The Campaign.

The fifty-four-year-old Hughes put in a fine showing as Republican candidate for the presidency, undertaking a national speaking tour on which he drove home his "America first, America efficient" slogan with verve and attacked Wilson on the economy and foreign policy. He claimed that Wilson's policies had turned Mexico against the United States and that Wilson had failed to protect U.S. maritime rights in the Atlantic against aggressive actions by Great Britain and Germany.Hughes also called for an expanded military preparedness program. Nevertheless, he was hard-pressed to find issues that would distinguish his campaign from Wilson's, and his failure to cultivate California's progressive governor, Hiram Johnson, on his travels through that state may have cost him the election. During the summer of 1916 Wilson was busy with the affairs of state. The country was on the brink of war...