Executive Order 1656

By virtue of the authority vested in me by the Act of Congress entitled "An Act to provide for the opening, maintenance, protection, and operation of the Panama Canal and the sanitation and government of the Canal Zone", approved August 24, 1912, I hereby declare that all land and land under water within the limits of the Canal Zone are necessary for the construction, maintenance, operation, protection and sanitation of the Panama Canal, and the Chairman of the Isthmian Canal Commission is hereby directed to take possession, on behalf of the United States, of all such land and land under water; and he may extinguish, by agreement when practicable, all claims and titles of adverse claimants to the occupancy of said land and land under water.

Wm. H. Taft.

The White House,

December 5th, 1912.