In the long years past, Customs was James Madison standing in Congress and urging his fellows to adopt a tariff act quickly in order to save the government from financial ruin. It was a band of men slipping through the bayous in search of Jean Laffite and the mountain of loot he was smuggling into New Orleans. Customs was a small army of men whose collection of duties symbolized an issue which threatened to touch off a civil war long before Abraham Lincoln entered the White House. More recently it was an angry maid exposing a distinguished judge and Hollywood stars caught in a tangled web of intrigue. It was, unfortunately, also a thief who rocked the country with a scandal, and weak-willed men who could not resist the temptation of an underworld bribe. The Customs Service is and was a thing of many parts, involving the lives and fortunes of many people. And that is the reason for this story. 2 A TIME OF CRISIS The problem of tariffs is one with which governments have contended from the beginning of recorded history. The Old Testament mentions customs duties and indicates that in those ancient times a well-established system of duties existed. In the early chapters of Ezra is to be found the story of Cyrus, a king of Persia, who permitted the captive Israelites to return to Jerusalem from Babylon in order to rebuild the city and their temples. But there were those who opposed the return of the Israelites. The scriptures say these opponents “weakened the hands of the people of Judah, and troubled them in building, and hired counsellors against them, to frustrate their purpose.” This dispute carried over into the reign of King Artaxerxes, who succeeded Cyrus. Those who opposed the Israelites returning to Jerusalem wrote the king a letter in which they said, “Be it known now unto the King, that, if this city is builded and the walls finished, they will not pay tribute, custom, or toll....” But the king searched the records and found that there was precedent for imposing a tribute or a customs toll. He replied to the letter, “And I decreed, and search hath been made, and it is found that ... there have been mighty kings also over Jerusalem, who have ruled over all the country beyond the river; and tribute, customs, and toll was paid unto them.” The New Testament indicates that Matthew was a collector of customs at the city of Galilee. It says that Jesus called Matthew from “the receipt of customs.”