“Without the Wall Street Journal, we're just another rich family,” a member of the Bancroft family once remarked.
For nearly 80 years, this seemingly admirable perception prevented Clarence Barron's descendants from selling the Journal's parent, Dow Jones & Co., even though they had little to do with running it. In the Bancrofts' eyes, Dow Jones was not so much a business as a public trust, and they were its stewards.