The time period saw the creation of a standard uniform for the Customs Service, the advent of a national income tax, World War I and Prohibition.

Uniforms
Just after America entered World War I, a special office in the Division of Customs was formed to investigate smuggling and suspicious documentation of American seaman. It was soon determined that this new Customs Intelligence Bureau could not attain its highest degree of efficiency by a nondescript crowd in motley garb, with no identifying mark other than a shield. Collector Byron R. Newton urged that the men be properly uniformed and equipped. The Department consented with the understanding that the men should uniform themselves at their own expense. On June 1, 1918, after an outcry from employees, the Department authorized a temporary increase of$120 per annum for uniforms for regular Customs employees whom the Bureau employed.

Variations in uniforms worn by Customs officers in Buffalo, N.Y. 1905

A committee, appointed to draw up specifications for uniforms, secured estimates from the most prominent firms in the New York area. After receiving bids and suggestions, the committee settled on a "very satisfactory" woolen fabric, nearly olive drab in color, to make a coat, trousers, overcoat, cap, and overalls.

Bids for coat, trousers and cap ranged from $57.50 to $26.40, exclusive of buttons, collar ornaments, and cap device, with the exception of Browning, King & Co., whose bid was just over $23, and included the buttons. It was accepted.

Customs, Prohibition, and the War on Drugs
Until the early 1900s, the use of narcotics and other drugs in America was not controlled by any federal agency. However, attitudes were beginning to change.

While experts published lengthy articles alerting the nation to the narcotic menace, the change was best expressed by a cartoon character called "The Dope Fiend" who first appeared in the pages of the New York Sun in 1896. Turned into a brutish beast by drugs that sapped his moral strength, the Dope Fiend gave a face to larger, ill-defined social tensions, and quickly became a convenient symbol. Drug use became drug abuse. By the time the guns of August boomed across Belgium to start World War I, the American public was demanding action.

Inspectors seize bootleg alcohol in Big Bend, Tex.

Changing attitudes meant changing legislation. Between 1897 and 1908 many states passed laws curbing drug distribution, but it was not until December 1914 that Congress passed its first comprehensive narcotics legislation. The Harrison Narcotic Act limited the possession, processing, and sale of opium and cocaine.

Then on January 1, 1920, the 18th Amendment took effect. From then on, there was to be no traffic in or consumption of alcoholic beverages within the United States, nor were any to be imported or exported. Prohibition was thus an international as well as a domestic affair, and that made it a job for the Customs Service.

Customs inspectors became adept at noticing suspicious bulges, bags, and bodywork among their customers. Many men, they discovered had real beer bellies. Women whose silhouettes were far from sylphlike were often forced to reveal bottles in their underwear. Automobiles with clanks and rattles and new upholstery also yielded contraband to the Customs inspectors.

Until 1927, when the Bureau of Prohibition was created to police the domestic production of alcohol and other illegal substances, Customs was the only federal entity working narcotics and alcohol cases. The reason was simple: Customs was the nation’s border agency and there were no narcotics in the U.S. that had not traveled into the U.S. from some other place beyond our borders. In addition alcohol was being smuggled across the border in massive quantities.

The wholesale war on drugs and alcohol galvanized Customs officers, who by now had acquired both an expertise and taste for enforcement activities. More Customs officers lost their lives during Prohibition than any other period in the agency's history.

Training
H.F. Worley, a.k.a. Harry Francis Worley (1873-1948) must be credited with the creation of the Customs School of Instruction in 1935. The school was the predecessor to today's Customs Academy. He was responsible for the preparation of as many as forty-one Lesson Papers, covering such diverse topics as Customs history, Customs laws and regulations, revenue collection procedures, inspection, examination and appraisement, investigations, firearms use and training, budget formulation, and general administration, among others.

H.F. Worley firing in an indoor range - circa 1940

World War I
After three years of neutrality in the European conflict, which had begun with the assassination of Austrian Arch Duke Ferdinand, the U.S. elected to join the fight. The first hint that America was signing up came in the form of a telegram.

On April 3, 1917, Secretary of the Treasury McAdoo instructed Customs collectors that, upon receiving a telegram containing a particular code word, they were to seize all German and Austrian ships in their ports and hold them until further notice.

Telegram received by Customs collectors on April 3, 1917, instructing them to seize all German and Austrian ships, initiating U.S. entry into WWI.

McAdoo's coded telegram reached the New York customhouse at 3:44 a.m. on April 7. By dawn the Customs Service had taken 27 ships, interned 1,100 men on Ellis Island as enemy aliens, and impounded 6,000 pieces of luggage, as well as several pets. Vessels were seized at other ports - often after gun fights and dramatic attempts at flight.

During America's involvement in WWI, the newly created Customs Intelligence Bureau searched 5,271 ships and mustered 4,799. It uncovered hostile aliens, smuggled jewels, and unpaid income tax. Yet for all its accomplishments, it was not the only office to shoulder extraordinary duties during the war. Although more and more of their colleagues were drafted, other Customs agents kept up with new duties such as issuing the war zone passes that protected the piers from unauthorized visitors, or filing reports for the War Trade Board, the Shipping Board, and the War Risk Insurance Board.

They also joined the work of preventing "the importation - of any article of an inimical nature" into the country, often heroically. On January 30, 1918, for example, Naval Intelligence warned collector Newton that a shipment of wheat-destroying pollen was steaming for New York aboard the S.S. Nieuw Amsterdam. Newton immediately arranged for more than 200 officers to search the 1,500 passengers, the 7,500 pieces of luggage, and the rest of the ship and its cargo. For three days agents carefully checked out every bit of paper, clothing, medicine, soap, even toothpaste, looking for the deadly dust. Fortunately, their frantic efforts yielded no "poisonous pollen."

Other agents literally risked their lives in their jobs. News of a deadly flu virus prompted Customs officers to start fumigating ships and passengers arriving from Spain in July 1918. By August, as reports of thousands of deaths across Europe mounted, they physically checked each ship for influenza victims. Many officers ultimately contracted the disease themselves and died.

The signing of the armistice in November 1918 did not lighten Customs burden. Even the Army added to the Customs workload. During the war the military handled its own imports and exports. Once hostilities ceased, however, Customs resumed control and charged the War Department duty on goods it brought back from active service. The army protested that it was "embarrassing" that it should have to pay duty to its own government on European-made goods that they had contracted for and used overseas. The Customs Service, looking coolly at more than $600 million worth of clothing and supplies the American Expeditionary Force alone had sent home, insisted on the tax: There was so much materiel, they argued, it was very likely that some of it would wind up in surplus stores-in direct competition to U.S.-made goods.

Timeline

1889
- Customs collections total $223 million

1913
- Adoption of income tax, Customs duties are no longer the main source of revenue

1913
- Matthew A. Henson, a black explorer of the North Pole region, is appointed to a post with the United States Customs Service

1914
- World War I begins

1918
- A standard uniform for Customs officers established

1919
- Customs Service is charged with enforcing restrictions of the National Prohibition Act at U.S. borders

1919
- Armistice ending WWI is signed

1920
- 18th Amendment enacted prohibiting the "manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors" and their importation and exportation

1923
- U.S. Treasury Narcotics Division (the first federal drug agency) bans all legal narcotic sales

1926
- Air Commerce Act establishes Customs Service presence at airports of entry

1927
- Bureau of Customs headed by a Commissioner of Customs replaces the Division of Customs within Treasury

1933
- The 21st Amendment ends Prohibition

1935
- Customs revenues reduce national debt to zero

1935
- Customs School of Instruction is established

1936
- Customs Service's Division of Laboratories is established