John Francis Neylan

Who was John Francis Neylan?

John Francis Neylan, lawyer, journalist, political and educational figure, was born in New York City on November 6, 1885.

After graduation from Seton Hall College in New Jersey in 1903, he went West. California was his destination, but he stopped off in Arizona and worked there for several years as a teamster, bank teller and reporter. The desire for a newspaper career took him to San Francisco and, eventually, a job with the Bulletin. One of his first assignments was to cover Hiram Johnson's first gubernatorial campaign. Johnson was impressed with the young reporter, and after he was elected, appointed Neylan Chairman of the newly created State Board of Control. The Board installed an accounting system and drew up the state's first budget, and was so successful in regulating the state's finances, that the $2,000,000 deficit, which was Johnson's inheritance, was converted into an $8,000,000 surplus at the end of six years.

In his spare time in Sacramento, Neylan studied law, and he passed the bar examination in 1916. After Governor Johnson went to Washington as U.S.