A SIMPLE QUESTION ABOUT SANTA CLAUS

BY DAN MILLER
(originally posted Christmas 2004)

I always imagined that Francis P. Church looked something like Ed Asner (aka Lou Grant), a crusty, somewhat disheveled, typical newspaper editor. But as you can see from the attached photo, that's not the case. He looks more like a character from Mayberry.

On the other hand, Virginia O'Hanlon looks about like I thought.... a lovely, sweet little girl.

You know the connection between these two.

It was 1897, and -- as kids often do -- eight-year old Virginia was having some doubts about the reality of Santa Claus.

Her father, a doctor in New York City -- perhaps as a way to avoid answering a clumsy question -- suggested she write to the newspaper and ask them.

She did.... and the answer became the most widely reproduced newspaper editorial in history.

Her question was answered by Francis Church on September 21, 1897.
He'd been with the New York Sun for about 20 years, and was working as an editorial writer. Before working for the Sun, he had been a Civil War correspondent for the New York Times. When he joined the Sun, he served primarily as a writer specializing in theological and controversial subjects.

Church got married shortly after his editorial was published, and he died in 1906.
He never had children, but his words still comfort countless children (and adults) more than a century later.

The New York Sun reprinted his editorial every year until it went out of business in 1950.

Virginia went on to earn a master's degree from Columbia University and a doctorate from Fordham. She spent almost 50 years working in the New York City school system.
Virginia O'Hanlon Douglas died in 1971 at a nursing home in Valatie, New York, at the age of 81.
Throughout her life, she received mail about her letter to the editor, and she'd answer them with an attached printed copy of the Francis Church editorial.

In the 1940's, speaking before an audience of college students in the 1940's, Virginia talked about what led to writing that letter.
She said, "I was an only child, and my parents did everything for me that parents could do. Quite naturally, I believed in Santa Claus, for he had never disappointed me. But like you, I turned to those of my own generation, and so 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."

She added, "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 New York Sun. Father would always say, 'If you see it in the Sun, it's so,' and that settled the matter."

Read it again..... and Merry Christmas.

THE LETTER:

"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 St.

THE EDITORIAL:

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 as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give 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 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.

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