Monday, December 19, 2005
Editorial: Yes, Virginia, Congress saves Xmas
It's official, the U.S. House of Representatives stomps out grinches.
From the RoundTable blog
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In 1897, Francis Pharcellus Church, responding to a child's query, penned for The New York Sun one of the most famous and endearing editorials of all time. It began:
"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."
If that weren't enough assurance, the U.S. House of Representatives on Dec. 14, in a vote of 401-22, gave Santa Claus and all the "symbols and traditions of Christmas" the congressional seal of approval. In doing so, the House affirmed Church's keen insight: All minds are little.
Virginia, the commonwealth, not the child, has Reps. Jo Ann Davis and Virgil Goode to thank for their perseverance in saving Christmas from the imaginary attack on its very spirit and nature. But if Fox News Channel commentator Bill O'Reilly says it's so, Christmas must be under attack by anti-Christmas forces.
Christmas could die if store clerks fail to wish it merry thousands of times a day, or if children forgo red and green icing for their cakes or if cities across the nation light holiday trees.
Food stamps for the hungry, homes for Katrina victims, heat for the poor, money to run the war, inhumane treatment, erosion of civil rights, the boundless world of troubles -- all can wait. Tinsel, mistletoe and holiday shopping debt cannot.
No Christmas! To paraphrase Church: Thank God! Christmas lives and lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay 10 times 10,000 years from now, Christmas will continue to make glad the heart. Regardless of Congress.
