YES, VIRGINIA, THERE IS A SANTA CLAUS

     Until you were 7 or 8 years old, you knew there was a Santa
Claus. Then, before another Christmas, some cynic told you
otherwise, stunned you with adult reality, insisted you face the
fact that Santa was a make-believe, a myth, a wish, no more. The
moment of terrible truth. You wavered, trying to cling to the past
before being torn into the grown-up world.

     One bleak autumn day in 1897, a little New York girl named
Virginia O'Hanlon came up against this disillusionment. In
desperation, she went to her father for the final word. Her father,
Dr. Phillip F. O'Hanlon, consulting surgeon to the N.Y. Police
Department, was too wise to tackle the question alone. As Virginia
recalled the search for truth 36 years later:
     "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 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 New York
Sun for 20 years, more recently as an anonymous editorial writer.
Church, a sardonic man, had for his personal motto, "Endeavor 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 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 began to write his young correspondent,
and what he wrote was to become one of the most memorable
editorials in newspaper history.

     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.
     
     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
     
          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. ln 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 supernatural
     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 10000 years from now, he will continue to make glad
     the heart of childhood.
     
Aftermath - 
     Francis P. Church's editorial was an immediate sensation, and
became one of the most famous ever written anywhere in the world.
The New York Sun published it annually before Christmas (uncredited
to Church) until 1949, when the paper went out of business.
     Shortly after the editorial appeared, Church married, had no
children, and died in April, 1906.
     As for the girl, Virginia O'Hanlon, she grew up to get a
Bachelor of Arts degree from Hunter College at the age of 21,
obtained her Master's from Columbia the following year, and in 1912
became a teacher, later a principal, in the New York City school
system. She married, became Virginia Douglas, and had offspring of
her own. After 47 years as an educator, she retired, and during all
those years she received a steady stream of mail about her Santa
Claus letter. She replied to all her correspondents by sending them
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, NY.
