John Hancock, like Mitt Romney, was one of the
richest men of his time. Hancock had a three-story, 56-foot-wide
granite mansion atop Boston’s Beacon Hill, complete with
a ballroom and stables. Mr. Romney reportedly has a $12
million beachfront house in La Jolla, Calif., and a $10 million
lakefront house in New Hampshire, as well as a Massachusetts
townhouse. Both men went to Harvard. Both men were self-made. So to
understand the presidential bid of the
70^th governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts,
writes Ira Stoll, it’s useful to remember the career of the
first.