“Proposed New Revenue Measure” (April 1, 1909)
by John Tinney McCutcheon (1870-1949)
14 x 19 in., ink on drawing board
Coppola Collection

On the Purdue campus, where he was a student, McCutcheon (class of 1889) is memorialized in a coeducational dormitory, John T. McCutcheon Hall. The lobby displays an original of one of his drawings, a nearly life-size drawing of a young man.

After college, McCutcheon moved to Chicago, Illinois, where he worked at the Chicago Morning News (later: Chicago Record) and then at the Chicago Tribune from 1903 until his retirement in 1946. McCutcheon received the Pulitzer Prize for Cartoons in 1932.

Nelson Wilmarth Aldrich was a Senator from Rhode Island from 1881 to 1911. He was a power-broker in the Senate, especially in the areas of budget and finance, and his work led to the Federal Reserve system. Aldrich also sponsored the Sixteenth Amendment, which allowed for a direct federal income tax. He was interested in how to raise money for the Federal Government.

Shortly after President Taft’s inauguration in 1909, Aldrich co-sponsored a controversial bill, the Payne–Aldrich Tariff Act, which taxed imports and enacted a small income tax on businesses. The bill led to a severe split in the Republication party.

Aldrich himself was a controversial figure, seen as wielding power in his long-time Senatorial service with vested interested in big money and influence.

His daughter Abigail married into the Rockefeller family, and his descendants include his namesake, Nelson A. Rockefeller.

The cartoon criticizes the perception of lame-brained plans being created by the government to extract money from its citizens. McCutcheon used this Professor Dippe as a comedic foil in a number of his cartoons.