Prologue
In the still untamed Arizona Territory at the beginning of the 1900s, young Sidney Mashbir looked on excitedly as America celebrated its new role as a global power, longing to be a soldier like Teddy Roosevelt and his Rough Riders Brigade in Cuba or Admiral Dewey in the Philippines, who won the Spanish American War. Newspapers proudly detailed how the cruel Spanish rulers were now gone with America sending over teachers, doctors, and missionaries.
Sidney’s father, Eleazer, was a professor of history and a devoted pacifist. Being a recent immigrant, he saw America as a God-sent haven, where thousands like himself escaped with their lives from the violent, hatred-filled world of tyrannical Czarist Russia . . . Enthused by America’s message of freedom and democracy, he looked on with dismay as it moved toward an empire similar to those of Old World Europe. He explained to Sidney that things were heating up in the Orient. The Chinese were in a state of revolt, and America had been drawn into the Boxer Rebellion just so that England, France, and Germany could keep their opium concessions. And Japan, though just coming out of the medieval ages in some ways, had rapidly become a powerful military nation that eyed Hawaii for domination, only to see that independent kingdom annexed by the United States. He made it clear to Sidney that America’s expansion might well bring on a confrontation with Asia, and that too much glory was given to wars, but not enough to patriots who find a way to avoid them—because once you’re at war, you have to give every drop of blood in you to win it!