William Lippard McLean was born on May 4, 1852, at Mount Pleasant, Pennsylvania. His father, Robert Caldwell McLean, of Scotch ancestry, head of a furniture factory, was an elder in the Middle Presbyterian Church. His mother, Augusta Dorothea (Voigt) McLean, was the daughter of a clergyman. On both sides, the son profited by examples of industry, thrift, and conscientious rectitude.
While at public school, McLean crossed the threshold of journalism by serving as local carrier for the Pittsburgh Leader. At twenty he took a position in its circulation department in Pittsburgh, becoming shortly a subscription solicitor in the outlying districts. One of his early tasks was to help compile the first newspaper almanac published in that city, to which may be traced the annual Bulletin Almanac and Yearbook he later established and made a standard statistical reference work. After six years of varied experience, McLean, though only twenty-six, was sent to Philadelphia by Calvin Wells, a Pittsburgh manufacturer who had bought the Press, to be its business manager; and he was soon credited with reviving the prestige of that famous journal. In 1895, he struck out for himself by purchasing, at executor's sale, along with associates whose interests he later secured, the Evening Bulletin, the oldest afternoon daily in Pennsylvania. In an editorial in his first issue, he proclaimed his purpose "to present a complete afternoon paper that will be abreast of every improvement in modern journalism. " Taking over the Bulletin at the height of the bitter news-association war, he was soon active on the side of the victorious Associated Press and shared prominently in its reorganization in 1900. Through him, John G. Johnson, the noted Philadelphia attorney, was engaged to draft a new charter and bylaws which would stand clear of the court ruling in Illinois that the old Association was "affected with a public interest" and must serve all alike. McLean remained a director of the Associated Press from 1896 until 1924 and was also, for a time, on the Board of the American Newspaper Publishers' Association.
Promising support of the principles of the Republican party, he said that on the vital issue of the financial integrity of the nation, it will oppose all attempts to debase the currency with the free coinage of silver or to alter the existing standard of values. It will register the decrees of no leader or faction and it will reserve to itself the right of independent criticism of men and policies.
To safeguard his independence, McLean consistently brushed aside public office and corporate directorships, excepting only in organizations of newspapers.
Quotations: "Avoid scare heads; treat crime as loathesome; guard against exaggeration. "
McLean insisted on honesty above all things. Even when the circulation passed 500, 000, he refused to drop the word "nearly" from his slogan, "In Philadelphia, nearly everybody reads The Bulletin. " Tall, with a large frame, tireless, deliberate of speech and action, inclined to reticence yet plainspoken on occasion, he was gentle in manner and most considerate of his subordinates, to whom he accorded full confidence and support. He was a lover of nature: hunting, fishing, and camping out filled his vacations. His philanthropy was mostly unobtrusive. Although a purveyor of publicity, he stubbornly shunned the limelight for himself, refusing interviews and even personal data for biographical compendia. McLean had devolved the active conduct of the Bulletin gradually upon his sons and, in his closing year, was confined to his home in Germantown, where he died.
McLean was married in 1889, to Sarah Burd Warden, daughter of William G. Warden of Philadelphia, who had the same birthday as her husband and died on her fifty-eighth anniversary. Two sons and a daughter survived their parents.
4 May 1863 - 4 May 1921
15 February 1903 - 28 November 1946
1 October 1891 - 5 December 1980
23 October 1895 - 10 March 1954
1 August 1890 - 29 June 1917
