Newspapers / Daily Herald (Roanoke Rapids, … / Dec. 23, 1943, edition 1 / Page 16
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THE LARGEST NEWSPAPER IN HALIFAX COUNTY By Mail — $2. Yearly — In Advance ROANOKE RAPIDS, NORTH CAROLINA CARROLL WILSON, Owner and Editor Entered as Second Class matter April 3rd, 1914, at the post office at Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina, under Act of March 3rd, 1879 OFFICE EQUIPMENT & SUPPLIES ADVERTISING - PRINTING - EMBOSSING IS THERE A SANTA CLAUS? Edtor’s Note Away back in 1872, a little girl wrote to the editor of a Neiv York newspaper. Some smart kid. had told her there was no Santa Claus and she hoped the editor would tell her the truth. So she brought her troubles to him and he answered her in the words quoted below. His answer to the little girl has been reprinted more times than any article in the history of the world. There are many newspapers that would not think of going to press Christmas Eve without that editor’s answer. The Sun prints it every year on the front page of that metropolitan newspaper. It has been translated and printed in every foreign tongue where the printing press is known. Its message has run down thru these many years, gladdening the hearts of children, curing the skeptic and bringing a heart-throb of remembrances beautiful to the strongest of men. To us, it contains the sweetest philosophy imaginable, when we recall it came from the pen of a case-hardened, practical old city editor on a great daily. Read it yourself, read it aloud to your family this Christmas Eve; treasure it as %oe do for its beauty and simplicity, its everlasting spirit of faith, hope and love. Here if is: we take pleasure in answering at once and thus prominently the communication below, ex pressing at the same time our great gratification that its faithful author is numbered among the friends of The Sun: “Dear Editor — I am eight 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, , 115 West Ninety-First Street’’ 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 comprehen sible to 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 to the intelligence capable of gathering the whole truth and knowl edge. Yes, Virginia, There is a Santa Claus. He ex ists, as certainly as love and generosity and devo tion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! How dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus. It would be as dreary as if there were no Virginias. There would be no child-like faith then, no poetry, no romance, to make tolerable this ex istence. We should have no enjoyment, except in the sense and sight. The external light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished. Not believe in Santa Claus? You might as well not believe in fairies! You might get your papa to hire men to watch all the chimneys on Christmas Eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if they did not see Santa Claus coming down what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see the fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but i that’s no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen 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 men, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men who ever lived, could tear apart. Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. It is all real. Ah, Virginia, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding. No Santa Claus? Thank God! He lives and lives, and he lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay, ten thousand years from now he will continue to make glad the hearts of child hood. \ SHARING A TOAST Editor’s Note—Good things are hard to keep to oneself and aitho it might have been an idea to keep this and spring it on pur friends at the proper moment, we find we must share it with our faithful readers; it is too good to keep, especially at this Christmas season. We heard it in our hotel room in Chicago where a bunch of us had gathered after a four-hour committee meeting; it was given by 8. Ray Emerson, State Highway Commissioner from Iowa, former State Senator from that great State where the tall com grows, and poet laureate of the State. With proper apologies to the Commissioner we might add we have used it in the few Christmas greetings we have sent to a few folks outside the confines of our city to whom it most aptly applies. Here it is: As I go thru’ this world, to my journeys end, May I always find friends, good and true— May good fortune and kindness, my every step bend To a bunch of good fellows like you. In this world, I’ve found, that we get what we give, And are done to, forsooth, as we do— And my prayer is I may live—while I live— With a bunch of good fellows like you. There’s a tone in your voice, a clasp in your hand, A glint in your eyes, always grand, And I think Paradise must be some sort of land With a bunch of good fellows like you. Here’s a pledge to your health, your joy, success— For friends of your kind are too few, There’s something to hearten and gladden and bless In a bunch of good fellows like you. So I pledge you again, and can only say this, And it springs from a sentiment true: I shall always regret every moment I miss From a bunch of Good Fellows like you. 1943 —1944 This is our greeting to the boys and girls in uniform in this year of Our Lord 1943, at the time of Christmas when we forget the shortcomings of all and enter into a short period when there is more good will on earth toward all men than at any other season. History often repeats itself and so do most of us; so we can only repeat from a part of something we wrote several weeks ago and called “Come Home”. Nothing is new in the world and the title is taken from the late^ir Eric Knight’s famous book, “Lassie, Come Home”. We repeat it even as we reprint “Is There a Santa C1 a u s?”, as we have for the past twenty years; we repeat it even as we sing the safie Christmas carols we have sung since we learn ed them at our grand mother’s knee foriy years ago. Truly, old wine is good wine and old writings and old songs are like old friends, whom “their adoption tried,” we “grapple” to our souls with hoops of steel.” So here is our Chrtet mas and 1944 message to you boys and girls far from home, repeated from our editorial of Nov. 18, 1943: * “Men and Women in uniform, the hope and the future of our country and of the world is^in your hands; and like tnat little heartbroken boy who crept from his bed in the cold of the night to the window of his%t tic room and, looking out on the moonlit hills of England, prayed, ‘Lassie, come home’, here in 4pn erica there are millions of us who pray, ‘Lads and Lassies, come home; we miss you; we imed you; come home—soon.” GREETINGS The employees and management of ihe Herald Printing Co., The Roanoke Rapids Herald and the Gun Cleaning Patch Dept, of The Ijjer ald Printing Co., about forty of us, wish all of you, regardless, a very Merry Christmas and, for all of us, a Victorfeus 1944. Growers May Sell Stock Peanuts Gf Their 1943 Crop growers may sell farmers’ stock peanuts of the 1943 crop to jj^her producers for planting, accoiTllng to an announcement today from E. M. Johnson, manager of the Growers Peanut Cooperative, Inc., who quoted an amendment to Commodity Credit CorporatiojwOr der No. 4 as his source of’au thority. * The amendment permits one producer to sell farmers’ stock peanuts to another “for planting by or for him.” The buyer ,nan not however, Johnson saidj nsuy the peanuts for seed and then re sell them for seed. While there is no stipulation as to the quantity of peanuts a grower may sell for this ptncoBe and no fixed scale related t<r the quantity a producer may buy, Johnson said they are assured permission to buy enough to fill their needs. -- $ >fc*nr i Mnr crniRk *A»-Hw WAB BONDS. Keep n BACKING THE ATTACK. *
Daily Herald (Roanoke Rapids, N.C.)
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Dec. 23, 1943, edition 1
16
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