The Lady's Party

By Richard Stengel

For four golden days and gaudy nights, she was the still point of a turning, kaleidoscopic world. Immovable, she gazed upon the revelry with her forthright, rather stern expression. While not exactly a wallflower at her own birthday party, she appeared slightly aloof, distant. What's the big fuss? she might have been thinking. The question is understandable: after 100 years there is little the old girl has not seen before. But as an immigrant herself, she is perhaps even more sensitive to the curious ways of her adopted country, silently indulgent of good old American exuberance, excess and, yes, glitz. Though millions of visitors gawked at her, perhaps no one looked quite closely enough. Let them cavort, she seemed to say with an imperceptible smile. Liberty may be proud, but she isn't haughty. Look again. Was that--could it have been--a wink?

The Statue of Liberty is a sculpted symbol of freedom, an icon of democracy clothed in copper and iron. But the idea of Liberty Weekend for most people was simply to have fun, to watch ships passing under the sun and fireworks blossoming under the stars, to feel good about themselves because they felt good about their country, to feel proud of being proud.

As many as 6 million people descended upon the tip of Manhattan island for the big show. Families from Wyoming and Kansas and Florida camped where yellow cabs usually scuffle; they picnicked where loafered stockbrokers, lawyers and city clerks scurry. New York was a time warp as thousands of white-suited sailors painted the town red. Ambling around Times Square, they transformed the city into a stage set from On the Town ("New York, New York, a helluva town./ The Bronx is up, but the Battery's down").

New York harbor was spackled with whitecaps and the wakes of some 20,000 boats of every conceivable shape and size. Their wild variety mirrored the diversity of the immigrants who passed through Ellis Island: Dutch flat- bottomed boats, Chinese junks, plush French yachts, Norwegian barkentines. Draped over one small vessel was a hand-lettered banner: OK U.K. 1776 IS FORGIVEN. COME HOME COLONIALS. TEA AND CRUMPETS AWAIT.

The schools of small boats gave way to the majestic masters of the daylight hours, the 22 tall ships from 18 countries. The stately succession of tall ships was a graceful ambassador from a vanished, less hectic age. As a cool breeze billowed sails and spirits and Navy guns fired in salute, some spectators reacted with the quiet awe that is more commonly found in gazing at great cathedrals. "I feel like I'm watching history," said Julie Cook of Brookville, Pa. She was indeed.

Standing watch over the elegant sailing ships were the massive, muscular vessels of war: destroyers, frigates, the battleship Iowa and the aircraft carrier John F. Kennedy, from which the President and Mrs. Reagan surveyed the harbor and the Friday-night fireworks. These leviathans provoked a different reaction, a buoyant chauvinism. As a crowded Staten Island ferryboat passed by the Kennedy, one sightseer called out, to cheers and laughter, "Come on over, Gaddafi!"

Liberty Weekend, some carped, was more about profits than patriotism, more about commerce than comity. The opening-night ceremony was a sentimentalized show-biz tribute that left no cliche unturned, a hokey combination of the old Jackie Gleason show from Miami Beach, the Rose Bowl parade and the Ziegfeld Follies. But what, after all, could be more American than that? Show biz, not solemnity, is an American hallmark; taste is not guaranteed in the Bill of Rights. President Reagan's aides were concerned that their man would be demeaned by the Busby Berkeley choreography. Others joked about his pressing the game-show-size button to flash a laser beam that lighted the Lady. A malfunction, and there goes Star Wars. But the old actor, like the old gal to whom he paid tribute, seemed to rise above the script, as they say in Hollywood, and share the dignity that she never lost. His words were simple and heartfelt: "We are the keepers of the flame of liberty; we hold it high tonight for the world to see."

A televised naturalization ceremony that night for 16,000 immigrants in five cities was an exercise in satellite democracy. On Ellis Island, Chief Justice Warren Burger led the new Americans, live and remote, in reciting the Oath of Allegiance. Off-camera, Burger was followed by U.S. District Court Judge Mark A. Costantino, the son of parents from Rome and Naples, who exhorted the crowd with a more plain-spoken vision of citizenship: "Take a real good look at each other. What do you see? You see people of all races, all colors, all creeds. What do we do in America when we meet people? We shake hands. C'mon, shake hands! When you've shaken hands, you can say that you are real Americans."

In his speech that preceded Saturday's dazzling fireworks, President Reagan said 5 1/2 years in the White House have left him with one overriding impression: "That the things that unite us--America's past of which we are so proud, our hopes and aspirations for the future of the world and this much loved country--these things far outweigh what little divides us."

Much still divides Americans, but Liberty Weekend united nearly everyone in a celebration of the statue and ourselves. "This country needs these things every ten years or so," said one spectator. Despite the gimcrackery, this was a people's holiday; the fireworks high above the harbor were the dazzling signature of a democratic free-for-all, overwhelming the staginess that came before and afterward. The Fourth of July weekend revealed, once again, the American spirit of freedom--and the freedom to be in high spirits, as the album of enduring images on the following pages will testify.

With reporting by Bonnie Angelo and Cathy Booth/ New York