of the Democratic Campaign Committee of Kings County in the
presidential campaign of 1912, when Woodrow Wilson received in Brooklyn
the largest majority ever given to a candidate.
Aside from his duties as a
journalist, Mr. McLean is in great demand as a lecturer and after-dinner
speaker and is often called upon to address public gatherings, where his
genial manner, ready wit, and wide knowledge of current affairs always
assure him a popular reception. He has spoken before many Scottish
audiences throughout the country. He is also widely known through his
essays, poems and dramatic compositions.
It has been Mr. McLean ‘s custom for
many years to visit his native land once a year, and in everything that
relates to his fellow-countrymen in America he is warmly interested. He is
a member of the St. Andrew ‘s Society of the State of New York and the New
York Burns Society; and is a director of the Caledonian Hospital, New
York, and a liberal contributor to its support, as to many other worthy
causes. He is a Free Mason.
Mr. McLean married, 1876, Miss Ida
L. Thomson, daughter of John Thomson, now deceased, of Kilmarnock,
Scotland. Of their three children, two survive: Mary, who is now Mrs.
Arthur M. Connett, and David J., at the head of the advertising
department of the Citizen. He is extremely happy in his home life,
his wife and he having succeeded in proving to their own satisfaction at
least that marriage is certainly not a failure.
Mr. McLean’s business address is 397
Fulton Street, Brooklyn, N. Y. |
