**ACIKV INFORMATION CENfEfc r8 ** ESPERANTO LEAGUE for NORTH AMERICA A NEWSLETTER June. 1967 ROTTERDAM, NOT TEL AVIV. NOW U.E.A. CONGRESS CITY WAR DANGERS COMPEL 11th HOUR SHIFT The site of the 52nd World Esperanto Congress has been shifted from Tel Aviv to Rotterdam, Holland, because of the Middle East conflict. The dates (August 2 to 9) are the same, the agenda and program will be essentially as planned, and financial arrangements still hold good. Sessions will be held in the new De Doelen Concert and Assembly Hall. In the emergency, the U.E.A. through its central office in Rotterdam, is taking direct charge of the arrangements. Civic authorities and tourist ser- vices are cooperating fully. To accommodate Esperantists living in or traveling through Europe who did not plan to go to Tel Aviv but will be able to attend in Rotterdam, the cut-off date for registering under the early-fee preferential arrangement has been advanced from March 31 to July 15. (U.E.A. members pay 57 guilders, non-members 77 guilders. A guilder is approximately 28 cents.) Those who registered after March 31 and paid a higher fee may claim a credit. All the registered delegates will receive full details on the new arrange- ments together with a form on which to indicate their desires regarding lodg- ings and excursions, etc. With only two months in which to prepare for the Congress, the U.E.A. central office has moved swiftly, and. U.S. delegates were already receiving these papers by June 5. Dr. Ivo Lapenna, U.E.A. president, made an eloquent plea for the aid of Esperantists everywhere in making this Rotterdam Congress a success: "Montru per amasa apogo vian lojalecon al via U.E.A.; aliĝu multnombre tuj al la Kongreso kaj tiamaniere helpu, ke ĝi estu, kiel kutime, impona manifestacio por la neŭtrala Internacia Lingvo." -o- ELNA ANNUAL CONGRESS JULY 6 - 9 IN ST. LOUIS The annual Congress of the Esperanto League for North America (E.L.N.A.) in St. Louis on July 6—9 gives promise of being a bumper affair. The Local Congress Committee under Chairman George Falgier has prepared an exciting pro- gram of events combined with business sessions and fellowship. Special emphasis will be given to the reports of officers and of local groups. Many important decisions will be made to cope with the upsurge of -2- NL 6/67 general interest in the international language. New officers will be in- ducted and new policies decided. Plans for follow-up on the Proposal pre- sented to the United Nations, plans for regional conferences and teacher training will be formulated. Every member who possibly can is urged to par- ticipate. The day-by-day program will include: THURSDAY: Evening get-acquainted meeting; games, food, music. FRIDAY: Registration. Morning and afternoon business sessions, officers' reports. Evening public meeting in the Central Public Library auditorium; speakers—Duncan Charters, University of Indiana, Conn and Mary Murray, Mrs. YukikO Isobe of the Japanese Es- peranto Institute. Later, an Esperanto movie at the Gateway Hotel. SATURDAY: Business session. Group meetings on specialized inter- ests, with movies and slides for others. Official photo- graph at noon. Afternoon sightseeing bus excursion. Banquet in the evening with Yukiko Isobe and President F.E. Helmuth as speakers, a playlet and singing. SUNDAY: Morning—Esperanto lecture by Dr. John Lewine, New York; a brief memorial service. Congress adjourns at noon. River boat excursion in the afternoon (fee extra). There will be an exhibit of Esperanto books, pamphlets, lesson aids, posters and promotional materials on display. An exhibit has also been pre- pared for the public meeting at the Central Library. Members who have not yet registered for the Congress are urged to do so immediately and to make their room reservations at the Gateway Hotel. -o- E.L.N.A. shares in the deep sense of loss at the recent death of Julio Baghy, the venerable Esperanto author, in Hungary. Eloquent tributes in the Esperanto world press testify to his influence and his literary enrichment of the international language. Some E.L.N.A. members renewed fellowship with him last August in his own Budapest and will treasure his autograph on "Ora Duopo" in which his poems appeared. To judge by Norda Prismo (No. 1, 1967) his po- etic genius continued to the las*-- -o- The United Nations has designated 1967 as International Tourist Year. EIC has sent in a collection of 45 Esperanto brochures, including travel folders, hotel advertisements, posters, etc. The European Esperanto Tourism Congress will be held this year in Innsbruck, Austria, July 23-30. -o- A lively article on Esperanto with special emphasis on its advantages in business and travel, written by Margot Gerson, E.I.C. secretary, appeared in the May-June issue of Dinklerama, a magazine put out by the Dinkier chain of hotels for its guests. -3- NL 6/67 TV PROGRAM BRINGS FLOOD OF INQUIRIES The Alan Burke T.V. program (WNEW, Channel 5, New York) featured Esper- anto and an interview with John Lewine, president of the New York Society, on May 24. Burke was in his wellknown guest-baiting mood and there was a lively exchange of opinion from the floor. As a result, E.I.C. had over 600 inquiries and requests for material. Some of these came from teachers and social workers faced with language problems with pupils and clients. Doris Vallon of San Mateo was interviewed on Channel 2 in San Francis- co on May 16 on "Esperanto in the Elementary School." On the Michael Jackson radio program in Los Angeles recently,Mrs. Dianto Rissinger told of her life-long use of Esperanto. Tapes were made for radio stations elsewhere and the Los Angeles Club re-heard the interview at its May meeting. Earlier in the year, Pamela Mason, a California radio person- ality, broadcast a letter from an enthusiastic student of the Covina classes of Leslie Green and added her opinion (good) of the international language. On Station WHP, Harrisburg, Pa., William P. Simpson appeared on the Lillian Mickley morning program, which gave his 12-lesson spring course a good sendoff. -o- Fifth Graders Lap Up Esperanto In addition to a 10-week, 2-credit course for public school teachers taught by Mrs. Hazel Heusser, Portland, Ore., has four Esperanto classes in the 4th and 5th grades in two elementary schools, and six adult classes. Describing the classes at the Woodmere school, Espilo, the Portland Society's monthly bulletin, says: "Each day as part of morning exerci- ses in Mrs. Heusser's room, a 5th-grader asks to go to the 4th grade room to teach them an Esperanto phrase which he himself selects. The youngsters have made a new rule in 'Foursquare,' a playground game. When one player puts another 'out,' he must say 'Bedauras pri tiol' or be 'out' himself." Mrs. Heusser emphasizes that such incidental uses of Esperanto "don't be- gin to illustrate the value of Esperanto as an aid to teaching phonics in regular reading; in spelling English words; in understanding English grammar; in broadening the children's outlook and stimulating their interests; and as preparation for future language study." In math classes struggling with metric measurement, the Esperanto words for numbers illuminate the real mean- ing of meter, decimeter, centimeter, millimeter. -o- Become a self-appointed clipping servicei (Not to be confused with a clip joint.) Send press clippings about Esperanto from newspapers and mag- azines to Esperanto Information Center, 156 Fifth Ave., New York 10010, N.Y. -4- NL 6/67 All-California Conference at Santa Barbara April 14-16 A sub-title for this story could be "Why Editors Go Nuts." ITEM: (Letter to conference organizers on May 8) "Please let us have, no later than May 26,details of the Santa Barbara Conference—how many attend- ed and from how many communities; who spoke and who was in charge of what (names and home towns); what new and wonderful ideas emerged or what old and well-tried ideas were confirmed." ITEM: On May 26, silence,- thereafter, more silence. ITEM: (Letter from F. Helmuth) "Five went from San Diego, one from Ne- vada, the rest from other California cities." ITEM: (Letter from Cathy Schulze) "Frank did a good job of leading a workshop for the young people. Sixteen young people, many high school and college, who had no knowledge of Esperanto but came because .... the com- mittee had plastered posters all over the town where students congregate. They seemed very interested; many bought books and they got the JEN D_ig&s±." Frank who? Editor knoweth not. ITEM: (Letter from Mary Murray, May 13) "About Santa Barbara report, --- ----- (name deleted by Newsletter in hope he will reform) should by all means have sent that in long ago. Why, oh why, are we Esperantists always so dilatory in getting things done?" So now you know all that the Newsletter knows about a very promising conference. -o- Eastern Regional Conference Planned E.I.C.'s proposal of an East Coast regional conference in mid-September has received warm support. In New York City or Philadelphia, such a meeting could be combined with a workshop. The main purpose would be to set up new clubs and classes and activate old ones. One idea submitted is to have a service of visiting speakers with a regular plan of talks; another is to set up an institute for training teachers. New England, New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and south to Washington is the area contemplated. -o- When directors of television in 11 countries conferred in the summer of 1966, the French, Dutch, Irish, Swiss and Danes all mentioned lingual di- versity as a serious obstacle to the integration of European TV facitities. So the Institute for Officialization of Esperanto (IOE) got busy fixing up a first-rate demonstration instruction program of 26 lessons in Esperanto. The scenario shows a young couple on a trip around the world. Write direct to IOE Gazeto, Pop Lukina, Beograd, Jugoslavia, if you are interested. -o- An Esperanto camp in Uzbekistan, August 13-25, is open to westerners for the first time. It is located near the provincial city of Fergana, a hundred miles from the Soviet-China border. For details write to Jona- than Pool, 105 Irving St., Cambridge, Mass. 02138. -5- NL 6/67 ROUND THE COUNTRY The St. Pius X Esperanto Club of Montour Falls, N.Y. commemorated the 50th anniversary of the death of Dr. L. L. Zamenhof, founder of Esperanto, in a program arranged by their teacher, Fr. Giles Spoonhour of the Franciscan Friars' Seminary. Selections, rendered in Esperanto by the students and printed in Es- peranto and English in a neat booklet, included a portion of Dr. Zamenhof's address to the Sixth World Congress in Washington in 1910, "Hope"— one of his poems, Hamlet's soliloquoy, the Twenty-third psalm, a biographical sketch of the founder, and Antoni Grabowski's eulogy at his funeral. Students from Cornell University and Ithaca College visit the Montour Falls classes. -o- Articles from local newspapers translated into Esperanto were read at a recent meeting of the Lehigh Valley Club, according to a report in the Beth- lehem (Pa.) Globe-Times. Subjects included foreign news, U. S. news, poli- tics, women's page, care of pets, counsel on personal problems, and ads. -o- Certificates entitled "Atesto pri Kapablerno en Esperanto" were issued to students completing a 10-week course at Iowa City, la., taught by Prof. L. M. Ware of the State University engineering faculty. A similar course was given in the fall term, and the adult education section of the high school has asked Professor Ware to repeat the course next year. A reading group in more advanced Esperanto is now meeting regularly, under the auspi- ces of the local Esperanto Society, according to the Iowa City Press. -o- Staff members of the United Nations who have their own Esperanto club were guests of the New York Society at its May meeting. Eskil Svane of the Danish Delegation explained the structure and operation of the U.N. in re- lation to the individual member states, Miss R. Grossman described the com- plications encountered in planning the 1970 Population and Housing Census; and Alexander Schwartz gave first-hand testimony to the cost of translation and interpretation — a cost which the application of Esperanto could reduce. -o- A group of high school students in Grass Valley, Calif., is studying Esperanto as a result of Mary Murray's talks before four classes there in April. Mrs. Ruth Cardin is the teacher. Mrs. Murray was to address the Lion's Club in Sacramento on May 18. -o- A hundred Girl Scouts at a conference in Belmore, N.Y., heard about Esperanto as an international language from John Lewine, president of the New York Society. -o- The international aspects of Esperanto were well demonstrated recently in Chicago when residents who came originally from Austria, Czechoslovakia, Italy, Germany and the U. S. met together with a Japanese visitor, Sakutaro Tadokoro. Mrs. Elfrieda Walters showed him the Hadley School for the Blind at Winnetka, 111., where Esperanto is taught, and Robert Runser took him along to a Kiwanis meeting. -6- NL 6/67 ROOTS OF THE U.S. ESPERANTO MOVEMENT The connection of St. Louis, our convention city this year, with the international language Esperanto, goes back to the historic World's Fair there in 1904. With the help of European groups, John Twombly assembled an Esperanto exhibit for the fair. Twombly deserves our recognition as the founder of the first Esperanto group in the United States at Boston in 1903, and he served as secretary of the American Esperanto Society in 1905-08. By 1906 groups had been set up in Brooklyn, Chicago, Philadelphia, Portland and Seattle. The monthly American Esperantist was issued from 1906 to 1928 in Oklahoma City. But the roots go still further back. Appropriately enough, it was the American Philosophical Society, founded in 1743 by Benjamin Franklin, which decided in 1887 to consider the problem of an international language. Having found Volapuk unsuitable, its Commission received the plan of "Dr. Esperanto" as the most practical solution. One of the three Commissioners, Dr. F. Henry Phillips, presented a report to the Society. This report, together with a small dictionary of the language, was published in 1889 under the title, "An Attempt Towards an International Language." Until his death in 1895 Dr. Phillips advocated Esperanto and defended it from its critics. Dr. Zamenhof received the decision of the Philosophical Society with great interest and in 1888 was ready to accept its findings. The Society issued an invitation to scientists to attend a world con- ference to discuss the proposal, but only five scientists responded, and the proposition was finally dropped. Some day E.L.N.A. should complete the record of the many outstanding pioneers in the United States and Canada who played important roles in the Esperanto movement and in the World Congresses of 1910 and 1915 held in Wash- ington and San Francisco. -o- Veteran Esperantist Dies .at 95 Mrs. Cora L. Fellows, who was at 95 possibly the oldest American Es- perantist, died on April 22 at Asbury Park, N.J. Her last public appearance in Esperanto circles, was on September 28 last year when she was present at a meeting addressed by Dr. Ivo Lapenna, president of the World Esperanto Asso- ciation (U.E.A.). A picture of her shaking hands with Dr. Lapenna appeared in the December issue of Esperanto. Mrs. Fellows became interested in Esperanto in 1903 and attended classes taught by the famous Edmond Privat in the summer university at Lake Chautau- qua, N.Y., in 1908. She was at one time president of the New York Society and attended two international congresses. A native of Staten Island, N.Y., where her mother's ancestors settled in 1677, she was assistant postmaster in Port Richmond from 1889 to 1898. She moved to New Jersey in 1949. -7- NL 6/67 PACIFIC-NORTHWEST CONFERENCE AT WALLA WALLA Walla Walla, Wash., will play host to Esperantists in the Pacific North- west area on June 16-18. A workshop on teaching methods to which public school teachers are invited will have the services of two California experts— Doris Vallon and Cathie Schulze. Speakers include Mrs. Yukiko Isobe of Japan, E.L.N.A. president, Francis E. Helmuth, and Conn and Mary Murray. A film of the 1965 Oomoto Festival in Japan and a new film issued by the Fiat Motor Company of Italy will be shown. Both are color films with Esperanto soundtrack. The use of tapes and slides as teaching tools will be demonstrated. The Walla Walla society, headed by Albert Estling, arranged the con- ference, which will be held at the Marcus Whitman hotel, and will draw Esp- erantists from Washington, Oregon and neighboring areas. -o- BARGAINSI BARGAINS ! BARGAINS '. * * For Finland's first tourist folder in Esperanto, write to Kaupungin Matkailutoimisto Finlando, Turku, Linnankatu 8; ask for "Esperanto-Prospekto." * * Oslo, Norway, has issued an Esperanto edition of its tourist folder. For one international postal coupon, the Oslo Esperanto Club (Box 942, Oslo 1) will send 12 copies of the folder. Norway also has a film for tcurists with Esperanto soundtrack, "Bonvenon al Oslo." * * Postal workers can get a free copy of "Heroldo," monthly bulletin of the Internacia Postista Esperanto-Asocio, whose address is Postenska Kutija 25, Sofio C, Bulgaria. * * Teachers may be interested in 12 film strips issued by Camera Talks, Ltd., 31 North Row, London, W. 1, as part of their Basic Language series. J. H. Sullivan of Manchester has been asked to prepare the Esperanto texts for the film strips, which have already been issued in English, German, French, Italian and Russian. * * The third issue of "Faktoj de Germanujo" has just been published. Like the two previous issues, this one is full of pictures and facts about West Germany but also has some material on East Germany. This may be had for $1.00 from Pilo-Press, Ludwig Pickel, Postfach 2113, D 85, Nurnberg 2, Federal Republic of Germany. * * Kemio Internacia, issued three times a year, is edited by Alberro Barrocas (Casilla de Correo 1040, Montevideo, Uruguay). Its high quality articles and illustrations enrich the Esperanto technical reviews in this rapidly expanding field. Any chemical library will be sent a free sample copy on application. It costs $1.50 a year from the Franklin Square Agency, 545 Cedar Lane, Teaneck, N.J. 07665. * * The rich and varied literature available in Esperanto is astonishing. Clubs can best learn about this from that treasure trove issued by U.E.A., the annotated "Katalogo de Elekitaj Libroj." Order from E.I.C., 50 cents. -8- NL 6/67 TOURING JAPANESE ESPERANTIST AVAILABLE AS SPEAKER Mrs. Yukiko Isobe, who will address the E.L.N.A. Congress in St. Louis, will be traveling in the United States and Canada until mid-September. She will be available as a speaker for Esperanto groups, and hopes to meet for- mer acquaintances and make many new ones in cities convenient to her planned itinerary. If your Society can profit by this rare opportunity, write to President F. E. Helmuth, 801 LaJolla Rancho Road, La Jolla, Calif. 92037, for dates. Mrs. Isobe will be remembered by delegates to the 1965 World Congress at Tokyo as an expert in classical Japanese drama and dance who presided at the Japanese Evening program. She majored in English literature at the Wo- men's College in Tokyo, then studied at the University of California for two years and later worked in the Japanese Ministry for Foreign Affairs. One of Japan's new business women, she is a director of the Fugita Pearl Company. Following the 1964 World Congress at the Hague, she traveled widely in Eur- ope as representative of the Tokyo Local Congress Committee, and is on the executive board of the Japanese Esperanto Institute. A charming and witty speaker in Esperanto and English, Mrs. Isobe is already slated to address the Pacific-Northwest Conference at Walla Walla (June 16-18) and societies in the San Francisco, Los Angeles and Portland areas. Following the E.L.N.A. Congress at St. Louis, her itinerary will include: July 10-17 Memphis, Mobile, N. Orleans 19-24 Chicago 25-27 Detroit—Tecomseh 28-30 Cleveland—Norwalk Aug. 1- 3 New York Aug. 4- 6 Philadelphia 7- 9 Washington 10-12 Boston 13-14 New York 15-24 Canada Returning through Seattle, Mrs. Isobe will visit various West Coast areas until her departure in mid-September. An illustrated fact-sheet is available for publicizing her appearances. Write President Helmuth promptly for dates. % . ^^!a INFORMATION CENTER ff$h ESPERANTO LEAGUE for NORTH AMERICA %hf6F 156 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010 FIRST CLASS