James D. Phelan
| James D. Phelan | |
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United States Senator from California |
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In office March 4, 1915 – March 4, 1921 |
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| Preceded by | George Clement Perkins |
| Succeeded by | Samuel M. Shortridge |
| 25th Mayor of San Francisco | |
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In office January 4, 1897 – January 7, 1902 |
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| Preceded by | Adolph Sutro |
| Succeeded by | Eugene Schmitz |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
April 20, 1861 San Francisco, California |
| Died | August 7, 1930 (aged 69) Saratoga, California |
| Political party | Democratic |
| Alma mater |
St. Ignatius University University of California-Berkeley |
| Religion | Roman Catholic |
James Duval Phelan (April 20, 1861 – August 7, 1930) was an American politician, civic leader and banker. He served as Mayor of San Francisco from 1897 to 1902 and represented California in the United States Senate from 1915 to 1921. Phelan was also active in the movement to restrict Japanese immigration to the United States.
Phelan was born in San Francisco, the son of James Phelan and Alice Kelly. James Phelan (1819-1892) was an Irish immigrant who became wealthy during the California Gold Rush as a trader, merchant, banker and real estate investor.
James D. Phelan graduated from St. Ignatius College in 1881. He had two sisters, Mary Louis Phelan and Gladys Phelan Sullivan Doyle. In 1931, Gladys Doyle donated the money to build a scale replica of the Mission Santa Cruz chapel.
Phelan studied law at the University of California, Berkeley and then became a banker. He was elected Mayor of San Francisco and served from 1897 until 1902. He pushed for the reform City Charter of 1898 in San Francisco. He served as the first president of the League of California Cities, which was created in 1898. During this time, Phelan established himself as a leader in what fellow anti-Japanese agitator V.S. McClatchy described as the "holy cause" of Japanese exclusion. He remained active in the anti-Japanese movement after leaving office, securing then-presidential candidate Woodrow Wilson's support for restricting Japanese immigration in 1912 and helping to push through California's discriminatory alien land law in 1913.
In the 1900s, Phelan bought land and water acreage in various places around the San Francisco Bay Area, and he obtained the rights to the water flow of the Tuolumne River in Hetch Hetchy Valley. Ethan A. Hitchcock, Secretary of the Interior under President Theodore Roosevelt, tried to stop Phelan, but Roosevelt decided that the wild area could be used for "the permanent material development of the region." Phelan's plans for the region included publicly funded water and electricity for a geographical entity he called "Greater San Francisco." With his Bohemian Club fellows, Phelan sought to annex land at the perimeter of San Francisco Bay.
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