New
York Sun, 1897
Editorial Page
We take pleasure in answering thus prominently the
communication below, expressing at the same time our great gratification that
its faithful author is numbered among the friends of The Sun:
“I am 8 years old.
Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus. Papa says, ‘If you see it in The Sun,
it’s so.’ Please tell me the truth, is there a Santa Claus?” -- Virginia O’Hanlon
“Virginia, your little friends are
wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a sceptical age. They do
not believe except they see. They think that nothing can be which is not
comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be
men’s or children’s, are little. In this great universe of ours, man is a mere
insect, an ant, in his intellect as compared with the boundless world about
him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and
knowledge.
“Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa
Claus.
“He exists as certainly as love and
generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your
life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there
were no Santa Claus! It would be as dreary as if there were no Virginias. There
would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this
existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The external
light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.
“Not believe in Santa Claus! You
might as well not believe in fairies. You might get your papa to hire men to
watch in all the chimneys on Christmas eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if
you did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees
Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real
things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you
ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that’s no proof that
they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen
and unseeable in the world.
“You tear apart the baby’s rattle
and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen
world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the
strongest men that ever lived could tear apart. Only faith, poetry, love,
romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty
and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, Virginia,
in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.
“No Santa Claus? Thank God he lives and lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay 10
times 10,000 years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of
childhood.
“Merry Christmas and a Happy New
Year!”
From The People’s Almanac, pp. 1358-9.
Francis P. Church’s editorial, “Yes
Virginia, There is a Santa Claus” was an immediate sensation, and became one of
the most famous editorials ever written. It first appeared in the The New York
Sun in 1897, almost a hundred years ago, and was reprinted annually until 1949
when the paper went out of business.
Thirty-six years after her letter was printed, Virginia
O’Hanlon recalled the events that prompted her letter:
“Quite naturally I believed in Santa Claus, for he had never disappointed
me. But when less fortunate little boys and girls said there wasn’t any Santa
Claus, I was filled with doubts. I asked my father, and he was a little evasive
on the subject.
“It was a habit in our family that whenever any doubts came up as to how
to pronounce a word or some question of historical fact was in doubt, we wrote
to the Question and Answer column in The Sun. Father would always say, ‘If you
see it in the The Sun, it’s so,’ and that settled the matter.
“ ‘Well, I’m just going to write The Sun and find out the real truth,’ I
said to father.
“He said, ‘Go ahead, Virginia. I’m sure The Sun will give you the right
answer, as it always does.’”
And so Virginia sat down and wrote
her parents’ favorite newspaper.
Her letter found its way into the
hands of a veteran editor, Francis P. Church. Son of a Baptist minister, Church
had covered the Civil War for The New York Times and had worked on the The New
York Sun for 20 years, more recently as an anonymous editorial writer. Church,
a sardonic man, had for his personal motto, “Endeavour to clear your mind of
cant.” When controversial subjects had to be tackled on the editorial page,
especially those dealing with theology, the assignments were usually given to
Church.
Now, he had in his hands a little
girl’s letter on a most controversial matter, and he was burdened with the
responsibility of answering it.
“Is there a Santa Claus?” the
childish scrawl in the letter asked. At once, Church knew that there was no
avoiding the question. He must answer, and he must answer truthfully. And so he
turned to his desk, and he begn his reply which was to become one of the most
memorable editorials in newspaper history.
Church married shortly after the
editorial appeared. He died in April, 1906, leaving no children.
Virginia O’Hanlon went on to graduate from Hunter College
with a Bachelor of Arts degree at age 21. The following year she received her
Master’s from Columbia, and in 1912 she began teaching in the New York City
school system, later becoming a principal. After 47 years, she retired as an
educator. Throughout her life she received a steady stream of mail about her
Santa Claus letter, and to each reply she attached an attractive printed copy
of the Church editorial. Virginia O’Hanlon Douglas died on May 13, 1971, at the
age of 81, in a nursing home in Valatie, N.Y.
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