th
having bought peace with Germany, like peace with Mexico, at the cost
of national interest and honor. Still the technical victory in the
submarine negotiations had remained with the President, and he had
succeeded in winning at least a nominal recognition of American rights
without going into a war which, as every one realized, would be a much
more serious enterprise than an invasion of Mexico. German propaganda
and terrorist outrages, which had been so serious in 1915, fell off
materially in 1916 largely on account of the energetic work of the
Department of Justice, which had sent some of the most prominent
conspirators to jail and driven others out of the country. But a
considerable section of the population had made up its mind that
Germany was already an enemy and was dissatisfied with the President's
continual efforts to preserve impartiality of thought as well as of
action.

The President was renominated at the Democratic Convention in St.
Louis, and the platform expressed a blanket endorsement of the
achievements of his Administration. But the chief incident of that
convention was the keynote speech of Martin H. Glynn, which was based
on the text, "He kept us out of war." His recital of the long list of
past occasions in American history when foreign violations of American
rights and injuries to American interests had not led to war was
received with uproarious enthusiasm by the convention and completely
overturned the plans which had been made by the Administration managers
to emphasize the firmness of the President in defense of American
rights.

But the Republicans presently gave that issue back to them. The party
passed over Colonel Roosevelt; the memory of 1912 was still too bitter
to permit the old-line leaders to accept him. On the other hand, the
Colonel and his following had to be conciliated, so the Republican
Convention nominated Charles E. Hughes, who had viewed the party
conflict of 1912 from the neutrality of the Supreme Court bench. The
Progressive Party duly had its convention and nominated Roosevelt; and
when Roosevelt announced that Hughes's views on the preservation of
American interests were satisfactory and that the main duty was to beat
Wilson, a good many Progressives followed the Colonel back into camp. A
rump convention, however, nominated a Vice Presidential candidate, and
virtually went over to Wilson.

Justice Hughes's views on public issues were not known before he was
nominat