call it the fourth of july, and the whole honor america thing was never tried again. nixon himself may have had some kind of inkling that year it was not going to work, even though that whole thing was organized by his inaugural chairman. it was clearly put together to try to benefit the nixon white house. nixon himself stayed away. he was in california. he sent a video message as the naked hippies smoked this joints and the tear gas wafted through the crowd and everybody beat everybody else up. washington, d.c. has hosted july 4th festivities to celebrate the nation's birthday every year for more than a century. it dates back to 1909, these annual celebrations. presidents themselves, though, generally don't go to the celebrations on fourth of july. sometimes they speak the day before in d.c. at an event. very often they do other fourth of july celebratory remarks or photo ops somewhere else in the country, or even somewhere else in d.c. but when washington sets off fireworks and has a parade and has a concert and celebrates the 4th on the mall like they do every year, on the national