Editing Universal Esperanto Association (section)

=== UEA in its first years ===
[[File:Landoj kie estas naciaj asocioj ligitaj al UEA.PNG|left|thumb|upright=.8|Countries that joined the UEA are shown in green.]]

The original UEA was purely based on individual membership. The members in a given locality, e.g. a town, were supposed to have UEA member conventions and elect a ''delegito'' (plural ''delegitoj''), a delegate. The delegate was tasked with collecting membership fees and sending them to the Geneva headquarters, and was expected to represent the other local members on the international level. The totality of delegates held referendums, and they elected the ''Komitato.''

The Komitato board initially had eight (since 1910: ten) members, with a president and a vice-president. One of the board members served as director; from 1908 to 1920 this was Hector Hodler. The director installed delegates in towns with fewer than 20 members. These were 94 percent of the delegates, so the UEA was not so much a democracy but a circular, self-renewing system of [[co-option|cooptation]].<ref name="Sikosek63">Sikosek, Marcus: ''Die neutrale Sprache. Eine politische Geschichte des Esperanto-Weltbundes'' (“The neutral language. A political history of the World Esperanto Association.” Diss. Utrecht 2006. Skonpres, Bydgoszcz 2006, pp. 63/64.</ref> (Since 1920, the ''Komitato'' was enlarged, becoming a kind of parliament, and a board with the name ''Estraro'' was established.)

Hodler was still the owner and publisher of his magazine ''Esperanto'', published every second week. From the beginning, UEA had a Yearbook — ''Jarlibro'' — with basic information about the association and with the addresses of the delegates.

Esperanto speakers are divided by different subjects they are interested in. In those early years, some specialist organizations developed — for example, the ''Universala Medicina Esperanto-Asocio'' of 1908. Hodler tried to give those 'specialists' a home in the UEA. Instead of founding specialized associations of their own, with separate bulletins and conventions, he wanted them to be UEA members and have 'fakoj' (compartments). He also thought of partner organizations — for example, hotels which would give a discount to UEA members in exchange for an advertisement in the UEA Yearbook.

Hodler projected an organization fit to contain tens or hundreds of thousands of members, the so-called ''esperantianoj'' (UEA members, in opposition to the simple ''esperantistoj'', Esperanto speakers). In fact, UEA never exceeded a membership of 10,000. The association adopted several new statutes until 1920.