In a vanished time of simpler Fourths of July. Woodrow Wilson proudly hailed the American flag as "the emblem of our unity." For many Americans on Independence Day 1970, to unfurl, or not unfurl, the front-porch flag is an unsettling dilemma. What was once an easy, automatic rite of patriotism has become in many cases a considered political act, burdened with over tones and conflicting meanings greater than Old Glory was ever meant to bear.
In the tug of war for the nation's will and soul, the flag has somehow become the symbolic rope. It takes no Swiftian eye to be astonished by what Americans are doing with — and to — the national banner.
Some, mostly the defiant young, blow their noses on it, sleep in it, set it afire, or wear it to patch the seat of their trousers. In response, others wave it with defensive pride, crack skulls in its name, and fly it from their garbage trucks, police cars and skyscraper scaffolds. In pride or put-on, Pop or protest, Old Glory's heraldry blazons battered campers and Indianapolis 500 racers, silver pins and trash bins, glittering cowboy vests and ample bikinied chests. The flag has become the emblem of America's disunity, and, in a land where once only wars abroad set it fluttering in vast numbers, the caricature of a new conflict is raging right at home. The old meaning still persists; hardly any American could escape a thrill of pride when Neil Armstrong planted his vertebrate flag on the airless moon. But some Americans could also sympathize with the emotion that moved a student at Kent State to rip down a flag after the shootings. It is as if two cultures, both of them oddly brandishing the same banner, were arrayed in some 18th century battle painting, the young whirling in defiant rock carmagnole against the panoplied Silent Majority.
Honor America Day in Washington on July 4 could prove a microcosm of the national encounter. Its sponsors conceived it as a nonpartisan happening, a patriotic family outing on a Disney scale. As an earnest of their neutral intentions, they enlisted Senator George McGovern and some other heroes of the war-protest movement. But the rally will be dominated by Evangelist Billy Graham, Comedian Bob Hope—both close friends of President Nixon's—and a 1967 Miss Teen-Age America finalist who will recite "I Speak for Democracy." To many, it appears to be aimed at implicit support for the policies of the Nixon Administration.
Rennie Davis and other radicals immediately formed "The Emergency Committee to Prevent a July Fourth Fistfight"—a group whose purpose seemed to be thwarted in advance by Davis' demands that, among other things, his people receive the right to plant miniature Viet Cong flags on the Ellipse behind the White House, where Boy Scouts and others will set out American flags. The request was, of course, denied, but an attempt by antiwar groups to do anything similar could produce trouble. Ambassadors from the Woodstock nation promise a huge pot party on the Mall for the Fourth, threatening to appear with red, white and blue marijuana joints. Some will doubtless wear flag shirts and bell bottoms, the paraphernalia of their wholly different patriotism. Not everyone will appreciate the distinction.