Volume 17 , Issue 46

Walking With Sweet Silly Sadie (Dawg)

With Christmas just around the corner we searched online through Newspapers.com for the September 21, 1897, of The Sun and Editor, Francis Pharcellus Church's answer to Virginia O'Hanlon's letter asking the Editor if there was a Santa Claus.

The Sun, New York, dated September 21, 1897, page 6, the Santa Claus Editorial was the most quoted by other newspapers over the past years. If one lets the heart judge, the greatest and most famous editorial ever published.

Found on Newspapers.com

"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. 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 got your papa to hire men to watch all the chimneys on Christmas Eve to catch 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 over 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 unforeseen 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! Thank God! He lives and he lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay, then times ten thousand years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood. ~ New York Sun.

Woof! Woof! Happy Winter Holidays!
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