“Unveiling the Secret: The Surprising Destination of Santa’s Letters Revealed!”
So she wrote a letter, determined to find out the truth.
“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”
This letter ended up on the desk of veteran Sun writer Francis P. Church, who had worked for the paper for over twenty years. Allegedly Church “bristled and pooh-poohed” when his editor handed him Virginia’s letter asking him to compose a reply. And yet, he produced a masterpiece that became a beloved holiday touchstone – by his deadline and in under 500 words.
The editorial, which was eventually republished in 20 different languages, certainly hit home with young Virginia and her parents. Virginia recalled during a 1914 interview that,
“It used to make me as proud as a peacock to go along in the street in the neighborhood and hear somebody say, ‘Oh, look. There’s Virginia O’Hanlon. Did you see that editorial the New York Sun had about her?’ And father and mother were even prouder than I, I think. They still show the editorial to callers and just talk people’s arms off about it.”
The editorial’s message still resonates just as strongly over a century later:
“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.
