John D. Rockefeller went into business when he was 20, and he picked up his first oil well as a sideline. He soon saw that that was the right horse to ride. Even before automobiles and airplanes laid their heavy claim on oil, it'd begun replacing coal in the power industries.
Andrew Carnegie makes the better hero. He, after all, was part and parcel of the emerging technologies that made our country. And his giving sprang from some deep-seated core of principle. Yet the Rockefeller clan assumed the mantle of public service. They've become political leaders and professional givers -- one died doing anthropological research in New Guinea.