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CLINTON E. B. CUTLER
Vol. 3, p. 1101-1102

To have come to a fertile but scantily populated region of the old
Choctaw Nation at a time when there was political, commercial and
social unrest, just preceding the abandonment of a territorial form
of government, and to have observed the drastic changes incident to
the latter days of the territorial period and the pioneer times of
the statehood era, might have lacked interest to a mind less given to
the study of political economy than that of Clinton E. B. Cutler. To
him this was more than interesting, in view of the part that he
played in the transition.

In his former home in Illinois, Mr. Cutler's activities for a number
of years had formed an important part of the political history of
that state, but in Oklahoma, tired of the battle front in the field
of practical politics, he devoted himself to the energies that
bespeak leadership in the ranks of the people who say little, suffer
much and vote right in movements started toward the goal of better
government. He became a factor, therefore, in the termination of a no-
self-government period and the establishment of a form of self-
government that was applauded all over the country. The Constitution,
of Oklahoma, believes Mr. Cutler, is one of the greatest documents of
human liberty ever written, especially since it makes such ample
protection of the rights of the laboring man and itself contains so
much of the legislation demanded by that class, thereby forestalling
the possibility of legislatures, weak in patriotism, failing to
properly provide the things demanded. Mr. Cutler came to Indian
Territory in 1905, settling at Lehigh, and important
coal-mining town of what afterward became Coal County, and remained
there until, after statehood by a vote of the people, the county seat
was transferred to Coalgate.

Clinton E. B. Cutler was born at Joliet, Will County, Illinois, July
3, 1871, and is a son of Azro C. and Elizabeth (MILLER) Cutler. His
father, a native of New York, was a business man of Chicago, as early
as 1844 and in later years became a progressive farmer in the
vicinity of Joliet, in the fertile County of Will. The ancestry of
the Cutler family dates back to the time of William the Conqueror,
when Sir Gewasse Cutler was a prominent figure in the invasion of
England and participated in the battle of Hastings. The family had
its founder in America prior to the War of the Revolution, and
representatives of the name assisted the colonies in securing their
independence. Manasseh Cutler, one of the American family, became
governor of the Northwest Territory. He was born at Killingly,
Connecticut, May 3, 1742, was graduated at Yale in 1765, became a
lawyer in1767, a Congregational minister in 1771, and a chaplain in
the Revolutionary army in 1776. After the war he helped form the Ohio
Company and had a leading part also in the forming of the State of
Ohio. He was elected to Congress in 1800, and died at Hamilton,
Massachusetts, July 28, 1823. The mother of C. E. B. Cutler was a
native of Switzerland and came to America with her parents when a
child. There were two children in the family: C. E. B.; and Miss Ida
Lucy, who is a teacher in the public schools of Chicago.

The early education of C. E. B. Cutler was acquired in the public
schools of Illinois, in which he completed the high school course.
Later he entered the Law Department of the University of Valparaiso,
Indiana, where he graduated June 5, 1895, and in that year was
admitted to the bar. He did not begin the practice of law actively,
however, for several years, in the meantime following the occupation
of teaching. At the age of twenty-four years, having entered
politics, he was elected supervisor of Will County, but he was of the
democratic faith and resided in a community that was strongly
republican, so that he never attained the honors in political life to
which he early aspired. He was a member of the noted "train robber"
convention, in Illinois, in which William Jennings Bryan denounced
the methods of Roger Sullivan, and was a sympathizer of the Sullivan
element, although a stanch disciple of the famous Nebraskan. Later he
would have been a member of the Illinois State Legislature but for
the activities of Sullivan, who caused his defeat because of Mr.
Cutler's attitude toward a gas measure in which the Illinois
politician was interested. The case was taken to the Supreme Court,
where Mr. Cutler won, but later he was deprived of the right of
having his name on the ballot by virtue
of a ruling made by at the attorney-general of the state.

Mr. Cutler was married February 5, 1910, to Miss Frances BROOKS, of
Dallas, Texas. They have a modern and beautiful home situated four
miles from Coalgate on a picturesque eminence of a fertile 280-acre
farm.

Mr. Cutler is a member of the Episcopal Church, to which his wife
belongs also. He holds membership in the Coal County Bar Association,
among the members of which he is held in deservedly high esteem.
While he has devoted himself studiously to his profession at
Coalgate, thereby coming to be a successful and widely known lawyer,
Mr. Cutler has never been too busy to assist in the upbuilding of the
town, which is one of the most modern of its population in the state.
He is gratified that untoward, unsatisfactory
conditions have passed and that the people of former Indian
Territory now enjoy the best modern things of civilization. He takes
a justifiable pride in his handsome home, as well as in the board
acres of his farm, on which are grown oats, cotton, hay and other
staples, as well as watermelons of enticing flavor and great number.

Typed for OKGenWeb by Lee Ann Collins, November 4, 1998.