Shortridge was a presidential elector in 1888, 1900, and 1908.[2] He lost the 1914 U.S. Senate Republican primary to veteran congressman Joseph R. Knowland, who was defeated in the general election by James D. Phelan. Shortridge was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1920, riding Warren G. Harding's post World War I "Return to Normalcy" campaign. Defeating Phelan and strong candidates from the Prohibition Party and Socialist Party of America, Shortridge won the general election with 49% of the vote. He was reelected in 1926 with 63% of the vote over Democrat John B. Elliott. He served two full terms before being defeated in a primary in 1932.
Shortridge became a prominent voice for racist anti-Japanese forces in California, declaring that a child of Japanese immigrants would regard "himself or herself as a native of Japan. His heart, his affections go out to the native land of the parent.".[3] Shortridge's claims in 1924 were remarkably similar to some of the justifications made for Japanese internment during World War II.[4] Even some senators who wanted to favor northern and western European immigrants found Shortridge's anti-Japanese position unnecessary.[5]
His sister, Clara S. Foltz, became the first female lawyer in California in 1878, and the first female deputy district attorney in the U.S. in 1910. She helped him campaign for the Senate.
^Compare, for example, statements quoted in Ronald Takaki, Strangers from a Different Shore, updated and revised edition (Boston: Little, Brown, 1998), pp. 387–8.
^See, for example, comments by a Senate immigration restriction leader, David Reed (R-PA), in 65Cong.Rec.5808–5810 1924
.jpg)
