Inspector Simon, discussing this situation, said: “We rarely have difficulty with seasoned travellers who know all the rules. It’s the people who don’t travel too often, the person who makes one trip in ten years’ time, and the general tourist who are always apprehensive about Customs. One of the most difficult things is to settle them down and make them feel at ease so that you can get the answers to your questions without upsetting them too much. Once they feel that you understand their situation and you start to discuss with them what they have purchased and what they might have ordered to be shipped later and how they must go about clearing these articles, then they relax a bit and you find that it is easier to handle them.”
To train new Customs employees in their duties and responsibilities, the Customs Bureau operates a school for inspectors and examiners in an old building at 54 Stone Street in lower Manhattan. Here the recruits are not only instructed in the proper way to meet the public and to inspect luggage, but also how to look for the tricks of the smuggler, how to obtain a sample from a shipment of wool for a laboratory analysis, the proper procedures for verifying shipments of merchandise to determine their dutiable value, and what items are on the forbidden list, such as narcotics and certain plants and vegetables. They also must familiarize themselves with an impost book on whose pages are listed more than 60,000 articles which are dutiable. And in hours of study there is instruction in other phases of the Bureau’s widespread operations.
While the schooling is helpful for any future inspectors, only experience will give them the finesse and the tact necessary to avoid constant irritations in dealing with the thousands of people who pass through the ports each year from overseas, or from Canada and Mexico.
Customs inspectors have learned from long experience that elderly women returning from abroad for the first time and women who are travelling alone are apt to be the most emotional when approaching the Customs inspection lane. They require special attention by inspectors in filling out the proper forms and in getting their baggage prepared for inspection. Many of them regard Customs as a frightening barrier to entry into the United States—and not as an agency to help them comply with the laws which were written by Congress.
Actually, a close look at the record reveals that the Customs Bureau is one of the more efficient units in the Federal government. Even though the work load for examiners, agents, appraisers and other employees has increased more than 200 per cent over the past ten years, the Bureau does the job with fewer employees. In 1951 the Bureau had a total of 8,561 employees—8 more than were employed in 1962. The Bureau’s operating budget had increased from $40,500,000 to $63,400,000 over that period, but most of the increase went into pay raises voted by Congress, employee retirement funds, increased health benefits, and employee insurance contributions.
In 1960, the Bureau won a commendation from the watchdog Bureau of the Budget for an impressive showing in management improvements effected by outgoing Commissioner Ralph Kelly.
Since that remote day in 1789 when William Seton paid the first $774.41 in duties into the U.S. Treasury, the responsibility for policing the imports has grown steadily.
The nerve center for the sprawling operation is located in the office of Commissioner Philip Nichols, Jr., in Washington, D. C., whose top lieutenant is a long-time government career man, Assistant Commissioner David B. Strubinger.
Management control is maintained through seven main divisions: the Division of Engineering and Weighing, the Division of Laboratories, the Division of Tariff and Marine Administration, the Division of Personnel, the Supervisor of Appraisers, the Division of Investigations and Patrols, and the Division of Fiscal Administration.
In the field there are forty-five collectors of customs in thirty-two Customs districts, thirty-two appraisers, nine chief chemists, seven comptrollers, thirteen supervising Customs agents, and nine chief laboratory chemists, in addition to the inspectors, enforcement agents, examiners, border patrolmen, technicians, and clerical workers.