VIRGIN ISLANDS: Native Governor

For the Virgin Islands, one of the tiniest (132 sq. mi.) of U.S. territories, President Eisenhower last week nominated a new Governor and fellow Republican, John David Merwin. He is the youngest (36) and the first native-born islander of the eight civil Governors named since the U.S. bought the Virgins from Denmark in 1917 for $25 million.

Lawyer Merwin comes from one of the four so-called “royal families” of St. Croix, largest of the islands. His great-greatgrandfather on the maternal side migrated from Ireland in the early 1800s; his paternal grandfather was a Connecticut Yankee who arrived in 1885. When John David was born in the family mansion, the Merwins owned one-sixth of St. Croix’s 52,000 acres. Merwin had a cosmopolitan upbringing: grammar schooling in the British colony of Antigua; international law, briefly, at the University of Lausanne, Switzerland; Spanish at the University of Puerto Rico; a degree in economics at Yale (’43); and, after World War II service as an artillery captain (Bronze Star, Croix de guerre with silver star), another degree, in law, at George Washington University (’48). Merwin went back to the islands to practice, left again for active duty in the Korean war.

With a predominantly (85%) Negro population, the Virgin Islands is race conscious; it has had three Negro Governors since 1946. But being white did not handicap Merwin; in 1954 he went to the Virgin Islands Senate with the largest popular vote given a Senator-at-large. By last December he took the No. 2 post in the administration as Government Secretary, showed a steady hand at finance, revamped the tax program and the Alcohol Control Board. Seven weeks ago, when Atlanta-born Negro Walter A. Gordon stepped out of the governorship after two years, eight months and into a $22,500-a-year federal judgeship, Merwin replaced him as acting Governor. His confirmation by the U.S. Senate to the $19,000-a-year post seems certain.