JF Ptak Science Books  Quick Post

The title of this little pamphlet is provocative–the content is even more so, and the description of the pogrom is more so yet.  The author, Col. John P. Irish (1843-1923), was a Iowan transplanted to California, and a fire-breather, an orator and agitator for immigration, rights for the Japanese, votes for women, and other causes. The “Senator Phelan here is  James D. Phelan (1864-1930), who was mayor of San Francisco 1897-1902 and the Senator 1915-1921, a racist used “Keep California White” as a campaign slogan for his lost reelection bid in 1920.  

Full text here: https://archive.org/details/antijapanesepogr00iris

This was evidently republished (at least in part)  on August 30, 1920, in the L.A. Times under the unlikely title of “Col Irish on the Japs”.  

[Source:  University of California, Irvine:  http://www.lib.uci.edu/sites/all/exhibits/immigrant/index.php?page=section_1]

Irish writes some very strong stuff, saying that the present anti-Japanese movement “has the same psychology as the Russian anti-Jewish pogrom” and that its leader was Senator Phelan. Irish states that Phelan “has no record of any benefit to the state in the Senate” and that he must “divert attention from his uselessness as a senator by backing the Japanese and trying to stampede the state by lying about them”. Irish then spends the rest of his short pamphlet refuting the anti-Japanese program of Phelan.  

Good on Col. John P.Irish.