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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Wal-Mart Says It’s Sorry For Pulling Shirts

Associated Press

Wal-Mart apologized Saturday for pulling T-shirts proclaiming “Someday a woman will be president” from one of its stores, and offered to put them back on the shelves.

“We made a mistake,” Jay Allen, the company’s vice president of corporate affairs, said from the discount chain’s Bentonville, Ark., headquarters. “In this case, we overreacted.”

Wal-Mart pulled the shirts Aug. 21 from the only store where they were sold after a couple of customers complained they were offensive, Allen said. The store in Miramar, about 20 miles north of Miami, had sold about two-thirds of the 204 shirts.

The store will give away the remaining 100 or so T-shirts, Allen said.

“If demand calls for it, we’ll consider putting some more in there,” Allen said. “If the same vendor comes to us with the same merchandise … we will sell it.”

The shirt is emblazoned with the child character Margaret from the cartoon strip “Dennis the Menace,” smiling with her arms spread wide, making the proclamation about a woman in the White House.

Allen denied shirt designer Ann Moliver Ruben’s claim that a Wal-Mart buyer told her the T-shirt’s message violates Wal-Mart’s “family values.”

Asked if Wal-Mart would sell the T-shirt nationwide, Allen said: “That’s premature to talk about.”