It did not seem best for me to take a very active part in the Presidential primaries of 1916, but I quietly supported the regular ticket for delegates, which was elected. We had at least three candidates for President in Massachusetts, with all of whom I was on friendly terms, as I had never allied myself with any faction of the party, but I felt the convention did the wise thing in turning to the great statesman Charles Evans Hughes, and I supported him actively in the campaign for election. He carried Massachusetts by a small vote. My renomination came without opposition, as did that of the Governor, who had a plurality of 46,240 at the election. My own was 84,930. During the summer I had been chairman of a special commission to consider the financial condition of the Boston Elevated Street Railway, and helped make a report recommending that the Governor be authorized to appoint a Board of Trustees who should have the control of this property and be vested with authority to fix a rate of fare sufficient to pay the costs of operation and a fair return to the stockholders. This was adopted by the General Court and solved the pressing problem of street railway transportation, which became so acute on account of the increasing costs of operation. Later the plan was applied to the other large company in the eastern part of the state. It was not perfect, but saved the properties from destruction and gave a fair means of travel at cost, which was to be ascertained by public authority. It was in the ensuing year that the United States entered the World War. While this took most of our thoughts off local affairs it did not prevent opposition to the renomination of Governor McCall. Had it been successful it would have deferred any chance for me to run for Governor for two or three years and probably indefinitely. Under the circumstances most of my friends supported the Governor, and he was renominated by a wide margin. I had no opposition. But interest in the election was not great, so that the vote was light. Nevertheless the Governor ran 90,479 votes ahead of his nearest competitor. In my own contest my opponent secured the Democratic, the Progressive and the Prohibition nomination. I did not think the combination would prove helpful to him, and it did not. He fell off 77,000 from the vote of his predecessor, and I won by 101,731.