Samoa."21


 Unfortunately, there were important loopholes in the Act of 1927. It was obvious
that the Act discriminated against Virgin Islanders resident in the United States on both
of the important dates and also against those who resided abroad on the 1917 date
and who had since resumed residence in the Islands. Consequently, on June 28,
1932, another Act of Congress was approved to fill in these gaps.22

 Specifically, all natives of the Virgin Islands who on the date of the 1932 Act
were residing in the Continental United States, the Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, the
Canal Zone, or any other insular possession or territory of the United States, who were
not citizens or subjects of any foreign county, regardless of their place of residence on
January 17, 1917, were granted United States citizenship. The 1932 Act further
provided that, for a period of two years thereafter, natives of the Islands resident in
foreign countries were to be classed as non-quota immigrants for the purpose of
admission to the United States, and the head tax and passport and immigration visas
were to be withdrawn for the purpose of admitting them.

 United States citizenship for Virgin Islanders no longer hinged on a two-letter
 word.

 Executive Order Conferring Civilian Rule (1931)

 A number of reasons have been given for President Herbert Hoover's executive
 order in 1931 withdrawing the Navy government and placing "the administration of the
 Government of the Virgin Islands under the supervision of the Secretary of the
 Interior."23

 A quarrel between Navy Governor Waldo Evans and the influential Washington
 bureaucrat, Herbert D. Brown, was one reason. Brown, chief of the federal Bureau of
 Efficiency, was architect of the Islands' economic rehabilitation program including its
 controversial homesteading plan which Governor Evans opposed. It is known that
 Brown asked President Hoover to withdraw the Navy.24 Indeed, Brown himself took
 credit for recommending the change in testimony before a subcommittee of the House
 of Representatives, as follows:

 This change of jurisdiction was recommended by
 the bureau in the belief that the peculiar and
 unusual financial, social, and economic problems
 confronting the islands can be handled more
 advantageously by a department having
 somewhat similar problems in the United States
 and its Territorial possessions.25