Republican Candidates.

By late 1915 the leading Republican presidential contenders were former Ohio senator Theodore Burton, Illinois senator Lawrence Y. Sherman, New York senator Elihu Root, and Supreme Court Justice Charles Evans Hughes. Burton's and Sherman's stars faded rapidly, and Theodore Roosevelt's behind-the-scenes efforts for the nomination were rebuffed. (He was not to be forgiven in 1916 for his apostasy of 1912.) Elihu Root, who was seventyone in 1916, was generally considered too old. His political luster was further tarnished by his involvement in an ill-fated campaign to rewrite the New York State constitution, and Roosevelt's opposition to Root, who had served him as secretary of war and secretary of state, sealed Root's fate. He was unable to muster the necessary number of delegates to win the nomination. In early 1916 Charles Evans Hughes emerged as the Republican front-runner. As a Supreme Court justice since...