The Organic Act of 1936 retained a governor appointed by the President of the
 United States, but it provided for territorial legislatures whose members were all
 elected. Its greatest departure from previous constitutional documents for the Islands
 was that it prohibited any property or income qualification for voting. It thus opened the
 polling places of the Virgin Islands to the masses who had been economically
 disqualified from voting. Coal carriers, agricultural laborers and domestic workers, as
 long as they were able to read and write English and were United States citizens,
 were able to cast a ballot that had the same power as the ballots of their employers
 and other persons in high positions.

 Virgin Islands' historian Darwin Creque declared that "the Organic Act of 1936
 revolutionized the political, social and legal status of the Virgin Islands".3 Determined
 to have legislatures, then called Municipal Councils, that would at last act in their
 interests, leaders of the masses began organizing and educating the people for their
 new duties as voters. On St. Thomas the first locally organized political party, the
 Virgin Islands Progressive Guide, was formed in 1937. In 1940 its candidates won
 every seat in the St. Thomas St. John Municipal Council. By the late 1940s similar
 movements were taking place on St. Croix.4 Virgin Islands' legislatures ceased to be
 the reserve of the merchant and planter classes.

 In January, 1946, another Virgin Islands political milestone took place with the
 nomination by President Harry Truman of William H. Hastie to the governorship.
 Hastie, a Mississippi native, had already achieved a previous historical first when he
 had served as the United States District Court Judge for the Virgin Islands from 1937
 to 1939. He was the first United States citizen of African descent to have been
 appointed to a federal judgeship and to a governorship. Hastie's appointment was
 actively opposed by a number of Whites and a few prominent Blacks in the Virgin
 Islands. However, the appointment was confirmed by the Congress and Hastie served
 as the Governor of the Virgin Islands from 1946 to 1949.5

 Hastie was disappointed by the results of his efforts to make the people of the
Virgin Islands more conscious of the need for greater self-government. During his
term of office, the centennial commemoration of the 1848 emancipation of slaves took
place. Hastie thought that after a century of freedom, the populace was ready for and
would benefit from increased self-government. From his first year in office, he
embarked on a public campaign, hoping that both Virgin Islanders and the Congress
would be convinced that the people should elect their own governor. However, in a
referendum in the November, 1948 election, the voters who cast referendum ballots
(forty per cent did not) rejected popular election of the governor by a three to one
margin.6

 However, when popular local politicians later decided that it was time for
greater measures of self-government, local legislative committees were formed to
spearhead the issue and to urge reform of the Organic Act. Bills were introduced in
the Congress, and Congressional hearings were held in the Islands in 1952. A