That as except hereinafter provided, all military,
 civil and judicial powers necessary to govern the
 ... Island ... shall be vested in a governor and in
 such person or persons as the President may
 appoint, and shall be exercised in such manner
 as the President shall direct until Congress shall
 provide for the Government of said Islands:
 Provided, that the President may assign an officer
 of the Army or Navy to serve as such governor
 and perform the duties appertaining to said office


 Thus, not only did the Congress permit the President to prescribe the "temporary"
 government of the Islands, but it also permitted him to impose rule by a military
 governor who would possess "all military, civil and judicial powers."

 Section 2 of the Act read in part as follows:

 That until Congress shall otherwise provide, in so
 far as compatible with the changed sovereignty
 and not in conflict with the provisions of this Act,
 the laws regulating elections and the electoral
 franchise as set forth in the code of laws
 regulating elections and the electoral franchise as
 set forth in the code of laws published in
 Amalienborg the Sixth Day of April, Nineteen
 Hundred and Six, and the other local laws, in
 force and effect in said Islands on the
 Seventeenth Day of January, Nineteen Hundred
 and Seventeen, shall remain in force and effect in
 said Islands, and the same shall be administered
 by the civil officials and through the local judicial
 tribunals established in said Islands, respectively;
 and the orders, judgments, and decrees of said
 judicial tribunals shall be duly enforced. With the
 approval of the President, or under such rules and
 regulations as the President may prescribe any of
 said laws may be repeated, altered, or amended
 by the Colonial Council having jurisdiction.

The ambiguity of this provision arose from the fact that the Colonial Law of 1906 was
specifically carried over only in respect to elections and the electoral franchise. The
fact that the Colonial Law of 1906 was the operable constitution of the Islands moved
Luther Evans, referring to this confusing provision, to observe in 1945 that: "Nothing
can be clearer.... than the intention of Congress to continue the whole governmental
system practically as it then existed." And Evans added: "in fact, exclusion of the