A Holiday Reading Gift: "Yes,
Virginia, there is a Santa Claus"
(12/24/07) We will be on holiday schedule this week, which means
we'll only be updating when major news occurs. All of us who work
at Insider wish you and your family the peace and joy of the season.
And here is our holiday reading gift - the "Yes, Virginia"
editorial, probably the best-known editorial in the history of American
journalism. It was prompted by a letter to the editor of New York’s
Sun newspaper from eight-year-old Virginia
O’Hanlon. Veteran newsman Francis P. Church produced the classic
work as an unsigned editorial appearing on Sept. 21, 1897 under
the headline: “Is There A Santa Claus.”
Here it is:
Is There
a Santa Claus?
We take
pleasure in answering at once and 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.
"Dear
Editor
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, 115 West Ninety-Fifth Street
Virginia,
your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism
of a skeptical 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 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 eternal 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 they 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 may
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, fancy, 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 he lives forever. A thousand years
from now, Virginia, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now,
he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.
Click here
to see a clipping of the editorial as it appeared in the Sun.
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