"Yes, Virginia, Santa does exist." It doesn't mean anything to us Italians, but this sentence is a piece of American journalism history. It was published exactly 122 years ago, the 21 September 1897, no less than on the New York Sun (the first newspaper on sale at a penny, leader of the historic penny press). Even today the text from which it is taken is recited every year at the Columbia University – home to the most prestigious journalism school in the world – in a pre-Christmas ceremony in early December.
The story begins when Virginia, an eight-year-old New York girl, asks her father the classic question: "Does Santa Claus really exist?". After talking to other children, she started to have doubts. Her father then – a certain Dr. Philip O'Hanlon, from Manhattan – gets out of her way by suggesting that she contact the most important newspaper in the city.
And so, the Sun a short but decisive letter is seen delivered:
Dear Editor,
I'm eight years old. Some of my friends say there is no Santa Claus. My dad told me: "If you see it written in the Sun, it will be true". Please tell me the truth: does Santa Claus exist?
Virginia O'Hanlon
The task of answering is entrusted to Francis Pharcellus Church, one of the editors of the newspaper, a former correspondent from the front during the American Civil War. The result is an unsigned editorial, destined to become the most reprinted text in the history of American newspapers.
The most important step is this:
Yes, Virginia, Santa does exist. It exists as love, generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound to give your life beauty and joy. Heavens, how sad the world would be if Santa Claus didn't exist! It would be sad even if there were no Virginias. There would be no infantile faith, no poetry, no romanticism to make our existence bearable. We would have no other joy than that of the senses and sight. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.
Church's response affects readers deeply, to the point that the Sun decides to republish it every year before Christmas. The reprints continued for over half a century, until the closure of the newspaper in 1950. But even then, the fortune of the text did not end: in the following decades from that exchange of letters were born musicals, short films, TV movies and even advertising campaigns.
In 1997, exactly 100 years after the editorial, the New York Times publishes a reflection on the role that those seven words have had in American culture: “Yes Virginia, there is a Santa Claus".
