Resident Commissioners.—The legislature is allowed to choose two resident commissioners to represent the islands at Washington. Like territorial delegates, they have seats, but no vote, in the house of representatives.
The Judicial System of the islands consists of a supreme court of seven judges who are appointed by the President, a court of first instance in each province, the judges of which are appointed by the governor general, and various municipal courts. Unlike Porto Rico and Hawaii, no United States district court has been established in the islands. Appeals lie from the supreme court of the islands directly to the United States Supreme Court in all cases in which the Constitution or any statute or treaty is involved or in which the amount in controversy exceeds $25,000.
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.[107]
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, Congress 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 under-taking 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 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.[108] 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.)