Esperanto: Hearings before the Committee on Education | Page 4

for the last seven years.
Here is a Scotch tea firm publishing a circular in Esperanto. Here is a
bicycle-saddle maker in Germany using Esperanto for publicity. Here is
a Berlin taximeter catalogue in Esperanto. Two years ago there was
held in Leipsic the greatest hygienic exposition ever held anywhere. It
was the most successful of its kind up to date, and hundreds of
thousands of people attended from all over the world. In that exposition
Esperanto was used to a great extent and the exhibition authorities
published a guide to the exposition in Esperanto. Here is a railroad
company that uses Esperanto. A great many railroad companies in
Europe already use it. They issue regional guides to the most attractive
parts of their districts in Esperanto. Here is a Paris automobile company
with a circular in Esperanto. Here is the biggest iron works in England,
the Consett Iron Co., of Durham, a firm that employs 30,000 hands,
and that firm publishes its catalogues and price lists in Esperanto. This
is only one of their Esperanto publications.
Here is a circular issued by a Paris department store. All the big
department stores of Paris not only use Esperanto in their publications,
but actually have interpreters for Esperanto in their stores. The biggest
ink firm in the world--the Stephens Blue Ink Co., in London--use this
language for their correspondence. About six years ago they began to
use Esperanto and published their advertisements and their circulars for
foreign trade entirely in Esperanto. The town of Antwerp publishes an
illustrated guide of the town in Esperanto. Here is a very big
Anglo-American firm of medical supplies, Burroughs, Wellcome &
Co., and they use Esperanto in many of their circulars. The
Government of Brazil three years ago sent a man to lecture in Europe
as to the attractions of Brazil. That man lectured in Paris to an audience
of 3,000 people entirely in Esperanto, and the Government published
his lecture in that language. Here is a curious document. This was
issued by the anti-alcohol congress in Italy last year, and you will

notice that Esperanto is used, and that it is recommended as the only
remedy against the language trouble which entirely hampered the
deliberations of this congress, as it does all international conventions of
every kind. I will hand this to Mrs. Crafts, because she will be able to
tell you more about it, since she was there.
That is the commercial side of it, and these are only a very few samples
of the actual and practical use being made of Esperanto in this one
alone. I could produce, no doubt, a great many more such examples,
but I can not carry them all about with me. Here are some 60 to 70
guide leaflets published by so many different towns in France, in Italy,
in Austria, in Germany, in England, and in several other
countries--leaflets printed in Esperanto for the use of foreigners and
tourists. They give them information in Esperanto about the various
things they might first need to know on arriving at those cities. For
instance, here is Milan, Italy, and Poitiers, France, and Insbruck.
Austria, and Tavia, Italy, and Davos, Switzerland, and so on. In the
same line here are 20 more elaborate guidebooks to various towns in
Europe, published entirely in Esperanto by the local authorities. Of
course, you will not have the time to look at all these things just now,
but I will leave them with you. Then, again, I think I can safely say that
there are over 100 periodicals published in Esperanto in different
countries.
Esperanto is making very rapid progress in Japan and China; for
instance, I have here an excellent Esperanto paper published by a native
society in Japan.
The CHAIRMAN. In what nation is it progressing most rapidly?
Prof. CHRISTEN. That is difficult to say, but seven years ago France
was at the head, and Germany did not take it up for a long time. Then
about five or six years ago England shot ahead of France, and then
suddenly Germany took it up, and now I think Germany is ahead of all
the other countries in the practical use of Esperanto. But it is making
good progress everywhere--in France, in England, in Denmark, in
Bulgaria, in Spain, in South America, in Germany, in India, in China,
and in Japan. In Germany the authorities and scientific people have

very strongly espoused Esperanto. For instance, the Government of
Saxony sustains financially an Esperanto institute in Dresden, and that
does a great deal of good work. The Government of Saxony is also a
large contributor to an Esperanto library, which is the biggest in the
world, as yet. And in many towns in Spain, in Germany, and in France,
especially in France, whenever an