Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, March 21, 1992                   TAG: 9203210068
SECTION: NATL/INTL                    PAGE: A-7   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Short

LAWMAKER ANGRY ABOUT FOLK QUILTS MADE IN CHINA

Rep. Ralph Regula thinks American folk art copied for sale in American department stores should be made in the United States, not in China.

"How can the Chinese reproduce an American quilt?" Rep. Ralph Regula, R-Ohio, complained Thursday in a letter to Robert McC. Adams, secretary of the Smithsonian Institution.

Regula is the ranking Republican on the subcommittee with authority over the Smithsonian's $311 million request for next year's budget, the subject of a hearing before Regula's panel Tuesday.

"The Smithsonian is certainly very concerned about this issue and we take Congressman Regula's comments completely to heart," a spokeswoman said.

The Smithsonian doesn't sell the copies - four designs based on original quilts in the National Museum of American History - either at its shops or through the mails.

However, big department stores and mail-order companies stock the reproductions made in China through a contract signed by the Smithsonian with a New York importer, American Pacific Enterprises.

Regula wants the Smithsonian to tell him how it could break its quilt-copy contract, which has more than two years left.