Editing Charles Evans Hughes (section)

===Disappointing second term as governor===

However, Hughes's political role was changing. He had previously been close with Roosevelt, but relations between Hughes and the president cooled after a dispute over a minor federal appointment.<ref>{{harvnb|ps=.|Simon|2012|p=39}}</ref> Roosevelt chose not to seek re-election in 1908, instead endorsing Secretary of War [[William Howard Taft]] as his preferred successor. Taft won the Republican presidential nomination and asked Hughes to serve as his running mate, but Hughes declined the offer. Hughes also considered retiring from the governorship, but Taft and Roosevelt convinced him to seek a second term. Despite having little support among some of the more conservative leaders of the state party, Hughes won re-election in the [[New York state election, 1908|1908 election]]. Hughes's second term proved to be less successful than his first. His highest priority was a direct primary law, and it repeatedly failed to pass. He did obtain increased regulation over telephone and telegraph companies and won passage of the first [[workers' compensation]] bill in U.S. history.<ref>{{harvnb|ps=.|Simon|2012|pp=41–42}}</ref><ref>Wesser  (1967), pp 252-301.</ref>

According to historian and journalist [[Henry F. Pringle]], Hughes's sense of civic duty was a poor fit in a party-machine age, leaving "many faithful Republicans" with bitter memories of Hughes's "horrid notions of efficiency in government" that "ruthlessly disregarded necessary rewards for party workers."<ref>{{cite book |last=Pringle |first= Henry F. |author-link=Henry F. Pringle |title=The Life and Times of William Howard Taft |url=https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.185543/page/n342/mode/1up?view=theater |volume=II |page=891 |place=New York |publisher=[[Farrar & Rinehart]] |year=1939}}</ref>