Border guard

by Don Whitehead

Wool is graded by numbers, starting with 36 for the coarsest and moving through the 70s to the very finest. A miscalculation in the grading can deprive the Treasury of revenues—or cause an injustice to an importer.

For years, examinations of wool were conducted on the piers by taking samples from the ends of the highly compressed bales, which were covered with burlap and bound by steel bands. The examiner had no way of knowing—except to have a bale of fleece opened—whether or not the outer fleece concealed a higher grade of wool in the center of the bale. In some isolated cases, examiners found that a coarse grade of carpet wool concealed extremely high-grade wool. Contraband such as narcotics also was found hidden inside suspect bales.

Perhaps of even greater importance, the examiner had no reliable method of determining the amount of dirt, vegetable fiber, grease and other foreign matter contained throughout the bale—and the duties were supposed to be assessed only on the “clean content” of the wool.

This haphazard method of examination drew the fire of Congress in 1930. To correct the situation, the Customs Bureau established the post of Wool Administrator in New York City. It was his job to coordinate the examinations throughout the country and to establish more uniform practices. Daniel J. Kelly was named Administrator, with three assistants—Morris Shuster in Philadelphia, Al Kelleher in Boston and John Walker in New York.

The Bureau assigned to Chief Chemist Louis Tanner of the Boston laboratory the job of finding a method to determine the “clean content” of wool shipments. He developed a special boring tool which enabled examiners to take samples, or cores, of wool from inside the bales, and to judge the uniformity of the fiber in an entire bale without disturbing the bindings. This method proved so simple and effective that it has been adopted by the commercial trade and by government agencies in other countries throughout the world.

Imports of all kinds and types reach the Appraiser’s Stores in this manner: When merchandise is ready for export from a foreign country to the United States, the exporter prepares a special customs invoice describing the merchandise and giving its value. This invoice is sent to the American importer. When the importer is notified that the merchandise has arrived at a port of entry, he turns over the invoice to his customs broker. The broker calculates the estimated rate of duty, then proceeds to the Customs House. There he makes what is called a formal entry of the merchandise, filing the information he has received from the exporter and paying the duty.

In the Collector’s office at the Customs House, the broker’s estimates of value and duty are reviewed for any errors. Then the invoice is transmitted to the appraiser’s office, where it is assigned to the expert who will examine this particular merchandise.

The Collector notifies the Customs inspector at the pier that he is to send a 10 per cent sampling of the imported merchandise to the Appraiser’s Stores to be physically examined by the specialist in that field. The specialist examines the samples of merchandise to see that they are correctly identified by the importer. Then he determines whether the broker’s estimates of value and duty are correct.

If the broker entered the merchandise at $100 a unit and the examiner believes that the appraised value should be $125 a unit, then the examiner makes the change. His report is then forwarded to the office of the Collector for final action, and normally the Collector accepts the examiner’s judgment.

The Collector then notifies the broker or the importer of the action that has been taken. The importer and broker may accept the ruling or they may take issue. If they disagree, they may appeal to the United States Customs Court. If either the importer or the government is dissatisfied with the lower court’s decision, an appeal may be taken to the U.S. Court of Customs and Patent Appeals. Usually the decision of the Appeals Court is accepted as being final, but either of the parties may carry the appeal further, to the Supreme Court.