From modest origins, the Treasury offices proliferated until they occupied the entire block. The 1791 city directory gives an anatomy of this burgeoning department, with 8 employees in Hamilton's office, 13 in the comptroller's, 15 in the auditor's, 19 in the register's, 3 in the treasurer's, 14 in the office for settling accounts between the federal government and the states, and 21 in the customs office on Second Street, with an additional 122 customs collectors and surveyors scattered in various ports. By the standards of the day, this represented a prodigious bureaucracy. For its critics, it was a monster in the making, inciting fears that the department would become the Treasury secretary's personal spy force and military machine. Swollen by the Customs Service, the Treasury Department payroll ballooned to more than five hundred employees under Hamilton,
( Ron Chernow )
[ Alexander Hamilton ]
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