Religion: Santa Claus Laws

U. S. Drys tend to be sentimentalists, exultant over small victories and busy with niggling activities pending what they believe to be the inevitable return of Prohibition. Last week many a Dry was gratified to hear a comparatively substantial gain by The Cause: the name and cheery figure of Santa Claus are to be banned in holiday liquor advertising in no less than 30 States. Research on this question was done by Ethel Hubler, editor-publisher of a Los Angeles Prohibition paper called the National Voice, who wrote to State liquor control boards wherever they exist. A model State, she discovered, is Iowa which permits no liquor display or advertising of any kind. Only State whose board actually favors linking Santa Caus with liquor is New York. There authorities declared that the patron of Christmas is “not actually a saint, but a character of fiction, not a Biblical character, but merely the symbol of happiness and good cheer.”

New York’s board was only partly right. The original of Santa Claus was St. Nicholas of Myra, in Lycia, Asia Minor, of whom little is known save that he was a 4th Century bishop. In the 11th Century, Italians of Bari stole his body, built a basilica about it, attributed to the saint many a miracle. St. Nicholas became the patron of Russia, Greece, the Kingdom of Naples, Sicily, Lorraine, Limerick, of children, pawnbrokers, mariners, coopers, brewers. Children came to expect secret gifts from St. Nicholas on the eve of his feast (Dec. 6). This far from notable bishop did indeed become a public character when the gift-giving was transferred to Christmas Day. His now familiar garb is of Russian origin, his U. S. name a corruption of the Dutch San Nicolaas.