Is there a Santa Claus?
During the past several weeks, a number of readers have expressed interest in an editorial about Santa that appeared in the New York Sun in 1897. That editorial, one of the world’s most famous, was written by Francis Pharcellus Church, an assistant to the paper’s editor. The editorial remains appropriate for this holiday season and is reprinted below.
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 eight years old. Some of my little friends say there is no Santa
I am eight 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 Hanlon
115 West 95th Street
Virginia your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical 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 around 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 ...
