Scattered Anniversary

Four years and several weeks from now the U.S. will be 200 years old. To honor the occasion, President Nixon had counted on an exposition worthy of the moment to crown his hoped-for second term in office. The logical site: Philadelphia, cradle of liberty and host to the nation's centennial and sesquicentennial celebrations.

But it is not to be. In a decision backed by the President, the American Revolution Bicentennial Commission has rejected the proposal by Philadelphia to hold the big birthday party there. The fundamental reason, says a commission spokesman, was that the city's price tag got too high.

Angry Philadelphians had other explanations. John Bunting, the chairman of the Philadelphia 1976 Bicentennial Corporation, charged that "nervous Nellies and ashamed Americans have frightened some of our most powerful Government leaders into believing that we should not invite the world to visit us in 1976." If that is true, the City of Brotherly Love is partly to blame. Black leaders demanded an equal voice in the planning, and lower-middle-class whites staged unpleasant demonstrations, protesting against the possible influx of black laborers and "foreigners."

The result (not necessarily bad) is that the U.S. will celebrate its 200th birthday in a myriad of small celebrations in towns, cities and national parks across the land.

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