America’s industrial progress, in the short span of a century and a half, has
acquired the character of a legend: it has never been equaled anywhere on
earth, in any period of history. The American businessmen, as a class, have
demonstrated the greatest productive genius and the most spectacular
achievements ever recorded in the economic history of mankind. What reward did
they receive from our culture and its intellectuals? The position of a hated,
persecuted minority. The position of a scapegoat for the evils of the
bureaucrats.