Lewis Cass Ledyard

Lewis Cass Ledyard was one of those distinguished lawyers whose particular capacity was applied to the unprecedentedly intricate and exacting problems created by the huge corporation mergers of our day. The task of legal adviser was beset with difficulty. Purely as a financial problem, these gigantic combinations presented a long and sometimes baffling series of obstacles. But when, in addition to those complications, it had to be determined what course of procedure would withstand the challenge of the law, what would be surrounded by common-law and statutory pitfalls, and how to adapt the plan of amalgamation not only to the possibilities of markets but to the uncertainties of litigation, mere contemplation of the undertaking was bewildering. Ledyard’s success in this exacting task was notable, but his personal achievement had to be carried even further. In 1911 the Supreme Court’s decision called for dissolution of the immense American Tobacco combination. It was said at the time that adequate judgment of the legal aspects of this novel and complicated operation required knowledge both of the manner in which the equities of security-holders would be affected by the distribution, and of the whole tobacco business, from the planting and purchasing of the raw material to its diversified manufacture and distribution. That the reorganization—the “unscrambling of the omelet” which even the elder Morgan had regarded as impracticable—should in Ledyard’s hands have produced a new alignment that not only satisfied the investing community but, in the face of bitter contest, won the approval of the courts, was a memorable achievement.

Of Ledyard’s all but life-long association with the interests of New York City’s public libraries, the outstanding facts are that he was individually author of the original plan of combination between the two or three separate endowments, and that his subsequent guidance of the great single institution which was created through that union constituted public service of the first importance. It was one of the achievements of our time which, by better title than mere combination of separate geographical units, have made our city the Greater New York.

Alexander Dana Noyes
1933 Century Association Yearbook