Any enterprise that cannot sustain itself is not a business; instead it is either a hobby, charity, or a burden.
Business is for business. Causes are for charities or for hobbyists.
Combining business enterprises with the other two is burdensome.
Not only do I know this to be true from my own experiences as a solo practitioner of African descent in Kansas City, Missouri, 1986-2010, but my experience is paralleled below as like those of Levi Coffin.
My law practice mainly entailed heavy doses of employment, civil rights work, and plaintiffs' work of many genres. It was fun for awhile. But, expenses, taxes, are merciless and care nothing for your causes!
These thoughts occur to me as I read of Levi Coffin's free-labor business in Cincinnati in the 1840s.
An avid abolitionist-Quaker, who was very active in establishing the Underground Railroad for fugitive slaves fleeing bondage to Canada, he had once thought that dealing in slave-produced goods incentivized slavery 's expansion and stability.
So he sold his profitable general merchandise business in Indiana and moved to Cincinnati , Ohio, where working with others he was able to make some headway in his non-slave labor produced "free-goods" enterprise until the cold fiscal facts smacked him in his well-meaning face. He writes:
"Notwithstanding the facilities we had for procuring large quantities of free cotton and the arrangements I had made for manufacturing staple articles in Cincinnati, I found it to be a losing business. On account of the additional expense of procuring free-labor cotton and the difficulty of obtaining and keeping an assortment of dry-goods and groceries, it soon became evident after I opened the store in Cincinnati that the enterprise would not sustain itself unless it could be conducted on a much larger scale than my previous means allowed.
"Only about half the sum proposed to be raised to aid me in the work was ever raised. It was much easier to pass resolutions in conventions than to carry them into effect. I invested all my available means in the free-labor business and had to use borrowed capital besides. To help sustain me in the work, I connected with it a commission produce business which entailed much additional labor.
"I felt anxious for some capitalist to take charge of the business and release me from it; I wanted to return to my comfortable home in Indiana, but many friends seemed to think that if I let go of the helm the ship would stop. They encouraged me to hold on and suggested the organization of a joint-stock company. A charter was obtained; the title of the company was, 'Western Free Produce Manufacturing Company.' Books were opened and an appeal was issued to friends of the cause to come forward and take stock in the company. A number of friends of free-labor responded to the call, but their subscriptions did not reach the sum required; so the enterprise proved to be a failure and had to be abandoned. By close financiering and strict economy I kept up the business at Cincinnati for ten years, then sold out, and retired from mercantile life with very limited means."
P. 207-8, REMINISCENCES OF LEVI COFFIN, edited and abridged by Ben Richmond (2006)
Sunday, February 12, 2017
LEVI COFFIN'S "REMINISCENCES" AND MINE
Any enterprise that cannot sustain itself is not a business; instead it is either a hobby, charity, or a burden.
Business is for business. Causes are for charities or for hobbyists.
Combining business enterprises with the other two is burdensome.
Not only do I know this to be true from my own experiences as a solo practitioner of African descent in Kansas City, Missouri, 1986-2010, but my experience is paralleled below as like those of Levi Coffin.
My law practice mainly entailed heavy doses of employment, civil rights work, and plaintiffs' work of many genres. It was fun for awhile. But, expenses, taxes, are merciless and care nothing for your causes!
These thoughts occur to me as I read of Levi Coffin's free-labor business in Cincinnati in the 1840s.
An avid abolitionist-Quaker, who was very active in establishing the Underground Railroad for fugitive slaves fleeing bondage to Canada, he had once thought that dealing in slave-produced goods incentivized slavery 's expansion and stability.
So he sold his profitable general merchandise business in Indiana and moved to Cincinnati , Ohio, where working with others he was able to make some headway in his non-slave labor produced "free-goods" enterprise until the cold fiscal facts smacked him in his well-meaning face. He writes:
"Notwithstanding the facilities we had for procuring large quantities of free cotton and the arrangements I had made for manufacturing staple articles in Cincinnati, I found it to be a losing business. On account of the additional expense of procuring free-labor cotton and the difficulty of obtaining and keeping an assortment of dry-goods and groceries, it soon became evident after I opened the store in Cincinnati that the enterprise would not sustain itself unless it could be conducted on a much larger scale than my previous means allowed.
"Only about half the sum proposed to be raised to aid me in the work was ever raised. It was much easier to pass resolutions in conventions than to carry them into effect. I invested all my available means in the free-labor business and had to use borrowed capital besides. To help sustain me in the work, I connected with it a commission produce business which entailed much additional labor.
"I felt anxious for some capitalist to take charge of the business and release me from it; I wanted to return to my comfortable home in Indiana, but many friends seemed to think that if I let go of the helm the ship would stop. They encouraged me to hold on and suggested the organization of a joint-stock company. A charter was obtained; the title of the company was, 'Western Free Produce Manufacturing Company.' Books were opened and an appeal was issued to friends of the cause to come forward and take stock in the company. A number of friends of free-labor responded to the call, but their subscriptions did not reach the sum required; so the enterprise proved to be a failure and had to be abandoned. By close financiering and strict economy I kept up the business at Cincinnati for ten years, then sold out, and retired from mercantile life with very limited means."
P. 207-8, REMINISCENCES OF LEVI COFFIN, edited and abridged by Ben Richmond (2006)
