The American _Samoan Islands_, the chief of which is Tutuila with its valuable harbor of Pagopago, are governed by a naval officer--the commandant of the naval station at Tutuila. He makes the laws and regulations, and sees that they are enforced, but so far as possible the inhabitants are allowed to govern themselves. By treaty of 1916, three of the _Virgin Islands_ were purchased from Denmark for $25,000,000. They were placed under the jurisdiction of a governor appointed by the President, but the local laws were kept in force. _Guam_ was seized by the United States during the war with Spain, and was retained by the treaty of peace. It is governed by the commandant of the naval station.[107] [107] Other insular possessions of the United States are Wake Island, Midway or Brooks Island, Howland and Baker Islands, all in the Pacific Ocean. They are practically uninhabited and no provision for their government has been found necessary. _The Panama Canal Zone_ is a strip of land ten miles wide extending from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean across the Isthmus of Panama, and was acquired by treaty from the Republic of Panama in 1904, upon the payment of $10,000,000. Soon after the conclusion of the treaty, Congress passed an act placing the entire government of the Canal Zone in the hands of the President. The powers of the President prior to 1914 were exercised through the Isthmian Canal Commission consisting of seven members, with authority to make and enforce all needful rules and regulations for the government of the Zone and to enact such local legislation as might be needed, subject to the condition that it must not be inconsistent with the Constitution, laws, or treaties of the United States. In January, 1914, President Wilson, in pursuance of an act of Congress passed in 1912, issued an order abolishing the commission and organizing a system of civil government for the Canal Zone. Colonel George W. Goethals was appointed the first civil governor.