The presence of the soldiers in the crowd was evidently misunderstood at Potsdam, for that day the Kaiser and his staff fled and the Government resigned.
Then the wonderful organising ability of Brother Wilbrid asserted itself. Within a few days the socialistic doctrines of the Humanists covered Germany.
The doctrines found ready acceptance. The Humanists pointed out that their advocacy of the control of production by the Government for the Common Good was not so novel in its application.
They showed that, before the war, the railways were Government-owned, and it was ready to nationalise the electrical industry.
They showed that, during the war, every nation had taken over railway traction and was manufacturing and supplying to citizens certain necessaries of life.
They showed that in Britain for many years men who had argued that the Government should take over and operate the privately-owned railways were looked upon as revolutionaries, extremists and fanatics; yet on the very day war was declared the British Government reached out and seized every railroad and began to operate it.
"During the war Germany was manufacturing and supplying citizens with food, clothing and shelter," preached Wilbrid. "If Governments can do that for the sake of war they can do it for the sake of peace. If they can operate clothing factories to clothe soldiers, they can operate them to clothe citizens. If they can operate food factories to feed soldiers on the firing line, they can operate food factories to feed starving citizens. If such things can be done to destroy life, they can do these things to preserve it."
These fantastic phrases struck home.
The fact was that the masses foresaw colossal taxation following the war, and jumped at any opportunity of letting some one else pay it.
It was the old story of the "have-nots" and the "haves," with the result that the Reichstag became almost unanimously a Humanist assembly.