What, everyone asks us these days, are we doing about the Bicentennial? After all, it is only four years away, or just three, if you want to begin with Lexington and Concord. The answer, of course, is that we are worrying about it, just like everyone else, and just as they are in those Massachusetts villages. (What bothers them is the possibility of being overwhelmed in 1975, as they were in 1875 before the automobile—by vast, thirsty, hungry, unmanageable crowds; see David B. Little’s cautionary tale on this subject on page 18.)

At earlier celebrations of our independence, there seems to have been little to worry about except, perhaps, accidents with the fireworks or undue length in the patriotic oratory. In 1826, when we were a mere fifty, and had added eleven new states to the original thirteen, there were many local jubilees, with parades, odes, and choruses. New York City gave its citizens something inconceivable today, a great free banquet with oxen roasted whole and vast tables of ham, beer, and cider. The only national affair was a simple ceremony in the chamber of the House of Representatives, to which three patriarchs, John Adams, ninety, Charles Carroll, eighty-eight, and Thomas Jefferson, eighty-three, were invited. None of the three old signers could come; and when it was learned that, by an astonishing coincidence, both Adams and Jefferson had died on that very day, July 4, people marvelled at what might be a Sign.

Perhaps it was a Sign that the United States, whose birth had shaken the old order as much as any event in our own century, would grow and prosper. And so it did, especially in material things, so that the great exposition at Philadelphia in 1876 (glimpsed in our issue of last December) celebrated power, industry, technology, and a continent mastered. We were comers. We were still comers in 1926, at still another fair. Almost no one doubted our message, which was Progress, or our destination, which was Up. War was forever behind us, business was booming, the Melting Pot was churning all kinds of people into Americans, and President Coolidge, his desk clean, could take a nap every afternoon. If there were Signs, no one was looking in that direction.

Smug 1926, optimistic 1876, pious 1826. They seem so recent, but history moves fast these days; from its legendary founding to its final collapse in the East, Rome endured for over two millennia. Now, of course, the promise of young America is obscured before its youth is accomplished. There are as many undigested lumps in the Melting Pot as there are demagogues on the television screen; war has settled down upon us like an unshakable low-grade infection; and there are no more carefree naps at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. For all the blessings of technology, nothing seems to work well anymore. And so what, pray, shall we celebrate? That is what we are worrying about.