I read the letter for the first time today. In all these years. I knew the story, saw the movie, but I never read the actual letter. It was written, then mailed to the New York Sun daily newspaper. They printed the reply, on this date, September 21, in the year 1897.
First, I must tell you, the New York Sun, a daily newspaper, was credible and distinguished. It was published from 1833 to 1950 in New York City was one of the most influential American newspapers. The Sun holds the distinction of being the first successful penny daily newspaper in the United States.
But here is the letter, and the editorial response, 1897.
______________
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.
______________
The young girl was Laura Virginia O’Hanlon, born on July 20, 1889, in New York City, New York. She was married a very short time to Edward Douglas in the 1910s. He left her shortly before their daughter, Laura, was born. But she kept her married name, Virginia O’Hanlon Douglas.
She pulled up her bootstraps, went to school, and received her Bachelor of Arts from Hunter College in 1910, a master’s degree in education from Columbia University in 1912, and a doctorate from Fordham University in the 1930s. Amazingly enough, the title of her dissertation was “The Importance of Play.” Douglas went on to be a respected school teacher and principal in New York City. She retired in 1959.
Douglas died on May 13, 1971, at the age of 81, in a nursing home in Valatie, New York.
The writer of the editorial was Francis Pharcellus Church. He was born on February 22, 1839, in Rochester, NY. He died on April 11, 1906. He was a long time newspaper man, married, with no children. And he wrote.
That’s all I know about that.
Except.
We need to believe in that thing called Santa Claus.
Now, more than ever, we do.
==========
Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning.
— Albert Einstein
==========
Believe in life! Always human beings will live and progress to greater, broader, and fuller life.
— W. E. B. Du Bois
==========
It is surely harmful to souls to make it a heresy to believe what is proved.
— Galileo Galilei
=========
