Much attention has been given in recent years to a consideration of civil religion in America. Robert Bellah, in a widely accepted statement, has attempted to define this civil religion. Until now, there has been no attempt to empirically investigate his thesis. This the present article attempts. The investigation involved a content analysis of the editorials of a nationwide sample of newspapers published during the July 4, 1970 (Honor America Day) weekend. It was felt this event would act as a stimulus eliciting spontaneously an expression of the elements of American civil religion. The major findings of this study are: first, few mentions of elements vital to the Bellah thesis occurred; second, on a percentage basis more mentions occurred in metropolitan dailies than in smaller newspapers.