[ Act No. 253, October 02, 1901 ]

AN ACT CREATING A BUREAU OF NON-CHRISTIAN TRIBES FOR THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS.

By authority of the President of the United States, be it enacted by the United States Philippine Commission, that:

SECTION 1. There is hereby created, under the Department of the Inferior, a Bureau of Non-Christian Tribes, which shall conduct systematic investigations with reference to the non-Christian tribes of the Philippine Islands, in order to ascertain the name of each Tribe, the limits of the territory which it occupies, the approximate number of individuals which compose it, their social organizations and their languages, beliefs, manners, and customs, with special view to determining the most practicable means for bringing about their advancement in civilization and material prosperity. The Bureau shall further investigate and report upon the practical operation of all legislation with reference to non-Christian tribes.

SEC. 2. There shall be a Chief of the Bureau, who shall receive a salary of three thousand five hundred dollars per year, payable monthly in money of the United States, and shall be allowed his actual and necessary traveling expenses when absent from Manila on official business; a stenographer and typewriter of class nine; and an agent for Moro affairs in the Jolo Archipelago, who shall be the clerk of class ten in the Office of Moro Affairs in the Jolo Archipelago, authorized in section one of Act Numbered Two hundred and one.

SEC. 3. The Chief of the Bureau shall have general direction and control of its work and shall appoint all its duly authorized officers and employees, subject to the provisions of the Civil Service Act and of Act Numbered Twenty-five. He shall, from time to time, recommend to the Commission the authorization of such additional employees as may be found necessary for properly conducting the work of the Bureau.

SEC. 4. The public good requiring the speedy enactment of this bill, the passage of the same is hereby expedited in accordance with section two of "An Act prescribing the order of procedure by the Commission in the enactment of laws," passed September twenty-sixth, nineteen hundred.

SEC. 5. This Act shall take effect on its passage.

Enacted, October 2, 1901.