UNORGANIZED TERRITORIES AND DEPENDENCIES 379 Local Government.-Each province is governed in local matters by a board consisting of a governor and other officers elected by the voters. The organized municipalities are governed by elective councils. Special provision has been made for the government of districts inhabited by certain non-Christian peoples by the creation of a Bureau of Non-Christian Tribes. The Unorganized Territories and Dependencies. - The third group of territories or dependencies embrace those which have no legislative assembly whatever. These include Samoan Islands, Virgin Islands, Guam, the Panama Canal Zone, and the District of Columbia. The American Samoan Islands, the chief of which is Tutuila with its valuable harbor of Pagopago, are governed by a naval officer-the commandant of the naval station at Tutuila. He makes the laws and regulations, and sees that they are enforced, but so far as possible the inhabitants are allowed to govern themselves. By treaty of 1916, three of the Virgin Islands were purchased from Denmark for $25,000,000. They were placed under the jurisdiction of a governor appointed by the President, but the local laws were kept in force. Guam was seized by the United States during the war with Spain, and was retained by the treaty of peace. It is governed by the commandant of the naval station.1 The Panama Canal Zone is a strip of land ten miles wide extending from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean across the Isthmus of Panama, and was acquired by treaty from the Republic of Panama in 1904, upon the payment of $10,000,000. Soon after the conclusion of the treaty, Con 1 Other insular possessions of the United States are Wake Island, Midway or Brooks Island, Howland and Baker Islands, all in the Pacific Ocean. They are practically uninhabited and no provision for their government has been found necessary, gress passed an act placing the entire government of the Canal Zone in the hands of the President. The powers of the President prior to 1914 were exercised through the Isthmian Canal Commission consisting of seven members, with authority to make and enforce all needful rules and regulations for the government of the Zone and to enact such local legislation as might be needed, subject to the condition that it must not be inconsistent with the Constitution, laws, or treaties of the United States. In January, 1914, President Wilson, in pursuance of an act of Congress passed in 1912, issued an order abolishing the commission and organizing a system of civil government for the Canal Zone. Colonel George W. Goethals was appointed the first civil governor. The District of Columbia is a territory with an area of seventy square miles, and was ceded to the United States in 1790 for the site of the national capital. The district was administered from 1801 to 1871 under the forms of municipal government, that is, by a mayor and council, but in the latter year Congress vested the government in a governor, a secretary, a board of public works, a board of health, and a legislative assembly. At the same time the district was allowed to send a delegate to Congress. Largely on account of the extravagance of this government in undertaking expensive public improvements, Congress in 1874 abolished the whole scheme and established the present system, which vests practically all governmental powers in the hands of a commission of three persons appointed by the President. Two of these must be appointed from civil life and the other must be an officer belonging to the engineering corps of the army. This commission has the general direction of administrative affairs and the appointment of employees, and exercises wide powers of a quasi UNORGANIZED TERRITORIES AND DEPENDENCIES 381 legislative character, such as the issuing of health and police regulations. The legislature of the district, however, is the Congress of the United States. In each house there is a committee on the District of Columbia to which all bills relating to the district are referred, and on one day of each week an hour is set apart in the house of representatives for the consideration of such bills.. No provision is made for the representation of the district in Congress, and the inhabitants take no part in presidential elections.1 One half the expense of conducting the government of the district is defrayed out of the national treasury, and the other half is raised from taxation on private property in the district. The judicial establishment of the district consists of a court of appeals of three judges, a supreme court of six judges, and the usual police courts and courts of justices of the peace. (See page 364.) American Protection over Spanish American States.In addition to the ownership of the various insular dependencies mentioned above, the United States, in pursuance of a long established policy known as the "Monroe Doctrine," exercises a certain degree of protection over Latin American states. As this policy is now interpreted it forbids the further acquisition by European powers of territorial possessions in the western hemisphere, or the extension by such powers of political influence on this continent. By virtue of special treaty arrangements the United States exercises a virtual protectorate over certain of the smaller Latin American republics. Thus under the "Platt 1 This is also true of the other territories and dependencies. The organized territories, however, have been allowed to send delegates to the national conventions for the nomination of the President and Vice President. Amendment," to the constitution of Cuba (also embodied in a treaty between the United States and Cuba) the United States has the right to intervene in Cuba for the maintenance of a stable government and for the protection of public order and security; and this power was exercised in 1906. Naturally it exercises the power of protection over the republic of Panama through whos e territory the Panama Canal runs, and recently (1915) it has established a sort of financial protectorate over Haiti and the Dominican Republic. In pursuance of treaty arrangements it collects the customs revenues in those republics, applies them to the payment of their foreign debts, and has the right to intervene for the maintenance of order. References. BEARD, American Government and Politics, ch. xxi. BRYCE, The American Commonwealth (abridged edition), ch. xlvi. HART, Actual Government, ch. xx. WILLOUGHBY, Territories and Dependencies of the United States, chs. iii, iv, vi. RESEARCH QUESTIONS 1. From what clause or clauses in the Constitution is the power to acquire foreign territory derived? 2. By what different methods has foreign territory been added to the United States? 3. Are there any limitations on the powers of Congress in legislating for the territories? CHAPTER XX CITIZENSHIP Who are Citizens.-The population of every country is composed of two classes of persons: citizens and aliens. The larger portion of the inhabitants are citizens, but the alien class is considerable in some states of the Union, much more so than formerly, owing to the large influx of immigrants from Europe in recent years.1 A citizen is one who has been admitted to full membership in the state, though he may not have been given full political privileges, such as the privileges of voting and holding public office. There is a large class of citizens in every state who can neither vote nor hold public office, such, for example, as minors, sometimes illiterate persons, those who have not paid their taxes, those who have been convicted of serious crimes, and others. On the other hand, aliens in some states are allowed to vote and hold office, especially if they have formally declared their intention of becoming citizens. The terms "citizen" and "voter," therefore, are not identical, since there are some citizens who cannot vote and some voters who are not citizens. (See page 125.) How Citizenship is Acquired.-Under the Fourteenth Amendment to the federal Constitution, all persons born The census of New York of 1910 showed that of a total population of 9,000,000 inhabitants there were more than 2,000,000 aliens. |