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Show r V Kings and Queens of Health And of Corn lo Six Americans Belong the Credit For Making Santa Clans, the Children's Symbol of Christmas, a Living Reality Lhsot4-H Health Chamhoms TJii lif"' Mty!cSfecp8toI0Hours. 11 tlx t --'l I THE LEIII SUN. LEIIUjh '. . I rSi ' GuroCcr (jit i U HIT l i. hw : fw Jill By ELMO SCOTT WATSON tossed by Western Newspaper Union.! T- HE social historians will tell you that the Dutch gave to the world that familiar symbolical Christ mas figure, Santa Claus, arid. that his "ame is merely ; a Surring of the Dutch pronunciation pronun-ciation of "San Nicholas" or "Sinterklass" which is, of course, "St. Nicholas." They will tell you, too, that Nicholas Nicho-las was an actual person, the bishop of Myra, in Lycia, Asia Minor, in the first part of the fourth century of the Christian era. In his honor December 6 of each ar was set aside as a special feast day. But in the late Middle ies, when the Catholics and the Protestants both tried to do away, tith festivities which had grown Bp around St. Nicholas' day, the children refused to give him up. Gradually the festival in his honor was assimilated into the festivities festivi-ties honoring the Christ Child. Be Comes to America. When the Dutch settlers came to New Netherlands more than 300 years ago, of course they brought with them their custom of honoring "Sinterklass." In fact, it is said that the ship which carried the first Dutch children to Manhattan island bore a likeness of him as its figurehead. But he wasn't the jolly little fellow that we know. For the Dutch children knew the good Bishop-Saint Nicholas Nich-olas as a solemn, majestic figure b trailing robes, wearing a jeweled jew-eled miter and gloves and mounted mount-ed on a fiery white charger. Even after the British took over the Dutch colony and New Netherlands Neth-erlands became New York, the WASHINGTON IRVING little Dutch children continued to look for the coming of "Sinter-W' "Sinter-W' on the eve of December 5 and hang up their stockings. But 8 English colonists didn't believe be-lieve in "Sinterklass" and gradual gradu-al as the Dutch became assim-toted assim-toted and some of their customs San tO rViantra AfA stoma n U i Bi I ttmge in the character and ap- 1 J"" of the good St. Nicholas, Ml. A Turning Point. Jhe American Revolution not y marked a turning point in world histnrr. k : .u. u:.. I wSt Nirrmlao ll ti - I . aa wcu. xie was S ? the Dutch saint as the nch colonists had imagined him. I 5 8 Dutch "int as their . Tf1 ?eiSnDrs imagined him fe on Dutch biJK of a "vere, for-ft for-ft 6re he becam a jolly gtata Dutchman. In place of robes he began wearing 2 Lbrhes. and the shoe KoTnl 1 umcti colonial fashion. It K' did he ride fiery S2Ser- Now he went Sn ? hls errands fa a little S fin,awnbyafat little pony. 8SMhank to six Amr- that, "u uctame ine Santa Claus im, u iuuay. liters .7 u Ilcans were to Em t artists d aU Cd ntnbuted their share CiuVJ?16, Cration of a Santa KrlSL10. American SP?, Aether ftatwaFlyfoUowed a tradition the Lt ad7 widely accepted 5, i'Where fae was born ratLowTi. At iansicai v- ?e Published his lave u, fu 'c Y.orA a 1809 he ?ortrait0f IZ 51 "-length word tan. 1 01 Santa Claus, theAmer. tea of ft??18 we owe our StUttSUih ColAists as jo-us jo-us br2j?en' wear"g volu- StSti?' made tte pa- typfofl01611 children the trSaa. According .Sadah?NichworeI orad-brimmed hat and a ,,n . ,ii mm I,,,,. i r r -mi imp-1 r , ; r i jl , The first known picture of Santa Claus (1839). . huge pair of Flemish trunk hose" and he rode "jollily over the rooftops" roof-tops" in a wagon, dropping splendid splen-did presents down the chimneys of the houses where dwelt the children who were his favorites. It was also Irving who gave him another characteristic which has survived through the years. For, as the Knickerbocker history tells us, "when Saint Nicholas had smoked his pipe, he twisted it in his hat band, and laying his finger beside his nose, gave a very significant look, then mounting mount-ing his wagon, he returned over the treetops and disappeared." The next writer to paint a word portrait of Santa Claus was Irv-ing's Irv-ing's friend and one-time collaborator, collab-orator, James Kirke Paulding. Paulding, himself of Dutch descent, de-scent, in his "Book of St. Nicholas," Nicho-las," published in 1827, declared that Santa Claus was "as gallant gal-lant a little Dutchman as ever smoked his way through the world, pipe foremost ... he is a right fat, roystering little fellow . . . who scorns to follow the pestilent fashions of modern times, but ever armears in the ancient dress of the old patriarchs of Holland." Moore's immortal Poem. It remained, however, for Dr. Clement Clark Moore, in his immortal im-mortal poem, "A Visit From St. Nicholas," to fix forever in our consciousness the appearance of the children's Christmas saint. Moore was graduated from Columbia Col-umbia university in 1798, and became be-came a professor of Hebrew and Greek in the General Theological seminary in 1821. He was a prolific writer, one of his literary productions bearing the imposing title of "Observations "Observa-tions Upon Certain Passages in Mr. Jefferson's Notes on the State of Virginia Which Appear to Have a Tendency to Subvert Religion and Establish a False Philosophy." Philos-ophy." However, his most important impor-tant work, the one at least upon which he believed his fame as a scholar would be secure, was "A Compendius Lexicon of the Hebrew Language." He little JAMES KIRKE PAULDING realized that future generations of Americans would remember him better as the author of what he was accustomed to call "a silly poem." Yet such was the case, for a short time before Christmas in 1822, Dr. Moore wrote for his children a Christmas poem and they were delighted with the rollicking rol-licking tale. A daughter of Rev. Dr. David Butler, rector of St. Paul's church at Troy, N. Y who was a niece of Dr. Moore, was a Christmas guest in the Moore home and made a copy of the poem in her album. The next year she sent a copy of it to the Troy Sentinel and it appeared in that paper, prefaced by a note from the editor saying he did not know who had sent it. By the next year it had appeared in many other newspapers and magazines and within a few years it had found its way into the schoolbooks. By this time inquiries in-quiries were beginning to be made as to its authorship and eventually Dr. Moore none too well pleased that his "silly poem was so well-known whereas his scholarly "Compendius Lexicon" attracted little attention, admitted admit-ted its authorship and gave the autographed original manuscript of the poem to the New York Historical His-torical society. How much Moore drew upon Irving and Paulding for his description de-scription is not known. But there is a curious parallelism in some of his words and some of theirs, although Moore himself, 40 years later said that "a portly, rubicund Dutchman living in the neighborhood neighbor-hood of his father's county seat, Chelsea" near New York city suggested to him the idea of making mak-ing St. Nicholas the hero of his Christmas piece for his children. The Reindeer Appear. It is certain that we are indebted indebt-ed to Moore for making Santa Claus' mode of transportation a sleigh drawn by "eight tiny reindeer." rein-deer." In its original form the poem differs slightly from the present version,, particularly in the names of the reindeer. "Vis-cen" "Vis-cen" of the original has become "Vixen" and "Donder" has been changed to "Dunder." The title which Dr. Moore gave to his verses was "A Visit From St Nicholas," but the modern version, ver-sion, taken from the first line, is "The Night Before Christmas." As for the contributions of the three artists to our image of Santa Claus, the , name of the first one unfortunately for his fame is unknown. In 1839 a book called "The Poets of America," edited by John Keese, was published. pub-lished. It contained Moore's poem and the illustration for it J vera s rf, fin. o. Jj) s j a ' vy vi DR. CLEMENT CLARK MOORE was a picture of Santa Claus (reproduced (re-produced above). Who the painter paint-er or engraver was has never been determined but it is believed that this was the first time that a picture of Santa Claus was ever printed. The world had to wait another 20 years, however, for another portrait por-trait of Santa Claus. In 1862, an edition of "A Visit From St. Nicholas," Nich-olas," illustrated, throughout by F. O. C. Darley, was published in New York. Darley gave us several sev-eral views of the old fellow at work. One in particular was appropriate, ap-propriate, for it showed Santa Claus placing his finger slyly to one side of his nose, just as Dr. Moore had described. Darley probably was the foremost fore-most American illustrator at the time; but, after all, his version seemed to fail to satisfy completely, complete-ly, and another year passed before be-fore the real Santa Claus climbed into a chimney, just as readers of the ancient classic had pictured him in their minds. Darley had given us the sly twinkle in the eye of the good-natured elf, and he had made the reindeer at least as tiny as the poet had described them, but something was lacking. In 1863 a volume of favorite poems was published in which Dr. Moore's poem was included. It was illustrated by Thomas Nast, whom the American public remembers re-members chiefly as a cartoonist for Harper's Weekly, the crusader crusad-er who almost single-handed smashed the notorious "Tweed Ring" in New York with his vitriolic vitri-olic cartoons and the artist who added to our gallery of familiar symbols the Republican elephant, the Democratic donkey and the Tammany tiger. In this compilation, compila-tion, Nast turned his attention to depicting the features of Santa Claus, and for the first time converted con-verted an illusive figure into visual visu-al reality. Nast may, therefore, be said to have created a Santa Claus which remains the model for all who succeeded him. The social historians tell us that the Dutch gave to the world that familiar symbolical figure, Santa Claus, and that is true. But it was the genius of six Americans Washington Irving, James Kirke Paulding, Dr. Clement Clark Moore, Felix O. C. Darley, Thomas Nast and that unknown artist for John Keese's "Poets of America" which made him a living liv-ing reality for all time to come. J 1 . K A V Left: 4-n club members chosen R.t Veneta DeVVitt, 15, Mllford, Iowa; Tom Wiley, 17, Ashland, Ohio; Yemen Duncan, 16, Silver City, N. C; Robert Bolen, 19, Lauren, Iowa; and Edith Reynolds, 17, Seminole, Okla. Right: Charles Fischer, S3, of Shelby- viile, Ind., who won the title of corn , Good Luck for ;, cjii v llphL : ' ' - v.-' '.y rft' ri-lj --'-) U f " Left: A British pilot with his mascot, beside his badly damaged plane, which be brought back to its base with most of the tail shot away. Right: A British soldier looking over the remains of one of II Duce's bombers bomb-ers which was shot down to southeast England by British anti-aircraft. Fourteen Italian planes were brought down the same day, according to the British. Another 'Sub' ft - r j & ll S r ' . i II X ffTl nr rffl Mm i iniitn The submarine Grenadier, costing $3,500,000, and built in less than nine months, was launched recently at the Portsmouth, N. II., navy yard. The craft, shown above, was the fourth to slide down the ways at this navy yard this year. It was christened by Mrs. Walter S. Anderson, wife of the rear admiral directing naval intelligence. To Aid Infantile hd'ycur' President Roosevelt has authorhed the use of his birthday, January 30 to raise funds (or infantile paralysis sufferers. The committee for the celebration of the President's birthday is here shown. L t E, George Allen, of Washington; Eddie Cantor, noted radio, stage and screen star; and Keith Morgan, national campaign chairman. 4 . j v.. as the nation's healthiest at the king at the stock show. Ills land yielded 65 bushels to the acre. Tommy Bad Luck for II Duce for Uncle Sam J 1' '5 Paralysis Sufferers own corner""' r i - . . ... live-stock show held at Chicago. L to f 'Mystery Mm' 1 -. ,.,. sum a " (fj rf r WW.. '" Gen. Maxim Weygand, "mystery man of Europe," chatting with Mohammedans Mo-hammedans at Fes, French Moroo-co. Moroo-co. Rumors persist that Weygand may Join forces with DcGaulle. Puerto Rico Draft A Puerto Rican mountain maa reads the sign telling him that men between 21 and 35 must sign no for military service. The Puerto Rican registry date was November 20. 'niwvWn-V-t :vWy' y:nwww P . . h-'i - ' i b ,im ! H ft ft a s 1 2 ri i i 1 ! 1 No. Z9160 'T'lIE romantic story of a print hen and rooster, aided and abetted by Cupid In daisy form, is entertainingly told in motifs for a set of tea towels. Any bride, or matron, would welcome clever towels like these; there is one for each day of the week. The two extra motifs are for matching pan-holders pan-holders to complete the set. No. Z91R0. ISc, brines the KUMO hat iron transfer giving these nina designs. Send ordar to: AUNT MARTHA Box 166-W Kin.ai City, Mo. 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