Practically all the provisions of the Colonial Law of 1906 had been taken from
 the Colonial Law of 1863. One may conclude, therefore, that Congress in the Act of
 March 3, 1917 -- by continuing in effect most of the provisions of the Colonial Law of
 1906 -- perpetuated the Danish colonial system that had operated more than fifty
 years.

 As the Islands were transferred one week prior to United States entry into World
 War I, and since they were acquired for defense purposes and especially for a naval
 base at St. Thomas, they were placed under United States Navy rule for the first
 fourteen years of United States suzerainty. During that period, seven Navy governors
 perpetuated the Danish colonial system and administered Danish laws that were
 carried over. Transfer to the United States brought neither citizenship to the Islanders
 nor protection of the rights in the United States Constitution. Indeed, the Navy
 passively presided over severe economic decline and depopulation and established
 an onerous record of repression and imprisonment of Virgin Islanders who actively
 sought civil liberties, freedom and democracy.19

 The Act Conferring United States Citizenship (1927)

 For ten years after the transfer of the Islands, Virgin Islanders were denied
 United States citizenship. Finally, by the Act of Congress of February 25, 1927, most
 Virgin Islanders were granted full United States citizenship.20

 The classes of persons thereby granted citizenship were: (1) all former Danish
 citizens residents in the Virgin Islands on January 17, 1917, and resident in the
 continental United States or Puerto Rico on February 25, 1927 (who did not make the
 declaration to retain their Danish citizenship by the treaty of acquisition, or heretofore
 renounced it or may hereafter renounce it); (2) all natives of the Islands resident there
 on January 17, 1917, who were resident in the Islands or in the United States or
 Puerto Rico on February 25, 1927, and who were not citizens or subjects of any
 foreign nation; (3) all natives of the Islands who resided in the United States on
 January 17, 1971, and in the Islands on February 25, 1927, who were not citizens or
 subjects of any foreign nation; and (4) all persons born in the Virgin Islands on or after
 the 1917 date and subject to the jurisdiction of the United States.

 The Act of 1927 also gave natives of the Virgin Islands, who were residing in the
 United States on January 17, 1917 and on February 25, 1927, the privilege of
 naturalization within one year on petition, without the necessity of making declaration
 of intention. This privilege was also given to all aliens who were residing in the Virgin
 Islands on both of the above-mentioned dates. Finally, this Act conferred upon the
 District Court of the Virgin Islands the power to naturalize aliens in the Virgin Islands.

 It was paradoxical that this long-awaited grant of citizenship was announced
with great fanfare on the occasion of the inauguration of the seventh Navy governor in
ten years, Captain Waldo Evans -- the reputed former "autocrat of American