Whether they were demonized or not would require some studies as I mentioned in the last sentences of my previous post. Who demonized them? How much of the population demonized them? How strongly did people feel towards them? And how did these sentiments compare with people prior to Teddy Roosevelt?

Without answering those questions we can't rightly draw any conclusions about people's attitude towards the self-made man.

Does it really matter? It's not like that was the point of the article.