The Alaska daily empire., 1920-12-08
IS THERE A SANTA CLAUS?

How many children asking these days t uuestios1 IS there Santa Claus? A little g as ked ths question twenty years ago in let to theE New York Sun, and the letter was answer in an editorial in that paper, written by one of ises land kindiest yof the great masters of our Ia guage w ho ,wrote editorials for that great paper d' ing the last century. The editorial, and the answ are anong American newspaper classics. It appear in the New York Sun December Fl, 1897, and is h' reproduced for the benefit of those who have not re it. and for the further enjoyment of those who ha for none can read it too often:
 We take pleasure in answering at once and thus prominently the communication below, expressing at the same time our great qualification that it's faithful author is num- bered among the friends of the Sun:
 Dear Editor: l years old
 Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus
 Papa says If you see it in The Sun it's
 Please tell the truth, is there Santa Clausf s
 ar VIRGINIA OHANLON.
 HIS West Ninety-Fifth Street.
 Virginia your little friends are wrong. they have been affected by the sceptcism of sceptical age. They do not believe except they see They think that nothing be which is not comprehensibe by their little minds All minds Virginia, whether they be men's childrens, are little. In this great unfeerse ot is a insect, an ant in hIs intellect as compared with the boundless world about him, measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge. tF'E
 ''Yes, Virginia, there is Santa Claus. He exists certainly love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life it's highest beauty and joy. Alas how dreary would be the world if there were Santa Claus! It would be dreary if there Virginias There would be no childlike faith then no poetry. romance to make toerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment. except in sense andefight. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.
 Mot believe in Santa Claus. You might ass.well not believe in fairies! You might get: your papa to hire to watch in all the. chnAeys Christmas Eve, to catch SaHta Claus. but if they did not catch Sa6ta Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody Santa Claus, but that t s~ is no sign there is Santa Claus The most real thns in the world those that neither children can Did you ever fairies dancing the lawn? Of course not, but that's proof that they are not there Nobody conceive or imagine all the wonders that are unseen and unseeabe in the world
 You 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, the united strength of the men that ever lived could tear apart. Only faith, fancy, poetry, love- romance push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? An, Virginia in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding
 No Santa Claus? Thank God! he lives, and lives fgoreyer. A thousand years from now.z he will continue to make glad the hearts of all childhood"