Prendergast

PATRICK PRENDERGAST BELIEVED HIS APPOINTMENT as corporation counsel was about to occur. He wanted to be ready and began making plans for how to staff his office once the appointment came through. On May 9, 1893, he got out another of his postcards and addressed it to a man named W. F. Cooling, in the Staats-Zeitung Building. Prendergast lectured Cooling on the fact that Jesus was the ultimate legal authority, then gave him the good news.

“I am candidate for corporation counsel,” he wrote. “If I become corporation counsel you shall be my assistant.”