On December 10, 1901, Tanaka Shōzō resigned his seat in the House of Representatives. Then he ran toward the carriage of Emperor Meiji with a petition in his hand and was arrested. For years, he had fought the pollution from the Ashio copper mine.
The petition had been written at his request by the journalist Kōtoku Shūsui. It describes the land along the river: Gyozoku zetsumetsu shi, den’en kōhai shi, sūjūman no jinmin san o ushinai. The fish are extinct, the fields are ruined, and hundreds of thousands of people have lost their livelihood.