This meticulously researched biographical sketch attempts to convince its readers that an immigrant who arrived with little financial means or formal education would become a wealthy merchant, a champion of education, a force in Cincinnati and Ohio politics, and a founder of the American Jewish Reform Movement. He would rub elbows with several Presidents, influence more than one Presidential election and come within one broken promise of becoming the first Jew to serve in a Presidential cabinet. He was at the center of the landmark case that prohibited the reading of the Bible in public schools, the immediate cause of this nation's most infamous anti-Semitic act, and landed in the midst of a Congressional investigation that would lead to creation of the False Claims Act. His actions reverberate to this day.