Moses Pendergrass was the subject of a footnote illustrating mistreatment by government bureaucracy, in a Mark Twain article, "Concerning the Jews", in Harper's Magazine, 1898.
According to Twain's account, in 1886 Moses Pendergrass[1] of Libertyville, Missouri put in a bid to work as a mail carrier for a year beginning on 1 July 1887.
He discovered the mistake when he received his first paycheck at the end of the first quarter, and immediately contacted the Post Office Department, but found he would have to pay $1459.85 damages to escape the contract.
Bills were introduced in "three or four" sessions of Congress to recover the remainder of Pendergrass' rightful salary, and several committees were established to investigate the claim.
[2] Twain's point, in the article's context of criticising anti-Semitism, was to show that "shabbiness and dishonesty are not the monopoly of any race or creed, but are merely human".