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Yet Kantarō felt that he himself was an obedient animal, no longer capable of effective resistance. To him it seemed that his father’s prolonged detention, the homes left defenseless while factories were being so solidly protected, and the repeated beatings of starving workers who were simply demanding to be paid, all stemmed from a single principle: only the great grow fat—and at the sacrifice of all the countless ones who are small. Long ago, Father had tried to unmask the village assemblymen who had diverted the funds intended for the construction of a school into playing with geishas. For that he had been shoved off the plank and his fall began. He had to keep falling until he could fall no further. It had nothing to do with fate. The little people fall to protect the big. For their sake we must all fall down all the way to rock bottom! But the time will come when the whole gigantic structure itself will be shaken from its foundation stones and collapse. It most certainly will.
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