Uncle Joe and Esperanto

Nia amiko, Onklo Joĉjo?

Joseph G. Cannon[1] entered Congress in 1873 and finally left it in 1923. While his congressional serve was not consecutive, he did mange to serve as Speaker of the House from 1903 to 1911, during his uninterrupted span in Congress from 1893 to 1913.[2] Nothing in his biography suggests that he was even the type to go for Esperanto when it was popular in Washington. A autobiography, Uncle Joe Cannon; the story of a pioneer American, compiled by his secretary (i.e.: chief aide) L. White Busbey, makes no reference to Esperanto or even any of the major figures of the Esperanto movement in their roles outside the movement, with one exception.

That one exception was George Harvey, who is mentioned in passing in a chapter on Mark Twain. Twain had written Cannon in 1906 seeking to lobby Congress on a copyright bill on the floor of Congress.[3] During all this, Twain invited Cannon to lunch along with George Harvey. This was before the North American Review took up the cause of Esperanto.

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