CHAPTER XXI.
Into Berlin.
It seemed strange at the time that the Allies' forces were being kept out of Berlin till the elections were decided. The wisdom of it was afterwards ascertained, however.
The allied armies were kept out of Berlin because their presence there would have given opportunity for tumult, and perhaps seriously interrupted the course of events the Humanists were, perhaps unconsciously, shaping in favor of the Allies.
The change in German politics cleared out the Hohenzollern regime, deposed the Kaiser and his class, and as the chief policy doctrine of the Humanists was disarmament, it suited the Allies to let the people do the work for them.
The wisdom of this step was evident when news came through that the Humanist movement was spreading across France and England.
In Belgium and France it met with more opposition than it did in Germany. Strange to say the Belgian "Joan of Arc" was the leader. She preached the cause of "the capitalist" with much vigor. I do not know why she took up this political campaign. Maybe the wonderful response to her appeals for financial aid for the starving Belgians won her sympathy when she saw the capitalistic class that helped her in danger of being destroyed.
Her eloquence, spiced by anecdote and parable, won many followers. She pointed out that the doctrine of the Humanist in abolishing world competition hit at the fundamental principle that made for initiative and made man utilise thought and self-improvement.