Charles Francis Adams was one of the founding members of the Free Soil Party and later served as ambassador to Britain during the Civil War. I’d say what he wrote about robber barons holds up rather well.
I am more than a little puzzled to account for the instances I have seen of business success–money-getting. It comes from a rather low instinct. Certainly, so far as my observation goes, it is rarely met with in combination with the finer or more interesting traits of character. I have known, and known tolerably well, a good many “successful” men–“big” financially–men famous during the last half-century; and a less interesting crowd I do not care to encounter. Not one that I have ever known would I care to meet again, either in this world or the next; nor is one of them associated in my mind with the idea of humor, thought, or refinement.
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