Wrapped in Old Glory

Getting dress material that is sturdy and cheap is the perennial problem of the penniless Haitian peasant women. Traditionally, old flour sacks have filled the need. Now cloth dealers in Port-au-Prince have found a bountiful new supply of material: surplus U.S. 48-and 49-star flags. From shore to shore the island is bright with dresses, shirts and kerchiefs in the stars and stripes; in peasant houses red, white and blue serves for sheets, pillow cases and tablecloths.

Purchased from Manhattan dealers, the uncut bolts of flags, generally the small, nonceremonial kind, are retailing for about 20-c- a yard. Port-au-Prince cloth merchants alone have already sold the equivalent of more than 1,000,000 Old Glories. Dealer Pierre Assad, who bought the flag material from Manhattan's Philip Rothman at 12-c- a yard, also has bolts and bolts of Hungarian and Polish cloth, but says the U.S. flag "is beating the hell out of the Communist material."

Though no longer useful for flags, the stars and stripes on shirts and sheets strike visiting U.S. tourists as a desecration. In Washington last week Oregon Congressman Charles O. Porter introduced a bill to stop the manufacture, sale or gift of any type of U.S. flag where its use might "cast contempt." It will probably go through, but until then, Haiti's peasantry will continue to look like a Navy recruiting poster.

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