Patrick McLane (March 14, 1875 – November 13, 1946) was a Democratic member of the

U.S. House of Representatives The United States House of Representatives, often referred to as the House of Representatives, the U.S. House, or simply the House, is the lower chamber of the United States Congress, with the Senate being the upper chamber. Together they ...

from

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...

Biography

Patrick McLane was born in

County Mayo, Ireland County Mayo (; ga, Contae Mhaigh Eo, meaning "Plain of the yew trees") is a county in Ireland. In the West of Ireland, in the province of Connacht, it is named after the village of Mayo, now generally known as Mayo Abbey. Mayo County Council ...

. He immigrated to the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

in 1882 with his parents, who settled in

Scranton, Pennsylvania Scranton is a city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Lackawanna County. With a population of 76,328 as of the 2020 U.S. census, Scranton is the largest city in Northeastern Pennsylvania, the Wyoming V ...

. He worked in the

coal Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. Coal is formed when ...

mines of Scranton for thirteen years. During the

Spanish–American War , partof = the Philippine Revolution, the decolonization of the Americas, and the Cuban War of Independence , image = Collage infobox for Spanish-American War.jpg , image_size = 300px , caption = (cloc ...

he served in the Eleventh Regiment of the

United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the land warfare, land military branch, service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight Uniformed services of the United States, U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army o ...

, in 1898 and 1899. He became a locomotive engineer. He was a member of the Scranton School Board from 1904 to 1911. He served as a delegate to the Democratic State convention in 1905, and as a member of the Democratic State committee in 1914. McLane presented credentials as a Democratic Member-elect to the Sixty-sixth Congress. He was provisionally seated, but the election was contested. The House investigation found that, in his campaign, McClane had violated the

Federal Corrupt Practices Act The Federal Corrupt Practices Act, also known as the Publicity Act, was a federal law of the United States that was enacted in 1910 and amended in 1911 and 1925. It remained the nation's primary law regulating campaign finance in federal elections ...

and that furthermore "there was widespread fraud and illegality in the election itself." Once the fraudulent returns were removed, McLane was found to have lost to John Richard Farr. McLane served from March 4, 1919 to February 25, 1921, when he was succeeded by Farr. He was an unsuccessful candidate for election in

1922 Events January * January 7 – Dáil Éireann, the parliament of the Irish Republic, ratifies the Anglo-Irish Treaty by 64–57 votes. * January 10 – Arthur Griffith is elected President of Dáil Éireann, the day after Éamon de Valera ...

and in

1924 Events January * January 12 – Gopinath Saha shoots Ernest Day, whom he has mistaken for Sir Charles Tegart, the police commissioner of Calcutta, and is arrested soon after. * January 20– 30 – Kuomintang in China holds ...

. He was employed as a locomotive engineer until his death, aged 71, in Scranton in 1946. He was interred in Cathedral Cemetery.

References

Retrieved on 2008-02-11
The Political Graveyard
1875 births 1946 deaths Irish emigrants to the United States Politicians from Scranton, Pennsylvania Politicians from County Mayo American military personnel of the Spanish–American War Democratic Party members of the United States House of Representatives from Pennsylvania Members of the United States House of Representatives removed by contest {{Pennsylvania-Representative-stub