whatever other limitations it may be subject, the
extent of which must be decided as questions arise,
does not require that body to enact for ceded
territory, not made part of the United States by
congressional action, a system of laws which shall
include the right of trial by jury, and that the
Constitution does not, without legislation and of its
own force, carry such right to territory so situated."

 [5] The question before us, therefore, is:
Has Congress, since the Foraker Act of April
12, 1900 (31 Stat. 77), enacted legislation
incorporating Porto Rico into the Union?
Counsel for the plaintiff in error give, in their
brief, an extended list of acts, to which we shall
refer later, which they urge as indicating a
purpose to make the island a part of the United
States, but they chiefly rely on the Organic Act
of Porto Rico of March 2, 1917 (39 Stat. 951
[Comp. St. 3803a-3803z]), known as the
Jones Act.

 The act is entitled "An act to provide a civil
government for Porto Rico and for other
purposes." It does not indicate by its title that it
has a purpose to incorporate the island into the
Union. It does not contain any clause which
declares such purpose or effect. While this is
not conclusive, it strongly tends to show that
Congress did not have such an intention. Few
questions have been the subject of such
discussion and dispute in our country as the
status of our territory acquired from Spain in
1899. The division between the political parties
in respect to it, the diversity of the views of the
members of this court in regard to its
constitutional aspects, and the constant
recurrence of the subject in the Houses of
Congress, fixed the attention of all on the
future relation of this acquired territory to the
United States. Had Congress intended to take
the important step of changing the treaty status
of Porto Rico by incorporating it into the Union,
it is reasonable to suppose that it would have
done so by the plain declaration, and would not
have left it to mere inference. Before the
question became acute at the close of the
Spanish War, the distinction between
acquisition and incorporation was not regarded
as important, or at least it was not fully
understood and had not aroused great
controversy. Before that, the purpose of
Congress might well be a matter of mere
inference from various legislative acts; but in


these latter days, incorporation is not to be
assumed without express declaration, or an
implication so strong as to exclude any other
view.

 Again, the second section of the act is
called a "Bill of Rights," and included therein is
substantially every one of the guaranties of the
federal Constitution, except those relating to
indictment by a grand jury in the case of
infamous crimes and the right of trial by jury in
civil and criminal cases. If it was intended to
incorporate Porto Rico into the Union by this
act, which would ex proprio vigore make
applicable the whole Bill of Rights of the
Constitution to the island, why was it thought
necessary to create for it a Bill of Rights and
carefully exclude trial by jury? In the very
forefront of the act is this substitute for
incorporation and application of the Bill of
Rights of the Constitution. This seems to us a
conclusive argument against the contention of
counsel for the plaintiff in error.

 The section of the Jones Act which
counsel press on us is section 5. This in effect
declares that all persons who under the Foraker
Act were made citizens of Porto Rico and
certain other residents shall become citizens of
the United States, unless they prefer not to
become such, in which case they are to declare
such preference within six months, and
thereafter they lose certain political rights under
the new government. In the same section the
United States District Court is given power
separately to naturalize individuals of some
other classes of residents. We set out the
section in full in the margin. Unaffected by the
considerations already suggested, perhaps the
declaration of section 5 would furnish ground
for an inference such as counsel for plaintiff in
error contend, but under the circumstances we
find it entirely consistent with nonincorporation.
When Porto Ricans passed from under the
government of Spain, they lost the protection
of that government as subjects of the king of
Spain, a title by which they had been known for
centuries. They had a right to expect, in
passing under the dominion of the United
States, a status entitling them to the protection
of their new sovereign. In theory and in law,
they had it as citizens of Porto Rico, but it was
an anomalous status, or seemed to be so in
view of the fact that those who owed and