“YES, VIRGINIA, THERE IS A SANTA CLAUS”

[The Perilous Dreamer]

I have always loved this and a lot of other people have also loved it over the years.

“YES, VIRGINIA, THERE IS A SANTA CLAUS”

Eight-year-old Virginia O’Hanlon wrote a letter to the editor of New York’s Sun, and the quick response was printed as an unsigned editorial Sept. 21, 1897. The work of veteran newsman Francis Pharcellus Church has since become history’s most reprinted newspaper editorial, appearing in part or whole in dozens of languages in books, movies, and other editorials, and on posters and stamps.

THE EDITORIAL

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 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 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.

[El Borak]

In 1897, Mitchell gave Church a letter written to the Sun by 8-year-old Virginia O'Hanlon, who wanted to know whether there truly is a Santa Claus. In Church's 416-word response, he wrote that Santa exists "as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist". "Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus"[20] became Church's best-known work and the most reprinted editorial in newspaper history.

Mitchell reported that Church, who was initially reluctant to write a response, produced it "in a short time" during an afternoon.  The editorial was uncharacteristic of Church's style – his other writings typically espoused hardened cynicism, skepticism toward religion and superstition, and a generally curmudgeonly approach. Upon publication on September 21, 1897, the journalist Charles Anderson Dana described Church's writing as "Real literature," and said, "Might be a good idea to reprint it every Christmas—yes, and even tell who wrote it!"

The editorial was first reprinted five years later to answer readers' demand for it. The Sun started reprinting the editorial annually in 1920 at Christmas, and continued until the paper's bankruptcy in 1950. Because the Sun traditionally did not byline their editorials, Church was not known to be the author until his death in 1906. The editorial is just one of two whose authorship the Sun disclosed.

The editorial has been described as "the most famous editorial in history", has been translated into 20 languages, set to music, and adapted into at least two movies. A book based on the editorial, Is there a Santa Claus?, was published in 1921.

Church died in New York City on April 11, 1906, at the age of 67, at his home on 46 East 30th Street. He had an unknown illness for several months before his death. He was buried in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Sleepy Hollow, New York.