Act No. 514, AN ACT creating a commission to secure, organize, and make an exhibit of Philippine products, manufactures, art, ethnology, and education at the Louisiana Parchase Exposition to be held at Saint Louis, in the United States, in nineteen hundred and four
[No. 514.]
AN ACT creating a commission to secure, organize, and make an exhibit of Philippine products, manufactures, art, ethnology, and education at the Louisiana Parchase Exposition to be held at Saint Louis, in the United States, in nineteen hundred and four
By authority of the United States, be it enacted by the Philippine Commission, that:
Section 1. For the purpose of securing, organizing, and making an
exhibit of Philippine products, manufactures, art, etnnolog}\ educa-
tion, and the customs and habits of the people, there shall be appointed
by the Civil Governor, by and with the advice and consent of the
Philippine Commission, a board to consist of three members, one of
whom shall be designated as chairman in his appointment, to be called
the Exposition Board.
The chairmanof the Board shall receive an annual salary of five thous-
and dollars. United States currencv, and the other two members shall
receive an annual salary of four thousand dollars. United States cur-
rency, each. The actual traveling expenses of each member, while
absent from his usual place of residence on business of the Board, shall
be paid out of the Exposition fund hereinafter provided.
Any two members of the Board shall constitute a Quorum.
Sec. 2. The Civil Governor shall appoint, by ana with the advice
and consent of the Philippine Conmiission, a secretary of the Board,
who shall receive a salary of two thousand five hundrea dollars. United
States currency, per annum.
The Exposition Board shall have power to appoint stenographers,
clerks, traveling agents, messengers, laborers, and such other employees
as may be necessary at salaries or wages to be fixed by the Board upon
the approval of the Civil Governor while the majority of the Board is
in the JPhilippine Islands. When a quonmi of the Board is in the
United States no positions shall be created and no persons appointed
to the same, except by the unanimous vote of the three members of the
Board.
It shall be the duty of the Board either as a body, or by individual
members, or through agents, to secure in the Philppine Islands as
comprehensive an exhibit as possible of the products and resources,
manufactures, art, ethnology, education, government of the Philip-
!>ine Islands, and the habits and customs of the Filipino people; and
or this purpose the Board is authorized to visit, eitner as a body or
by individual members, or by agents, every part of the Philippine
Islands.
Sec. 3. The Board shall have an office in the citv of Manila, to be
assigned to it in some available public building by the Civil Governor,
and shall adopt rules for its meetings and the discharge of its business.
Sec. 4. The Board is authorized and directed to hold a preliminary
exposition of certain of the exhibits at Manila in the autumn of nine-
teen hundred and three; and to secure buildings and space for this
Ijurpoee in the city of Manila and to improve the same, and to estab-
ish a permanent museum of such exhibits in Manila. The Board is
further authorized and directed to secure the needed land from the
authorities of the Saint Louis Exposition; to expend the necessary
sums in the drawing of plans for the necessary buildings, and for their
construction; and for the laying out of the grounds included in the
tract of land assigned to the Philippine Exhibit; to incur all necessarv
expenditures, in the securing of exhibits including the necessary ad-
vertising, in the transportation of exhibits from the points where
secured m the Philippine Islands to Manila, and thence to Saint Louis
in the United States.
It shall be the duty of the Board, or its agents, to secure from as
many persons as possible, private exhibits or articles belonging to such
persons, and to return the same to them at the close of the Exposition
m Saint Louis.
The Board is further authorized to acquire by purchase such exhibits
as it may not be able to obtain gratuitously, and to make such disposi-
tion of same after the Exposition is closed as may seem wise, tendering
them first to the Smithsonian Institute, and second, to the Philadelphia
(Commercial Museum.
Sec. 6. The Board herein appointed shall, subject to the approval
of the Civil Governor, formulate rules which shall govern the receipt
of exhibits, their preservation, transportation, classification, and final
disposition.
The Board appointed herein shall have power to incur, in the work
of the collection of the exhibit, its transportation to Saint Louis, and
the holding of the preliminary exposition at Manila, the construction
of buildings at Saint Louis and the laying out of grounds, and in
other expenditures authorized by this Act, obligations not exceeding
in the aggregate the sum of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, in
money of the United States; and in addition to that sum, any sum
which may be contributed for the purpose of aiding the Philippine
Exhibit by the Directors of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, the
latter sum to be expended under such limitations and restrictions as
may be imposed by the Directors of the Exposition.
DEC. 6. All letters mailed by the Exposition Board, its members,
or its secretary, on Exposition business, together with mail indexed
in return envelopes from persons communicating with the Board, its
secretary, or its agents on Exposition business, shall be carri^ in the
mails of the Philippine Islands free.
Sec. 7. It shall be the duty of the heads of all the Bureaus of the
Insular Government and the governors and members of the provincial
boards of all the provinces, and of all the municipal presidents and
.other municipal officers in the Islands, together with Constabulary
officers and the captains and officers of Coast Guard vessels, to furnish
every assistance in their power not inconsistent with law to the Expo-
sition Board and its agents appointed under this Act for the purpose
of expediting the securing of exhibits, their transportation, and tneir
classification. The free use of the telegraph lines of the Islands shall
be allowed to the members of the Exposition Board and its employees
and agents for the purpose of facilitating the business of the Board.
Sec. 8. No taxes or duties shall be imposed by the Insular, provin-
cial, or municipal governments of the Islands on exhibits collected by
the Exposition Board for exhibit, either in Manila or Saint Louis.
Sec. 9. The Board shall render a monthly report of the work done
by it to the Civil Governor, and aquaiieiiy account of its receipts and
expenditures to the Civil Governor and the Auditor for the Arch-
ipelago.
Sec. 10. The Civil Governor shall appoint, by and with the advice
and consent of the Philippine Commission, a disbursing officer for the
Exposition Board, under this Act, who shall receive compensation at
the rate of one thousand eight hundred dollars. United States currency,
per annum. In addition to his acting as disbursing officer, he shall
discharge such other duties as may be assigned to him by the Exposi-
tion Board. The Civil Governor shall fix his bond. The disbursing
officer thus appointed shall be subject to all the requirements imposw
by existing law upon the disbursing officers of other Bureaus and
Departments in respect to rendering accounts to the Auditor and in
his drawing of moneys from the Treasury and his custody and deposit
of the same.
Sec. 11. The Civil Governor is hereby authorized to appoint, by
and with the advice and consent of the Commission, five nonorary
commissioners, who shall be representative Filipinos, to visit the
Exposition in May, nineteen hundred and four, and to remain in the
United States, chiefly in Saint Louis, for the purpose of acting upon
the committees of award, of advising the Board appointed under this
Act, and of representing the Filipino people upon all occasions, when
such representation will be necessary or proper, in the public meet-
ings ana congresses at the Exposition. Such honorary commissioners
shall receive their actual traveling expenses and subsistence in going
•from Manila to Saint Louis, in their stay in Saint Louis, and in their
return to Manila, and a per diem compensation of seven dollars per
day each for a period beginning thirty-five days before the day of
the opening of the Exposition until thirty -five days after its close, or
so long as they may remain in the United States in attendance upon
the Exposition for any less period. The honorary commissioners
shall have the right to visit Washinj^n to pay their respects to the
President of the United States during the first two months of the
Exposition, and their expenses of travel and subsistence during this
trip trom Saint Louis to Washington and return shall be incluoed in
the traveling expenses and subsistence allowed under this section.
Sec. 12. The nonorary commissioners appointed b^ virtue of the
provisions of the next preceding section snail organize by selecting
one of their number as chairman and one of their number as secre-
tary. The commissioners thus organized shall have the power to
employ a competent interpreter, who shall receive compensation,
while employed, at the rate of five dollars per day, in United States
currency, and the payment of his actual expenses from Manila to
Saint Ijouis, of his stay in Saint Louis, and return to Manila. He
shall be employed for a period not to exceed beginning thirtj^-five
days before the opening of the Exposition in Saint Louis until not
exceeding thirty- nve days after its close. It shall be the duty of
the commissioners as a bodjr to prepare and make a comprehensive
report upon the entire Louisiana Purchase Exposition, including the
congresses attended by them, after the close of the Expositon, and to
forward such report to the Philippine Commission on or before the
first day of March, nineteen hundred and five. No further compensa-
tion for the rendering of this report shall be paid the honorary com-
missioners than that provided in the next preceding section.
Sec. 13. There is hereby appropriated out of any funds in the
Insular Treasury not otherwise appropriated, the sum of one hundred
and twenty-five thousand dollars, in money of the United States, to
be expended by order of the Board in meeting obligations authorized
to be incurred under section four of this Act.
Sec. 14. The Civil Service Act and its amendments shall not apply
to appointments under this Act.
Sec. 16. The public good requiring the speedy enactment of this
bill, the passage of the same is hereby expedited in accordance with
section two oi*’ An Act prescribing the order of procedure by the
Commission in the enactment of laws,” passed September twenty-
sixth, nineteen hundred.
Sec. 16. This act shall take effect on its passage.
Enacted, November 11, 1902.