From the desk of Harry S. Truman last week emerged an 1,800-word state paper exclusively devoted to garlic. U.S. garlic growers, a small but vociferously selfish band, had persuaded the Tariff Commission to restrict garlic imports so severely that Italy, one of the chief foreign suppliers, stood to lose more than half her U.S. sales, which in 1951 totaled about $420,000* Pointing out that Italy had done a good job of combating Communism, the President bravely overruled his commission. The decision to abolish the garlic quota, declared one State Department official, would breathe new life into the campaign for honest and unhampered trade between the U.S. and her allies.
*This figure represents about 5,370,000 Ibs. of dried clove garlic, almost all of which was used to spice the food of residents of Puerto Rico and the East Coast of the U.S., where the garlic market has lately been booming. No Italian garlic, noted President Truman thoughtfully, was sold in Chicago in 1951, nor was much of it used in the production of garlic salt.
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