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Yes, Virginia,
There IS a Santa Claus
Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus was the subheading
over an editorial in the September 21, 1897 New York Sun which has
become extremely famous.
Spirit of Santa
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In 1897, Dr. Philip O'Hanlon, a coroner's assistant on Manhattan's Upper
West Side, was faced with a minor family crisis. His eight-year-old daughter,
Virginia, had begun to doubt the existence of Santa
Claus, her friends
telling her he was fictional.
Dr. O'Hanlon told her to write to the Sun, a prominent New York
newspaper at the time, assuring her the paper would tell her the truth. While
he was possibly passing the buck because he could not bear to tell his
daughter that Santa Claus was a myth, he unwittingly gave one of paper's
editors, Francis Pharcellus Church, an opportunity to rise above the simple
question, and address the philosophical issues behind it.
Church was a war correspondent during the American Civil War, a time which
saw great suffering and a corresponding lack of hope and faith in much of
society. Although the paper ran the editorial in the seventh place on the
editorial page, below even an editorial on the newly invented "chainless
bicycle", its message struck a chord in the hearts of people who read
it.
More than a century later it remains the most reprinted editorial ever to
run in any newspaper in the English language. Although many have doubted
whether Virginia, rather than her father, actually wrote the letter to the
editor, noting that a young girl would not refer to children her own age as
"my little friends", the message contained in the response is
considered as pertinent today as in 1897.
from: Editorial Page, New York Sun, 1897:
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.
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 what 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!!!!
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from
Wikipedia
and from ShiningRise.com
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