The Press: Dear Virginia . . .

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As it has every Yuletide since 1897, the staid New York Sun last week reprinted the famed letter-to-the-editor from eight-year-old Virginia O'Hanlon, and the Sun's richly sentimental reply: "Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus . . ." Last week, Sun Funnyman H. I. ("Hi") Phillips jumped the gun on the editorial with a concoction of his own: a letter from a Virginia who asks the editor of Moscow's Pravda, "Is there a Santa Claus? . . . (Papa says, 'If you see it in Pravda, it's so')."

"Dear Virginia," sneered Phillips: "Your inquiry is inexcusable, insolent, and wholly incredible . . . No, Virginia, there is no Santa Claus . . . Believe in Santa Claus! You might as well believe in fairies, those despicable creations of Wall Street . . . You might even see a Santa Claus. But what would that prove? It would be no sign he was there! The most real things in the world are those a child never sees but is told about by the Central Committee . . . Ah, Virginia, in all the world there is nothing real or abiding unless you get it officially from the Kremlin. Santa Claus! Phooey! Thank Karl Marx, thank Lenin, thank Stalin, thank Vishinsky, thank Molotov, thank Gromyko, he was eliminated years ago forever!

"P.S. And remember, one more question like that and it's behind the barbed wire for you."