The municipal laws of the Canal Zone are to be administered by the ordinary tribunals substantially as they were before the change. Police magistrates and justices of the peace and other officers discharging duties usually devolving upon these officers of the law will be continued in office if they are suitable persons. The governor of the Zone, subject to approval of the Commission, is authorized to appoint temporarily a judge for the Canal Zone, who shall have the authority equivalent to that usually exercised in Latin countries by a judge of a court of first instance; but the Isthmian Canal Commission shall fix his salary and may legislate respecting his powers and authority, increasing or diminishing them in their discretion, and also making provision for additional or appellate judges should the public interest require.

The laws of the land, with which the inhabitants are familiar, and which were in force on February 26, 1904, will continue in force in the Canal Zone and in other places on the Isthmus over which the United States has jurisdiction until altered or annulled by the said Commission, but there are certain great principles of government which have been made the basis of an existence as a nation which we deem essential to the rule of law and the maintenance of order, and which shall have force in said Zone. The principles referred to may be generally stated as follows:

That no person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law; that private property shall not be taken for public use without just compensation; that in all criminal prosecutions the accused shall enjoy the right of a speedy and public trial, to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation, to be confronted with the witnesses against him, to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense; that excessive bail shall not be required nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel or unusual punishment inflicted; that no person shall be put twice in jeopardy for the same offense, or be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself; that the right to be secure against unreasonable searches and seizures shall not be violated; that neither slavery nor involuntary servitude shall exist except as a punishment for crime; that no bill of attainder or ex post facto law shall be passed; that no law shall be passed abridging the freedom of speech or of the press, or of the rights of the people to peaceably assemble and petition the government for a redress of grievances; that no law shall be made respecting the establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof: Provided, however, That the Commission shall have power to exclude from time to time from the Canal Zone and other places on the Isthmus, over which the United States has jurisdiction, persons of the following classes who were not actually domiciled within the Zone on the 26th day of February, 1904, viz: Idiots, the insane, epileptics, paupers, criminals, professional beggars, persons afflicted with loathsome or dangerous contagious diseases; those who have been convicted of felony, anarchists, those whose purpose it is to incite insurrection, and others whose presence it is believed by the Commission would tend to create public disorder, endanger the public health, or in any manner impede the prosecution of the work of opening the canal; and may cause any and all such newly arrived persons or those alien to the Zone to be expelled and

deported from the territory controlled by the United States, and the Commission may defray from the canal appropriation the cost of such deportation as necessary expenses of the sanitation, the police protection of the canal route, and the preservation of good order among the inhabitants.

The Commission may legislate on all rightful subjects of legislation not inconsistent with the laws and treaties of the United States so far as they apply to said Zone and other places, and the said power shall include the enactment of the sanitary ordinances of a preventive or curative character to be enforced in the cities of Colon and Panama, and which are contemplated and authorized by article 7 of said canal convention. Such legislative power shall also include the power to raise and appropriate revenues in said Zone; and all taxes, judicial fines, customs duties, and other revenues levied and collected in said Zone by or under the authority of said Commission shall be retained, accounted for, and disbursed by said Commission for its proper

purposes.

The members of said Commission to the number of four or more shall constitute a legislative quorum, and all rules and regulations passed and enacted by said Commission shall have set forth as a caption that they are enacted by the Isthmian Canal Commission "By authority of the President of the United States."

The Commission shall hold its regular quarterly meetings at the office of the Commission either in Panama or at a branch office in Washington, and special meetings may be held at the pleasure of the Commission.

All laws, rules, and regulations of a governmental character enacted by the Commission hereunder shall be submitted to you for your approval, and should your approval be withheld from any such law, rule, or regulation, then from that time the law, rule, or regulation shall thereafter have no force or effect.

Maj. Gen. George W. Davis, U. S. Army (retired), a member of the Canal Commission, is hereby appointed governor of the Isthmian Canal Zone. He will proceed at once to the Isthmus of Panama. He will in my name, as the chief executive in the Canal Zone, for and on behalf of the United States, see that the laws are faithfully executed and will maintain possession of said territory, including the public lands therein and the property, real and movable, on the Isthmus of Panama, except that of the Panama Railroad, that has recently been acquired from the Republic of Panama. He is hereby vested with the power to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the rules, regulations, and laws in force by virtue of action of the Commission or by virtue of the clause hereof continuing in force the laws of Panama. In case of his disability or absence from the Canal Zone at any time, the Isthmian Canal Commission is empowered to designate the person or persons to act as governor during such absence or disability. Except as herein prescribed, the duties of the governor shall be fixed by legislation of the Canal Commission.

For the preservation of order and protecting the property of the United States within or without said Zone, as provided by article 7 of the canal convention, an adequate police force shall be maintained. If at any time there shall arise necessity for military or naval assistance the governor shall, if possible, promptly notify you, and in the

event of a sudden exigency the governor may call upon any available military or naval force of the United States to render assistance, and the same shall be immediately furnished.

It is a matter of first importance that the most approved and effective methods and measures known to sanitary science be adopted in order that the health conditions on the Isthmus may be improved. It is the belief of those who have noted the successful results secured by our Army in Cuba in the obliteration of yellow fever in that island that it is entirely feasible to banish the diseases that have heretofore caused most mortality on the Isthmus, or at least to improve as greatly the health conditions there as in Cuba and Porto Rico. I desire that every possible effort be made to protect our officers and workmen from the dangers of tropical and other diseases, which in the past have been so prevalent and destructive in Panama.

Rear-Admiral John G. Walker, U. S. Navy (retired), and Col. Frank J. Hecker, members of the Isthmian Canal Commission, are hereby designated as members of the joint commission provided for by articles 6 and 15 of the canal convention. The moiety of the necessary expenses of the commission to be created in pursuance of articles 6 and 15 of the above-cited canal convention will be defrayed from the appropriation applicable to the ship canal to connect the waters of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.

The Isthmian Canal Commission will prepare for Congress and place in your hands on or before December 1 of each year a full and complete report of all their acts and of the operations conducted by them in respect to the canal construction and the government of the Canal Zone. These reports will contain a detailed account of all moneys received and disbursed in the performance of their duties and of the progress made in the construction of the canal.

The necessary expenses incurred by the Commission in carrying on the government of the Canal Zone will be defrayed from the local revenues so far as the said revenues may be sufficient, and the remainder will be met from the appropriation made by the fifth section of the act of Congress, approved June 28, 1902. An estimate of the proposed expenditures and revenues for each year in carrying on the government of the Zone will be submitted to Congress at the beginning of each annual session.

By virtue of the ownership by the United States of about sixtynine seventieths of the shares of the capital stock of the Panama Railroad, the general policy of the managers of said road will be controlled by the United States. As soon as practicable I desire that all the members of the Isthmian Canal Commission be elected to the board of directors of the road, and that the policy of the road be completely harmonized with the policy of the Government of making it an adjunct to the construction of the canal, at the same time fulfilling the purpose for which it was constructed as a route of commercial movement across the Isthmus of Panama. If any contracts or other obligations now subsist between the railway company and other transportation companies that are not in accord with sound public policy, then such contracts must be terminated as soon as it is possible to effect that object. No salary or per diem allowance of compensation in addition to the stated salary and per diem allowance of the members of the Isthmian Canal Commission will be allowed to any member of the Commission by reason of his services in connection with the civil government of

the Canal Zone, or his membership of any board or commission concerned in or connected with the construction of the canal, or by reason of his services as an officer or director of the Panama Railroad.

If there now be in force within the Canal Zone any franchise granting to any person or persons a privilege to maintain lotteries or hold lottery drawings or other gambling methods and devices of a character forbidden by the laws of the United States, or if the grantee of any such privilege has now the right to sell lottery tickets or similar devices to facilitate the business of the concessionaire, the Commission shall enact laws annulling the privileges or concessions and punishing future exercise of the same by imprisonment or fine or both. These instructions may be modified and supplemented as occasion

shall arise.

Very respectfully,

Hon. WILLIAM H. TAFT,

Secretary of War.

THEODORE ROOSEVELT.

Senator MORGAN. When this Commission took charge of the work there the Canal Zone-and you took charge as governor, there were a number of citizens of Panama or Colombia-former citizens of Colombia, but then citizens of Panama-who resided within the Zone? General DAVIS. Yes, sir.

Senator MORGAN. Including the inhabitants both of Colon and Panama, who were subject to your powers as governor and the powers of the Commission in certain particulars that are defined in the HayVarilla treaty?

General DAVIS. Yes.

Senator MORGAN. The citizenship of none of those people has been changed by any law of the United States or act of the Commission? General DAVIS. None that I know of.

Senator MORGAN. The citizens of the United States who have gone there have not forfeited their citizenship here as far as you know? General DAVIS. No.

Senator MORGAN. Retaining their citizenship they have gone there to transact whatever business they chose to embark in?

General DAVIS. Yes.

Senator MORGAN. That number, besides the employees of the Canal Commission and the railroad, I suppose, is very small?

General DAVIS. Outside of the Commission and the railroads, you say?.

Senator MORGAN. Yes.

General DAVIS. Those are few; yes, there are a few merchants-a few individuals who are engaged in business there.

Senator MORGAN. In Colon or Panama or in the Zone?

General DAVIS. Along the Zone also; all three.

Senator MORGAN. But the relative rights and duties and obligations of citizenship have not been changed by any act of which you are aware?

General DAVIS. Not by any act of which I am aware, unless the act of passing out of the specific jurisdiction of the United States by those individuals has affected their status.

Senator MORGAN. When you call it specific jurisdiction of the United States you are going into a classification of the jurisdiction of the

United States, but they pass from one to another; they are entirely under the United States?

General DAVIS. Yes, sir.

Senator MORGAN. You consider the flag of the United States as being entirely at home in the Zone?

General DAVIS. Yes; I consider it is entirely at home there, but whether or not technically we have a right to fly the flag of the United States in the Zone-I say technically-it seems to me might be questionable, possibly.

Senator MORGAN. Have you ever raised one?

General DAVIS. No; and it never will be raised, I think; but since titular sovereignty resides in Panama, I think that proposition has been stated many times

Senator MORGAN. Unless you can define the word "titular" I do not think I could accept the fact.

General DAVIS. Well, the Hay-Varilla treaty recognizes some shadow of what is called sovereignty as still remaining in the Panama Zone.

Senator MORGAN. As that is a matter of some importance in connection with the question I desire to propound to you I wish to refer you to that treaty for a moment.

General DAVIS. I am not an international lawyer or a lawyer of any kind.

Senator MORGAN. No; but I want to get it in the record, so that men who are lawyers and men who are laymen-there are a great many laymen in Congress, you know- can have some understanding of exactly what we are trying to get at and what the definitions are.

The CHAIRMAN. General, I understand you that the American flag was never floated on the Zone?

General DAVIS. No, sir; that is a mistake. I raised it myself, and I would not have tolerated for an instant the idea that I could not raise it.

The CHAIRMAN. I understood it the other way.

General DAVIS. But I think technically a question might be raised as to the assumption by the United States of every sovereign function, and since the flag seems to be an emblem of sovereignty I merely suggest the question as one that may possibly have two answers.

Senator MORGAN. The article of the Hay-Varilla treaty of February 26, 1904, which is the date of its ratification, reads as follows:

"The Republic of Panama grants to the United States all the rights, power, and authority within the Zone mentioned and described in Article II of this agreement and within the limits of all auxiliary lands and waters mentioned and described in said Article II which the United States would possess and exercise if it were the sovereign of the territory within which such lands and waters are located, to the entire exclusion of the exercise by the Republic of Panama of any such sovereign rights, power, or authority."

It looks to me like it is putting it both ways; that there is not only an affirmation of absolute sovereignty over all these things in that Zone, but there is an express exclusion of any sovereign rights of Panama, so that the titular sovereignty that the General mentions, I suppose, refers to the fact that Panama has lands lying above and lands lying below the Canal Zone and along the borders of the Canal Zone, and that she has the right to extend her authority from one place to another, notwithstanding the interposition of the Canal Zone.