The Misleader Goes Abroad
(A rough sketch for a motion picture story)
I
The black silhouette of a large frame fills up the whole screen. It has on a top hat and holds a gavel in its left hand. Judging by the silk hat, we may suppose it wears a swallow-tail, with maybe a gold watch-chain dangling from the waistcoat.
“My name is Akaji Akai, the president of the Imperial Japanese Federation of Labour,” it announces, flourishing the gavel in the air.
“Some people call me the Babe Ruth of traitors. Why can’t people say straight out what they mean? To begin at the beginning—as to why twenty years ago I put all my weight into the labour movement—it was through His Excellency, Viscount Shibugaki, from whom I have received untold favours. The Viscount is, as befits one who built up our banking system and laid the economic foundations of our nation, a great man with extraordinary foresight with regard to the trend of the times.”
The figure assumes the pose of an orator.
“This gentleman, twenty years ago, what does he say to me, then a promising young fellow? ‘Akai, my lad,’ he says, ‘with the Russian Japanese war our country enters a new phase. I expect to
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