Oral History Interview with Caesar Cone, January 7, 1983. Interview C-0003. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007).
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Abstract
After getting an education at Harvard Business School and experience in business around the country, Caesar Cone found success in the textile industry in North Carolina in the first half of the twentieth century. In this interview he looks back on his career, describing the textile industry in North Carolina and attacking the increasing entanglement of government and business. Cone is a passionate believer in minimizing government involvement in the marketplace. "Hell, you can't go to the bathroom, hardly, today without running into . . . breaking the law, " he complains. The burden of regulation doesn't just limit individual freedoms, he thinks, but in conjunction with the demands of unions, has hurt the textile industry in the United States and snuffed out employers' impulses to treat their employees well. Cone seems in many ways a typical small-government conservative businessman, but he declares himself a social liberal. That Cone, a Jew, faced a good deal of discrimination throughout his early career may have informed that part of his belief system. This is a spirited interview that will interest, among others, scholars of entrepreneurship and the textile industry in the South.
Excerpts
Nepotism is not a good business plan
Ill effects of industry consolidation
Slow technological progress hinders the textile industry
Paper poses a grave threat to the textile industry
Pernicious effects of cars on communities
Decline of mill towns and corporate paternalism
Unions try to gain a foothold in the southern textile industry.
Anger at unions and government regulation
Quality of government has declined
Lashing out at so-called big government
Treating employees well was good business, until the government interfered
Religious discrimination fails to bother Cone
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Subjects
Textile industry--North Carolina--Management
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