19501776 Club
Truman signs the Guam Organic Act; naval rule ends, citizenship begins
The law that followed a mass walkout of Guam's own legislature hands the island a governor, a legislature, and a Bill of Rights.
For half a century after the United States took Guam from Spain in 1898, the island answered to Navy governors, not elected officials. That arrangement cracked in March 1949, when the entire Guam Assembly walked out after Naval Governor Charles Alan Pownall refused to let it subpoena an American civil servant and then dismissed the body outright. The walkout made international news. On August 1, 1950, President Harry S. Truman signed the Guam Organic Act, transferring administration to the Interior Department, granted Guamanians U.S. citizenship, and created an elected legislature, a governor's office, and a Bill of Rights…
