best known for his political cartoons, mccutcheon was also a noted war correspondent of the early twentieth century. "chicago daily news" managing editor charles h. dennis called mccutcheon's "the battle in tilad pass, " a report on the filipino insurrection, "the finest piece of war reporting” that he had known." carey orr, a mccutcheon successor as editorial cartoonist at the "chicago tribune" called him "the father of the human-interest cartoon." mccutcheon was also famous for the folksy cartoons of rural life at the fictional town of bird center. syndicated columnist o. o. mcintyre once wrote of mccutcheon: "no cartoonist of his or any other time has so influenced public thought and clarified it for better thinking about affairs at home and abroad." among his most famous cartoons were the 1931 pulitzer prize –winning editorial cartoon, "a wise economist asks a question" and "the colors," one of his most famous wartime cartoons, which depicts in four panels the scenes of a peaceful harvest, dead soldiers on a battlefield, a group of mourners, and the soldiers' gravestones that is accompanied by his four-line poem. other memorable cartoons are "mail call," which depicts a soldier who did not receive mail standing in the middle of a crowd of happy soldiers who did, and "the mysterious stranger," about missouri defection from the democratic ranks of the solid south to join the republicans.